Putting up and Down with thoughts

ONCE UPON A TIME....

an elder monk and a young 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 wise elder monk offered to carry her across the river on his back. The lady accepted.

The young monk was shocked by the move of the elder monk. 'How can big brother carry a lady when we are supposed to avoid all intimacy with females?" thought the young monk. But he kept quiet. The wise monk carried the lady across the river and the young monk followed unhappily.

When they crossed the river, the wise monk let the lady down and they parted ways with her.

All along the way for several miles, the young monk was very unhappy with the act of the wise 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 wise monk had no inclination to explain his situation.

Finally, at a rest point many hours later, the young monk could not stand it any further, he burst out angrily at the elder 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 wise 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 Buddhist story reflects the thinking of many people. We encounter many upsetting 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 young monk, we are not willing to"Let It Go". We keep on carrying the baggage of the past with us. We let things 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 things. We should let go immediately the event, it is over, lt Is Past. This will immediately remove all our agonies.

There is no need to be further hurt by things after it IS over.

JUST PUT IT DOWN.

Have a Buddhaful Day...

Copied from Buddhism - Path to Nirvana.

Admin, Simdha Getul Rinpoche