The Pretty Lady
Once upon a time, a big monk and a little monk were travelling 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
disciple 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 had 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?"

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. Sometimes, they cause us a lot of hurt, sometimes they cause
us to be bitter or jealous. But like the little monk, we are not willing to
let them go away. We keep on
carrying the baggage of the "pretty lady" with us. We let them keep on
coming back to hurt us, make us angry, make us bitter and cause us a lot of
agony. Why? Simply because we are not willing to put down or let go of the
baggage of the "pretty lady". We should let go of the pretty lady
immediately after crossing the river, immediately after the
unpleasant event is over. This will immediately remove all our agonies.
There is no need to be further hurt by the unpleasant event after it is
over. It is just that simple

posted by ×~.[[K|mZ]]™.~× at 11:10 PM [edit]