thedawaring's blog

The Burden Two monks were returning to the monastery in the evening. It had rained and there were puddles of water on the road sides. At one place a beautiful young woman was standing unable to walk across because of a puddle of water. The elder of the two monks went up to her lifted her and left her on the other side of the road, and continued his way to the monastery. In the evening the younger monk came to the elder monk and said, “Sir, as monks, we cannot touch a woman?” The elder monk answered “yes, brother”. Then the younger monk asked again, “But then sir, how is it that you lifted the woman on the roadside?” The elder monk smiled at him and told him,” I left her on the other side of the road but you are still carrying her in your mind”.  **** Kisa Gotami Kisa Gotami was the wife of a wealthy man of Savatthi in eastern India. She had only one child. When her son was old enough to start running about, he caught a disease and died. Kisa Gotami was deeply sa...

The monk who laughed Many years ago when Lord Buddha was alive, there lived an enlightened monk named Katayana in a village in eastern India. One morning he set out around the village begging for alms as it was a common practice of Buddhist monks of that time. That same morning katayana happened to be at a house of a lady where she was having meal. He saw the lady eating boiled fish. She had a baby in her laps. She was so much caring and loving for the baby and breast feeding her with great love.  A poor skinny dog was trying to eat the bones of the fish that the lady had left behind. As the dog tried to eat the bones of fish, the lady got furious and beat the skinny dog mercilessly till it cried out of pain. The enlightened monk diligently observed all these events for a while and burst into series of laughter. The lady got irritated and decided to ask the monk , ‘why are you laughing so much without any reasons?’ The monk contemplated for a while and said,...