Criticism | Forgetting | Forgiveness | Legalism | Remembering | Sin

THE MONK AND THE WOMAN
Two Buddhist monks, on their way to the monastery, found an exceedingly beautiful woman at the river bank. Like them, she wished to cross the river, but the water was too high. So one of the monks lifted her on to his back and carried her across. His fellow monk was thoroughly scandalized. For two full hours he berated him on his negligence in keeping the Holy Rule: Had he forgotten he was a monk? How did he dare touch a woman? And more, actually carry her across the river? And what would people say? Had he not brought their Holy Religion into disrepute? And so on and so forth. The offending monk patiently listened to the never ending sermon. Finally he broke in with, “Brother, I dropped that woman at the river. Are you still carrying her?” The Arab mystic, Abu Hassan Bushanja, says, “The act of sinning is much less harmful than the desire and thought of…