The Pretty Lady
Once upon a time a big monk and a little monk were
traveling 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 her across the
river on his back. The lady accepted. The little monk
was shocked by the move of the big monk. "How can big
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 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 acussations about 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, that is after the unpleasant event
is over.This will immediately remove all our agonies..
Thu Feb 19, 2015 11:16 pm by tjp
Subject: ~~ The Pretty Lady ~~ 
a wonderful story..nice morale..i loved and enjoyed reading it ashrieeeee!!! 
