Zen Seed #3: "The two Monks and the Women"
Ancient stories aren’t meant to entertain us; they are meant to shake us awake from the slumber of our mental habits. A "Zen Sprout" is exactly that: a traditional parable which, protected by the shell of time, holds a core of radical wisdom. Every week we plant one through my personal interpretation, stripping away the rhetoric and cliché morality, to look inside the cracks of our daily lives and discover that philosophy is not an academic concept, but a tool for inner revolution.
Seed
Two Zen monks, Tanzan and Ekido, were walking along a muddy road after a heavy rain. Reaching a ford, they came across a young woman in elegant silk clothes, unable to cross without ruining her dress. Without a word, Tanzan picked her up, carried her across the river, and set her down on the other side. Then, the two monks carried on with their journey.
Ekido, visibly unsettled, walked in silence for hours until he couldn't hold it in any longer and blurted out, "We monks aren't even supposed to go near women, let alone touch or carry them! Why did you do that?"
Tanzan looked at him, smiled, and simply replied, "I set that girl down by the river hours ago. Why are you still carrying her? And what part of her are you still holding onto?"
Roots and Nourishment
There is a subtle irony in the story of Tanzan and Ekido: both encountered the very same woman at the river, yet only one of them walked away truly free.
Tanzan acted in the present moment, guided by direct compassion without any hidden motives or mental baggage. Ekido, on the other hand, remained trapped in his own mental framework. And this is precisely where this Sprout takes root: in the distinction between living an experience and rumination upon it.
How often do we act like Ekido? The actual event lasts just a matter of seconds, an insult, a mistake at work, an unexpected derailment, yet our minds keep rewinding the tape for hours, days, sometimes years. Psychology calls this rumination. We carry a burden on our shoulders that no longer exists in physical reality, kept alive solely by our own thoughts.
But there is a deeper layer here: our relationship with dogmas and blind faith.
Why shouldn't a monk touch a woman? What is the point of a rule if it stops us from helping another human being in their moment of need? And what about those who blindly follow rules written centuries ago without questioning them, ignoring the rich nuances of life, including the diversity of human desires and orientations?
The Buddha himself reminded his disciples never to believe something simply because it was handed down by tradition or spoken by a master. Instead, he urged them to test everything through direct experience and reason, adapting the teachings to the present moment. When a rule or a dogma becomes more important than human empathy, it isn't elevating us, it's just numbing us.
Tanzan didn't violate the spirit of his path; he embodied it. He understood that true purity isn't about shunning reality out of fear of getting dirty, but about responding to life with full presence, without letting virtue become a prison of rigid (and sometimes senseless) concepts.
Flourishing
In the frayed tapestry of our daily lives, this parable translates into three radical inner postures:
1. The Art of Setting the Ghost Down
When you feel the grip of resentment, an insult, or anxiety about something that just happened, pause. Don't fight the thought; instead, see it for what it truly is: a ghost that keeps walking into your present moment only because you are holding its hand. Ask yourself in the quiet: "Am I actually living this moment, or am I just carrying the weight of a minute ago?" Recognizing the burden is the first step toward opening your fingers and letting it drop.
2. Dismantling Your Certainties
Learn to mistrust the rigid firmness of your dogmas. Every time you catch yourself saying "one should," or measuring life through the harsh lens of your expectations, try lowering your defenses. True wisdom isn't an unshakeable dogma; it is the grace of a reed that knows how to bend without breaking. When you stop demanding that others (or yourself) conform to an abstract idea of perfection, you give reality back its space to breathe.
3. The Sunset Ritual
Make the end of your day a deep act of release. As the light fades and your mind begins counting its heavy inventory, imagine making the very same gesture Tanzan did at the river. Look at the unfinished conversations, the hasty judgments, the fear of not being enough, and set them down on the shore of the dying day. Tomorrow, the river of life will flow fresh and clean again, and the only way to cross it is to reach the shore empty-handed, stripped of Ego.
