The monk and the woman

Photo by Nicolas Häns on Unsplash

Two Buddhist monks, on their way to the monastery, found an exceedingly beautiful woman at the river bank. Like them, she wanted to cross the river, but the water was too high. So one of them took her across on his shoulders.

The other was thoroughly scandalised. For two hours he scolded the offender for his breach of the rule: Had he forgotten he was a monk? How had he dared to touch the woman? And worse, carry her over the river? And what would people say? Had he not disgraced their holy religion? And so on.

The victim took it calm and easy. At the end of the lecture he said, “Brother, I just dropped that woman at the river. Are you carrying her still?”