I used to work with this guy who styled himself as a pseudo-Buddhist. I'm not really sure why; he didn't study the teachings of the Buddha or meditate or anything. I think the extent of his spiritual training was a second or third viewing of Seven Years in Tibet. But one day he told me this story, which he claimed was an old Buddhist zen.
Two monks were walking along the road, the wise master and his young initiate. As part of their ascetic training, both had taken vows of celibacy so strict that they were not even to speak to a member of the opposite sex. But as they walked along, the road brought them to a river, where there stood a beautiful young woman needing to cross. Without a word, the wise master picked up the woman and carried her across the river, set her down and returned to the other side. The two monks went on their way.
But as they walked along now, the old master could tell that his young initiate was deeply troubled by something. They continued in silence for many hours until the master finally inquired gently: My son, I see something is troubling you. Please, tell me what it is.
Father, only this: we have taken vows that we would never even speak with a woman, and yet you, you carried that woman across the river.
My son, said the master, I carried her across the river. But you have been carrying her ever since.
I've no idea where this story really came from, but, Buddhist or not, I've thought about it off and on over the years. It's not much, but there's something in there about the inner burdens we carry, or the outward facade of asceticism we try to put up when the whole time our hearts are decadent or dissipated, or the necessity of letting go of those soul-conflicts that are easier to relive again and again and again...
Sometimes I offer it enigmatically (and playfully) to my students when they're complaining melodramatically about some teacher who gave them poor grades, or some group project that bombed because their teammates weren't pulling their weight, or some crush that jilted them. And it's quite remarkable to see how they quiet and think (usually with a quizzical grin on their faces).
But these two Buddhist monks have been on my mind these days as I've been thinking about wisdom and proverbs. Because when I remember them standing there at the riverbank, master and initiate, they make me wonder: when is it right for Christians to draw wisdom from wells other than their own? And is the drinking less wise for it having come from an un-Christian well?
Our Rabbi once said that Lady Wisdom is justified by all her children: so perhaps when wisdom bubbles up in unexpected or un-Christian places like these-- in the "godless" screenplay of a thought-provoking film, or the "secular" lyrics of a prophetic rock song, or an un-Christian story about some enigmatic Buddhist monks-- perhaps we should see this as a sign that our God, the immortal, invisible, only-wise God, has not abandoned the "godless," "secular," "un-Christian" corners of our world. And perhaps the true children of True Wisdom should name these springs of unexpected wisdom, and justify them as the prevenient work of Christ, the one to whom, like Queen Sheba to Solomon, all the nations of the earth will stream at the end of the age, to marvel in person at the Wisdom of God.
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