Two monks had to travel to the nearest town to buy some supplies for their temple. Since their temple was quite secluded, they had left their temple at around four in the morning. They walked slowly to the town, and arrived at 10am. After buying all that was needed for their temple, they started making their way back around 11.
One hour into their journey home, they came across a river. They decided to stop for a while to take a short break. They drank their water and sat down next to the river to rest their tired legs. Just then, a young lady walked towards them. She was a beautiful lady, with fair porcelain-like skin and willowy body. She looked distressed. She wanted to cross the river, but she did not know how to swim! So the elder monk told her to climb onto his back and he will carry her across. She was still apprehensive that the river might sweep her away when they are crossing. So he told her to hold on tight to him.
As they were crossing the river, the second monk, a young chap, looked over at the elder monk. He was aghast to see the young lady holding so tightly to his companion, who also happened to be his superior in the temple. Her body was pressed onto the elder monk’s back and her bosom was pushed up onto the neck of the man. His face was so very close to her bosom! This was unacceptable!!! As monks, they were not supposed to touch women! And here his mentor is practically making love to the young lady!
Just then, they reached to the other side of the river. The elder monk set the young lady onto her feet. She thanked him, and continued along her journey. The two monks went a different direction from her, back to their temple. As they continued their walk back, the younger monk kept thinking about how the lady and the elder monk held on to each other as they crossed the river. The elder monk is such a corrupt monk! He is a lecherous man! All his teachings were tainted, as he couldn’t even keep to the most basic of rules which was to stay away from women!
The more the younger monk thought about it, the angrier he became. He started questioning everything the else monk had been doing up to that moment. He was repulsed by all the words and interaction they have had. He couldn’t imagine going on as a apprentice monk under the supervision of such a man. As they approached the temple gates, he turned to the elder monk and told him that he wanted to change superiors.
The elder monk was very surprised. He had thought they were doing well, and could not understand why the younger monk wanted to change superiors all of the sudden. The younger monk, his face red with anger and embarrassment for the elder monk, told him that he was very improper to carry the young lady that way. It was not right, it was against their teachings, and it showed his weakness and lust for women!
The elder monk looked at his student compassionately. “I had put the young lady down by the river four hours ago,” he said, “But you have carried her until now. What a pity!”
Labels: Philosophy, Short Stories
Sebastian was a simple man. Yet he was a happy man. He woke up everyday and sang about the bright and lovely sun, even on a cloudy and rainy day when the sun was hidden behind a thick mass of clouds. He looked outside his window every evening and was happy to see the beautiful world outside, even on days of haze, miserable winters and traffic congestions. He would drive his wife up the wall, for he was just totally oblivious to his immediate surroundings.
Sebestian had a neighbour who disliked him immensely. His neighbour would tell all the others staying at the same block, about how inconsiderate Sebastian was, and how proud he was. "Sebastian always does his own thing without any consideration for anyone else. He is so selfish", he would say, "look, he planted a tree right next to my fence and all the leaves fall onto my lawn. What a nasty guy!". Sometimes he would say "Sebastian had another woman over in his house today, I bet he is cheating on his wife".
But Sebastian never knew about these words, or maybe he did not remember them. For many others had gone up to him either to question him suspiciously, or to inform him kindly to beware of his neighbour. Yet he never seemed to notice, and would happily continue along his way without even noticing his neighbour's angry stare. Perhaps he had a poor memory, or perhaps he was stupid, or perhaps he was very bold, no one really knew for sure. All they knew was that he always said "oh ok!" when they either questioned him or tell him about what was being said about him. And that was that.
One day, his neighbour went over to Sebastian's house and chopped down the tree that was in between the two houses. Sebastian woke up in the morning to see only the tree stump left. His neighbour was sitting calmly in his own front porch, waiting for Sebastian to confront him. He was waiting to tell Sebastian, "You deserve it, you inconsiderate fool. Do you think I want to sweep your stupid leaves everyday from my yard? You asked for your tree to be chopped!" Sebastian ran out from his house to his neighbour's porch and when he was face to face with his neighbour, he said "Thanks so much for chopping down my tree. Now I have more space in my yard. You are very kind!" With that, he shoke his neighbour's hand and sang a little song as he walked back to his house. His neighbour was livid! "Is he trying to be sarcastic? He is deliberately doing this to annoy me, that little rat!" he thought in anger.
So the next day, he went over to Sebastian's house and pulled up all the flowers. Sebastian woke up in the morning to see all the hard work he had put into gardening all lying dead on the broken soil. He paused for a moment, and then went up to his neighbour (who was waiting on the front porch of his house). Sebastian said, "You are so kind to allow me to plant something new in my garden. I had become rather attached to those flowers and would never have been able to get rid of them without your kind help. Now perhaps I can go plant some herbs instead!" And he sang a merry tune as he made his way back to the garden.
His neighbour was even more angry than before. Soon, all the residents of the block knew about how cruel, manipulative and calculative Sebastian was. But Sebastian was oblivious to their angry stares and suspicious glances. He walked happily about his neighbourhood smiling at all who passed him and thought to himself, "what a beautiful world, so full of wonderful people".
At this point, his neighbour had reigned in some support from other fellow neighbours. Together they plotted to splash paint all over Sebastian's house to teach him a lesson. Some wrote "Get out of this place!" or "Move away, we don't want you" or even "Everyone hates you!!" on the exterior walls of his house. When Sebastian woke up in the morning, he found his peach-coloured house splashed with red, green and yellow. He read all the words slowly. And he looked up towards his neighbour. This time, his neighbour was sitting at the front porch with a group of his friends, drinking tea and laughing at the hated Sebastian.
