Wisdom story: A story of two monks a woman and convictions

One day two monks were making their way from one monastery to another. They had known each other for many years and in all of those years, they had been learning and practicing the teachings and traditions of the monks together. During that time they became very good friends. In fact, not only were they close friends, but there was also a teacher-student relationship between them as one of the monks was much older and had been a monk since long before the other monk joined the monastery. The elderly monk helped the young monk from the very first day that he joined the monastery. For the young monk, things weren’t all that easy in the beginning as the ways and teachings of the monks in the monastery were very different than what the young monk was used to before joining. Many traditions and teachings the monks had were very opposite to the young monk’s convictions before joining the monastery. The journey in front of them was long and involved many days of traveling on foot. As the two monks walked through the forests and countryside, they spent a great deal of time discussing various aspects of Buddhism.

At a certain point in their journey, the monks heard screams of a woman coming from a nearby river. They rushed to see what was happening and in the middle of the river, they saw a naked woman who was drowning. The older monk swiftly threw off his robes, dived into the water, and rescued the woman. He brought the naked woman to the banks of the river and proceeded to cover her with his spare robes. After assuring himself that the woman was safe and well, the two monks continued with their journey. However, from then on their journey was quite different from what it had been until the incident. The river incident had quite an influence on the younger monk who, for the rest of the journey, had refused to speak to the older monk without explaining his decision to the older monk.

A few days passed and finally, the two monks arrived at their destination, a monastery where they were going to be staying for the next few months. At this point, the young monk started to ostracise the older monk and refused to even acknowledge his presence. The older monk was rather dismayed and confronted the younger monk saying, “Dear friend why have you changed? What have I done to warrant being treated in this manner? If I have said or done something that has hurt you then I am truly sorry and I must have done it mindlessly and certainly unintentionally”. The young monk replied, “You are not a true monk! You have broken the rules of our religion and as such, I may no longer be associated with you.” The older monk was rather shocked to hear this and asked what rules had he broken. The younger monk replied, “Not only did you touch a woman but you touched a naked woman and gave her the robes of a monk.” The elderly monk kindly looked at the young monk and replied, “How very true. I saved the woman and carried her to the banks of the river, I made sure that she was warm and well, and then I left her on the banks of the river. However, it would appear that you are still carrying her around on your shoulders! In all these years of so-called practice of the Buddhist path, you have learned almost nothing. You cannot live without your rules and regulations, and you have not learned to amend or let go of your convictions in situations when a life is at stake. If you continue on this path your convictions will greatly hold you back in having a peaceful life.” Then the older monk smiled at the young monk and said that he was happy that this had happened as they now had a very important life lesson to examine together.