A Woman, A River and Two Rorschach Monks

There is a story about obsession that an erstwhile lover is fond of mistelling.

His version goes like this:

Two Buddhist monks are on their way to an important event. They come upon a woman standing at the bank of a river who asks if they can help her across. The first monk protests that doing this will make them late, but the second sweeps her up anyway, carries her across, and returns to the first monk. They continue on their way. After an hour or so, the first monk explodes, "Why did you help that woman!? Now we are very late and will be reprimanded!" The second monk responds, "I put her down an hour ago; why are you still carrying her?"

My friend recounts this tale nearly every time he is in mixed company, such is its import to him; but I have always found it to be somewhat lacking in meaningful wisdom.

Yes, I suppose it's a good thing to remind ourselves to do a kindness for others, even at our inconvenience; and that if we do so, we should accept the consequences of our actions, which the second monk did. But the first monk kind of had a point:  He had his own legitimate desire to get to the event on time, and he had every right to protest the actions of the second monk, compassion be damned.

So... Is the lesson that the first monk should have spoken up sooner and had it out with the second monk right after the incident occurred? And doesn't the first monk have just as legitimate a lesson to be told: Is it necessary to go fawning over every damsel in distress?  Isn't "selfishness" sometimes warranted?

After my falling out with this friend, I realized that his grasp of reality was somewhat--uh--creative, so I went searching for the real story. It goes like this:

Two monks, going to a neighbouring monastery, walked side by side in silence. They arrived at a river they had to cross. That season, waters were higher than usual. On the bank, a young woman was hesitating and asked the younger of the two monks for help. He exclaimed, 'Don't you see that I am a monk, that I took a vow of chastity?'

'I require nothing from you that could impede your vow, but simply to help me to cross the river,' replied the young woman with a little smile.

'I...can not...I can...do nothing for you,' said the embarrassed young monk.

'It doesn't matter,' said the elderly monk. 'Climb on my back and we will cross together.'

Having reached the other bank, the old monk put down the young woman who, in return, thanked him with a broad smile. She left their side and both monks continued their route in silence. Close to the monastery, the young monk could not stand it anymore and said, 'You shouldn't have carried that person on your back. It's against our rules.'

'This young woman needed help and I put her down on the other bank. You didn't carry her at all, but she is still on your back,' replied the older monk.

As it turns out, there are many alternate versions, but most of them have these key elements in common which my friend conveniently omits:  (1) The first monk is younger, the second is older; (2) the woman is young and likely attractive; and (most importantly) (3) the first monk protests that they should not help the woman because it is against their vows of chastity to ever touch a woman. (My friend fabricated the issue of their being late; this does not exist in any version and I believe my friend invented it to more easily impose (albeit unconsciously) his own meaning on the story.)

In the real story, the youth's protracted silence makes complete sense.

I imagine his entire world being turned upside-down by the elder's actions. First he is scandalized by the latter's blithe disregard for their order's rules about touching women. Second, he is in the uncomfortable position of questioning the elder's actions. Third, he is put to wonder whether it would have been all right for him to carry the woman, and what such an action would have meant for him.

And all of these elements are perfect ingredients to any obsession, which is the human foible this parable is meant to address.

As we negotiate the urgings of our bodies, which can often contradict social dictates, we are left wrestling with the appropriateness of these urgings and (hopefully) questioning the wisdom society has handed us in telling us to deny them.

Although there are many interpretations of what this parable is trying to tell us, I read it like this:

The elder monk acted in compassion, rather than via the dictates of his religious order, which was appropriate for him. Being older, wiser and perhaps with a tamer "heyday in the blood," he was not tempted by the woman's touch. To him, she was a person in need of help, not a sexual being who would lure him from his vows.

The younger monk, perhaps having not yet internalized the wisdom of his religion, and perhaps still struggling to contain a wilder cacophony of desire within him, was only able to see the woman as a sexual object -- further evidenced by his continuous thought of her after the elder had set her down. Indeed, it probably would not have been appropriate for him to pick her up, as she might have swept him up as swiftly as the river's current.

So what is the lesson?

Know where you are in your life and act appropriately; also note where others are, and realize that what is right and appropriate for them might not be for you. And, most importantly, take note of anything that consumes your thoughts; it will surely point to some area of development that needs attention.

