Once upon a time a big monk and a little monk were traveling together. They came to the bank of a river and found the bridge was damaged. They had to wade across the river. There was a pretty lady who was stuck at the damaged bridge and couldn’t cross the river. The big monk offered to carry the pretty lady across the river on his back. The lady accepted. The little monk was shocked by the move of the big monk. “How can big brother carry a lady when we are supposed to avoid all intimacy with females?” thought the little monk. But he kept quiet.The big monk carried the lady across the river and the small monk followed unhappily. When they crossed the river, the big monk let the lady down and they parted ways with her. All along the way for several miles, the little monk was very unhappy with the act of the big monk. He was making up all kinds of accusations about the big monk in his head. This got him madder and madder. But he still kept quiet. And the big monk had no inclination to explain his situation. Finally, at a rest point many hours later, the little monk could not stand it any further; he burst out angrily at the big monk. “How can you claim yourself a devout monk, when you seize the first opportunity to touch a female, especially when she is very pretty? All your teachings to me make you a big hypocrite.”The big monk looked surprised and said, “I had put down the pretty lady at the river bank many hours ago, how come you are still carrying her along?”

MORAL : This very old Chinese Zen story reflects the thinking of many people today. We encounter many unpleasant things in our life, they irritate us and they make us angry. At times, we have go out of our way to help someone in difficult times, as the big monk did. But like the little monk, we are not willing to accept it. We keep on carrying the baggage of the “pretty lady” with us. He should have let go of the ‘pretty lady’ immediately after crossing the river, that is after the unpleasant event was over. This would immediately remove all our agonies. There is no need to be further hurt by the unpleasant event after it is over. But we grab the past so hard in our fists, that we fail to see the opportunities ahead of us!

So this was a fable. Thinking along the line, i feel that this is true. Most of us spend our time thinking about what others are doing, what others feel, what society think. Man is a social animal, and i am not saying that we should not do something which could hurt the sentiments of the society. But thinking about whats happening with others, or reasoning their deed just end up us having sleepless nights.

Is it necessary to do so? Why cant we live our life in a peaceful way. We spend almost all day working to have a good life with as much as comfort possible. But at the end of the day are we able to sleep peacefully. NO

We spend the remaining time worrying about what others were doing, reasoning their action. We might never have the guts to ask them, but keeps on worrying about it.

I think its necessary for all of us to learn some lessons from this and move on with life. The moral of the story tells us everything