Sebastian waved at them and said "Good morning!! It's really nice to meet you all!" And he smiled happily as he went to the store to get fresh paint. Sebastian spent the rest of the day painting his house a new colour: Ivory. He sang happily and merrily as he did so, and when his neighbour and friends jeered at him, he only waved happily and continued along his way.
That night, Sebastian's wife could not take it anymore. She berated him, "You stupid man, our neighbour is making a fool of you. He has gone around saying all sorts of things about you. You need to go explain yourself to everyone else, otherwise they will mistake you for someone wicked. You need to make them see what a horrid and wicked man our neighbour is! He has done all sort of mischiefs like chopping our wonderful and shady tree, pulling up all our hard-grown flowers and wrote a lot of disgusting things on our walls. That is harrassment and you have to right to sue him!!!"
Sebastian looked at his wife for a long time in silence. He then said, "I don't understand why you say our neighbour is such a wicked man. He is a very nice man. He has helped me so much with the garden and the repainting of our house. He is a kind and loving man. See, he even brought a group of his friends to help cheer me on as I paint." His wife said, "They are not cheering you on, they are jeering at you. Didn't you hear what they said? They said 'paint away, you stupid man! Selfish people have to work harder because they deserve it!'. Can't you see that? Or are you really stupid?" And Sebastian replied, "Isn't that the same as cheering? How kind they are!"
At this point, his wife shook her head and made plans to convince Sebastian to move out of the neighbourhood. She went to bed fretting and angry that all the residents around them hated her husband so much.
His neighbour went to bed thinking what a stupid, calculative, manupulative, wicked and nasty man Sebastian was. He will tell everyone about Sebastian's wicked ways and chase the moron our of his house!
Sebastian went to bed thinking what a beautiful and wonderful world it is that he lived in. People are caring and kind, and so very helpful. Tomorrow the sun will be bright and lovely, and he couldn't wait to see it!
Labels: Short Stories
You know, wedding plans are actually very simple if only people would let go of their need to impress others. For instance, who cares if the church is decorated with flowers and ribbons? You are only going to be in there for 1 hour, and your focus should be on God, not on the decor. Who cares about giving wedding favours? If you are there to watch the person wed, isn't that enough? Why do you need some useless stuff as a "souvenir"? As if you are actually going to keep the gift as a "remembrance of So-and-so's wedding". Most likely, the only ppl who would keep anything is the bride and her mother.
And what is the big fuss about the wedding dress? Who cares if it is made of french lace, or a normal white linen cloth, or has intricate beading, or was designed by some international designer? After 6 months, the only thing anyone will remember is the fact that it was white. In fact, ask 10 guys right after the wedding what they thought of the bride's dress and at least 9 of them will say, "isn't it white?" If they can't even notice the details of the dress, would they care to look at your shoes? And your nails? So tell me, why spend $500 on a pair of shoes that no one gives a damn about? And $60 for a manicure that no one (other than your best friend) will notice?
And wait. What is the deal with the dinner banquet? Does it have to be in a 5-star hotel, or top chinese restaurant? Do we even really need a bloody dinner with 200 guests and each person only gets to spend 5 minutes of a 4-hour dinner with the newlyweds? Who cares if the bride changes 3 times? If she's ugly, she will look ugly whatever she wears. If she is pretty, she will look pretty in what she wears. Does she really need to change 3 times? Do i really think she looks any different in a different dress? Why does dinner have to drag on until 12am just so that I can look at the bride and groom from afar?
And wait. There's more. Why do you need to spend literally hundreds and thousands of ringgit on just one day? I think it is purely selfish and that you are just paying to have your egos stroked. Why not spend all that money on something more meaningful like donating to the war victims or something? I think it would be more meaningful to write in your invitation card that there will be no big celebration except for the 1-hour church wedding. However, there will be a large donation made to a charitable organization with all your guests names on it to celebrate the wedding. Wouldn't that be something?
Seriously. I think the commercialism of weddings these days is a disease. Brides rush out to find their dream dress and try to fulfil their dream wedding without even thinking of the marriage itself. So you spend 3 months agonizing over every detail of the wedding day (which will last all of 24 hours) without spending much time agonizing over the lifetime you have to spend with the man. And after 3 months, the wedding day itself will go by very quickly. Within the week, you are just another married couple. Big deal. THat is the truth of weddings.
There are a lot more things to think about than the wedding day. There are the nitty-gritty details of two very different characters that will have to come together and gel as one. For instance, he will have to deal with a grouchy and unreasonable woman who will surface once every month (inadvertedly, it will normally be around her time-of-the-month...but it is a coincidence, really...). She will have to deal with his detachment when he's tired. He will have to deal with her obsessive compulsive tendencies. She will have to deal with his bad breath in the morning. He will have to deal with having to sleep next to someone who always steals the blanket. She will have to deal with his adversion to "have a talk".
Bottomline is, instead of spending so much time with wedding plans, we need to spend more time on marriage plans. We need to draw out our routines and chores, needs and idiosyncrisies, and learn to deal with each other whilst maintaining our individuality. I don't have to change to accommodate you. I just need to accept you and to support you. You don't have to agree that it is fun to spend money on new shoes. You just have to love me enough to shop with me and accept that I love spending my time and money that way (and occasionally stop me when i go nuts and intend to spend RM5,000 on shoes). I don't have to accept that the best way to fix the TV is to kick it. But I can let you kick it and then quietly dial for the TV repair man when you're not at home.
At the end of the day, marriage plans last until death do us part. Marriage plans will continue being planned until death do us part. Wedding plans are too short-sighted. It is nice and good if you want a have a big wedding. But think again. What's the use of having a huge celebration when your marriage might only last 2 years? Or worse, you may end up living in misery until your spouse dies. What's the meaning of such a celebration? I rather wait until I am married for 40 years before having a big wedding celebration. That way, i know what I am really celebrating.