There are a few other nice lessons in there about compassion and following the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law, and maybe even a thought about seeing women as people not as sex objects -- but to me, humble self-awareness is the key.

And, sadly, this quality is what my former friend so sorely lacks.

How could he then do anything other than impose his own meaning onto this story, indeed changing the story itself to do so?  In his version, the lesson is more like:  If someone does something you don't like, let it go.

Or, more accurately, if my friend does something you don't like, well too bad -- that's your problem. You should let it go and stop bothering him about it. (Truly, any complaint about his actions is invariably met with a sanctimonious, "You gotta let that go.")

In other words, the parable was one big Rorschach test, and through it he had told me -- indeed been telling me all along -- who he really was.

There was a hint of this (or some might say a HUGE RED FLAG) when we first began our affair at a yoga retreat a few years ago. Although we had been sleeping together much of that week, at the final night's party, while he chatted with another friend who was complaining about her difficulties meeting someone she liked on Match.com -- right in front of me -- he said, "Oh yeah... it's so hard to meet people!"

"Um.." I thought, "Have we been banging boots without meeting??"

The truth is -- we had never really met. I was never a real person to him, and perhaps he was not to me, although the reality of who he was certainly pressed itself into relief that evening. When I put my disgruntlement to him, he said, "Well, we live in different cities! Of course this won't continue."

Yes. Of course.

Of course, I realized, it was all about control. He had decided what was happening with me, who I was to him, and he would pick me up and put me down as it suited him.

(And the irony this was not lost on me: How could someone so devoted to Zen-like "freedom" and "being in the moment" be such a bleeping control freak? I have wondered if his attraction to Zen was a way to deal with his controlling nature -- again, unconsciously, because he does not  see himself as controllling -- or if was just a means by which to project his control-freakiness on others, whom he frequently accused of trying to control him in a most un-Zen-like way.)

As the reality of his nature dawned on me, and also realizing that I pretty much liked him anyway as a person, we continued to be friends for the next few years -- until our falling out.

When I wrote the blog entry about that last year, I had assumed that he had pushed me away because he had begun to see someone new. But even then that didn't quite feel kosher to me. Because we had been friends with no hint of romantic connection for about two years at that point, so why should he suddenly decide to push me away so fully?

I thought about our last conversation, our brunch near where he lived.

He went on at length about how all we are is a collection of "stories," and that we can change the story as it suits us (i.e. be in complete control of our emotional state). "Like a guy cut me off on the highway, and I started to get mad," he buzzed in a near frenzy, "And I said to myself, 'I don't want to be that guy -- that guy who gets mad.' And so I decided that that was not going to be my story!" Ah yes! Problem solved. Only not really.

"Well..." I grimaced, "Um... actually, if you are cut off in traffic and you get mad... I hate to tell you ... you are that guy."

His big eyes held me steadily.

"Not that that's a bad thing..." I added, "I mean, that doesn't mean you can't change... but don't you think it's important to recognize that that's what's happening inside you, and maybe look at why rather than just trying to .. um... rewrite your experience?"

"No," he snapped, "I don't think that's necessary."

And in that moment, I believe, he turned...

In true Titanic form, the emotions I'd hit in him -- indeed a nerve that undermined essential elements of the life he had been trying to create for himself -- were so large that they were slow to turn, but turn they did.

I felt this slightly in that moment, but denied it myself. I did not want to believe that he was so incapable of his own distress, or that he could reject me so completely for pointing out an inconvenient truth.

But perhaps we cling to denial -- even its various self-helpy masks -- for reasons that are often deep beyond our fathoming.

What is most sad here, though, is that I did try to offer a compromise between his view of "changing the story" and my view of accepting the story.

Consistent with Tony Schwartz' recent HuffPo article about this, we must feel free to ask the question, and know that we are not constrained by the answer. He writes:

[I ask] myself the following question any time I feel triggered by someone or something: "What's the story I'm telling myself here and how could I tell a more hopeful and empowering story about this same set of facts?"

If we let ourselves know our triggers, our obsessions and compulsions, then we acknowledge what we wish to be, and whom we fear we might be -- and so are closer to knowing who we are. And it is only from the standpoint of knowing who we are that we can grow and perhaps change "the story" of what we might be.

But this is a complicated, humbling process which can't be accomplished with the swift finality of a delete key.