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Quote of the Day: The Girl on Your Back
Once upon a time, two Buddhist monks, one young and one old, traveled from their temple in the mountains down to the nearest little town in the foothills of the Himalayas, to beg for alms. As they entered the peaceful valley with rice fields all around, they came to a wide river, by the side of which a beautiful young girl stood and wept.
The young monk’s mouth fell open, and he turned his back and covered his eyes, so as not to gaze upon a forbidden sight. But the older monk approached the girl and asked her what was wrong. “Oh, Sir Monk, she said, the river is too strong for me and I am afraid to cross it.” The old monk said, “Don’t worry, my dear. Climb up on my back, and I will carry you across.”
So she did. And he did.
When they reached the other side, he put the girl down, and she thanked him graciously, and ran off.
The young monk’s eyeballs almost fell out. If he had not, according to the custom of his fellows, shaved his head, his hair would have caught on fire. He was alternately horrified, and mortified, and furious. Truly, I tell you, smoke came out of his ears. He wiped the beads of sweat from his brow, and, the very picture of outrage, stalked the next 20 leagues, staring straight ahead, and without uttering a word. Eventually he had worked himself up into such a lather that he could contain himself no longer, and he burst forth with a cry:
“Master! We are celibate monks. Women are forbidden to us. How could you allow a woman to touch you, let alone carry her across the river on your back?”
The old monk thought for a moment, and then said, “My son, you saw me carry this girl a short distance across the river on my back. And then I put her down. We have walked for twenty leagues since then, and you have carried the girl on your back that whole distance. Why are you still carrying the girl on your back, and when will it be time for you to put her down?”
I first heard this little story when I was a college student, and I’ve never forgotten it. I was in an extended, and major, snit, and I was in a bit of a state. A very kind man, gently, but firmly, sat me down and sorted me out. I’m still grateful. I believe there are worse lessons to take to heart and to try to live by. What do you think?
Published in General
I’ve never heard that one!
Suuuuuuure you don’t.
I know a racist lizard-whistle when I hear one.
Your shocking sex scandal is now part of the internet, and you’ll never be president.
So…it’s not because of Obamacare?
Phthui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!
My work here is done.
Wow, I didn’t think I’d ever meet Sanskrit on Ricochet, an ancient language that I read and write fluently.
The best translation of the above passage (though the past pluperfect of “fhtagn” gives me a bit of trouble) is this:
Who grunch but the eggplant over there?
Keep looking.
I’ll rarely have a better lead-in to a story I’ve told before on Ricochet, apologies to those of you who’ve heard it already:
So: Mr. She and I are in Wales, on what was, up until then, the trip of a lifetime (I’ve had a few more since, with varying degrees of success). We’re staying in a little cottage at the foot of Mt. Snowden, this one, in fact (I can’t recommend it highly enough).
Its connectivity may have had an upgrade by now, but at the time we were there, the outside world came to us through a tiny portable black-and-white television with rabbit ears, and I turned it on to see what the local channels looked like, while I made dinner.
As was the case all those years ago, it took the thing the better part of a minute to get warmed up, and for the picture and sound to appear. By the time it did, I’d got my back to it and was chopping onions. So when I heard several male voices speaking an unintelligible language, I thought, “How nice, they still have Welsh programming on, at least part of the day,” and I turned to look and see if it was the news, or a show about gardening, something else.
It was Star Trek. And the speakers were Klingons.
(I have since developed and tested the following thesis, and have found it to be invariably true: Wherever you are in the world, on whatever day of the week, and at whatever time of the day, if you turn on local television and riffle through the channels, sooner or later you will find an episode of one or the other Star Trek series in full cry. I don’t think I’ve had a failure yet.)
The more I think about this story, the more interesting it becomes.
Mr. She’s theory about the history of medicine is that it can pretty much be summed up as man’s struggle to qualify and categorize what ails him, and, having discovered the proximate cause of each instance, to move it from the column titled “Evil Spirits” over into the column titled “Bugs.” I think that’s largely true.
One of the first things taught in medical school besides arrogance and pomposity is do no harm. Twice I have had harm done to me by my doctor. I was prescribed cholesterol medicine that caused gallstones. The surgeon that removed my gallbladder somehow caused my appendix to move around and get stuck in the scar tissue he created. It was pressing on my bladder for 8 years. I hope I broke the cycle.
I though this was going to be a joke about Catholic priests.
If the Great Old Ones existed someone would have summoned one by accident by now, simply from speaking Welsh.
Is that how this Buddhism thing works?
Pfui. You’re all wrong.
There’s only one way to settle this; what does today’s New York Times style manual say?
I got it from Rex Stout when I was ten years old. That is the way he spelled it when Nero Wolfe said it.
Wolfe was Montenegran.
Wolfe was the illegitimate child of Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler after the Reichenbach Falls affair.
So says one overambitious Nero Wolfe fan who smoked too much wacky tobaccy. If it’s not from Stout, it is not canon.
Bingo! Me too.
I am assuming that Buddhists cannot kidnap and eat people, since they are supposed to be aware of the feelings of all sentient beings. So a true Buddhist would be a vegan.
They could however kidnap you and make you chant until you are completely overpowered by the smell of incense.
I love that story.
Thanks, She!
One day a master known far and wide for his wisdom was walking in his garden when he was approached by a novice who asked how he too might be wise. “My wisdom”, the master said, “derives solely from my daily partaking of the Gems of Wisdom.” So saying, the master brought out a small pouch containing several small brown balls that he poured into the hand of the novice. The novice began to eat eagerly. As the master watched, the face of the novice grew dark and he spat out the uneaten balls crying, “Oh Master, these Gems of Wisdom are but balls of parrot dung.” The master then withdrew saying, “Behold, seeker of knowledge, thy wisdom has increased greatly already.”
Wonderful! A family friendly recounting of that story, which, in a slightly different (and more vulgar) version, I’ve heard before. Thanks.