This Sunday night, I went to a church concert. Before each song, the director would say some words about the song or tell a joke or story. Two stories are particularly my favorite. I would like to share them with you.
Story 1:
A woman went to work one day. On her way to work, there was a pet store. Just as she passed by the store, she heard a voice "Hey, old lady, you are so ugly!" The woman turned to the voice. It was a parriot at the door of the pet store. She was very unhappy to hear the parriot. She went to work.
As she passed by the store after work, the woman heard the parriot again: "hey old lady, you are so ugly!". She was very mad.
The next morning, the woman went to work and passed by the store again. The parriot was still there. As the parriot saw her, he said: "Hey, old lady, you are so ugly!". The woman couldn't stand it any more. She stormed into the store and went directly to the manager:" You'd better do something about that bird. Otherwise you would be in trouble!" The manager appologized and said, "We will make sure it won't happen again."
It was time to get off work again. The woman walked by the pet store. The parriot was still there. Just as the bird saw her, he said:"Hey, old lady?" The woman responded:"yeah?" The bird looked at her and said, "You know..."
Comment:
What troubles us is often not the things outside, but our thoughts inside. People heard the same words from the same parriot may just give a good laugh and not be bothered by it. This lady was
bothered by the bird due to her care about her look. She must lack of confidence in her look or not satisfied with her look and do not like others to say that she is ugly. She needs to work out her own problem instead of going after the bird. So even the bird says "You know...", she would immeditately thought of her look again.
This is a very good story.
Story II:
Two monks were travelling on the open field. There was a river in front of them. An old lady was crying for help to get cross the river. There were no boat. The monks decided to help her. So both of them carried her over to the other side. And they kept on their journey.
After a couple of miles walking, one of the monks said,"Boy, My back hurts. It was all due to that old lady. She was so heavy." The other monk didn't say anything. They kept on walking.
After another 2,3 miles, the same monk complained again,"Oh, my whole body hurt so much. I can barely walk now. It was all because of that old lady!" He sounded really unhappy. This time the other monk turned his back and said to the complaining monk:
"You know, you are still carrying the old lady with you. I dropped her off 4, 5 miles ago."
Comment: Can you think of a story in your life that is similar with this one? Our mind is often trapped into the thinking of what happened in the past, especially the things that we are not happy of. Instead of letting go of the past, we keep aggregating the unhappiness/suffer. The results of this is keeping us from being happy for the current moment and lose the time of present. We want to live our life at the moment, not carrying the past or the negative things with us. The complaining monk could be like the other mond or enjoy the scenary along the road.
