Chinese (ZEN) Fables

* The Frogs

A farmer came into town and asked the owner of a restaurant if he coulduse a million frog legs. The restaurant owner was shocked and asked theman where he could get so many frog legs! The farmer replied, "There isa pond near my house that is full of frogs --millions of them. They allcroak all night long and they are about to make me crazy!"

So the restaurant owner and the farmer made an agreement that the farmerwould deliver frogs to the restaurant, five hundred at a time for thenext several weeks.

The first week, the farmer returned to the restaurantlooking rather sheepish, with two scrawny little frogs. the restaurantowner said, "Well ... where are all the frogs?" The farmer said, "I wasmistaken.There were only these two frogs in the pond. But they sure were making a lot of noise!"

Next time you hear somebody criticizing or making fun of you, remember,it's probably just a couple of noisy frogs. Also remember that problemsalways seem bigger in the dark. Have you ever laid in your bed at nightworrying about things which seem almost overwhelming like a millionfrogs croaking?Chances are pretty good that when the morning comes, and you take acloser look, you'll wonder what all the fuss was about.

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* The Turtles

A turtle family decided to go on a picnic. Turtles, being naturally slowabout things, took seven years to prepare for their picnic outing.Finally the turtle family left home looking for a suitable place for their outing.

During the second year of their journey they found a place ideal forthem at last! For about six months they cleaned up the area, unpacked thepicnic basket, and completed the arrangements. Then they discoveredthey had forgotten the salt.

A picnic without salt would be a disaster, they all agreed. After alengthy discussion, the youngest turtle was chosen to retrieve the salt from home.Although he was the fastest of the slow moving turtles, the little turtlewhined, cried, and wobbled in his shell. He agreed to go on onecondition: that no one would eat until he returned. The family consentedand the little turtle left.

Three years passed and the little turtle had notreturned. Five years ...six years... then on the seventh year of hisabsence, the oldest turtle could no longer contain his hunger. He announced thathe was going to and begun to unwrap a sandwich.

At that point the little turtle suddenly popped out from behind a treeshouting, "SEE! I knew you wouldn't wait. Now I am not going to go get the salt."

Some of us waste our time waiting for people to liveup to our expectations. We are so concerned about what othersare doing that we don't do anything ourselves.

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* The Pretty Lady

Once upon a time a big monk and a little monk weretravelling together. They came to the bank of a river and found theridge was damaged. They had to wade across the river. There was a pretty ladywho was stuck at the damaged bridge and couldn't cross the river. Thebig monk offered to carry the pretty lady across the river on his back.

The lady accepted. The little monk was shocked by the move of the big monk."How can big disciple brother carry a lady when we are supposed toavoid all intimacy with females," thought the little monk. But he keptquiet.

The big monk carried the lady across the river and the small monkfollowed unhappily. When they crossed the river, the big monklet the lady down and they parted ways with her. All along the way forseveral miles, the little monk was very unhappy with the act of the bigmonk. He was making up all kinds of accusations about the big monk inis head. This got him madder and madder. But he still kept quiet. And the bigmonk had no inclination to explain his situation.

Finally, at rest-point many hours later, the little monk could not standit any further, he burst out angrily at the big monk."How can you claimyourself a devout monk, when you seize the first opportunity to touch afemale, especially when she is very pretty. All your teachings to memake you a big hypocrite." The big monk looked surprised andsaid, "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, theyirritate us and they make us angry. Sometimes, they cause us a lot ofhurt, sometimes they cause us to be bitter or jealous. But like the littlemonk, we are not willing to let them go away. We keep on carrying thebaggage of the "pretty lady" with us. We let them keep on coming backto 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 aftercrossing the river, immediately after the unpleasant event is over. Thiswill immediately remove all our agonies. There is no need to be further hurt by the unpleasant event after it is over. It'z just that simple.......