Looking across the river the young monk asks the master, “How do I get to the other side.” The master replied “little monk, you are on the other side.” My favorite story is different story about two monks but as I remember it involved a drowning maiden.

I was lucky enough that there was a traditional Karate school down the road and my teacher, Master Thinh Nguyen was a lot like Saotome Sensei (for those in aikido) in the sense that he seemed wise and often was smiling, you noticed how soft his block was right before you were flying across the room. He was also a great storyteller and my favorite was about two monks. I heard it as an adolescent and when I tried to look up the official version I realized I maybe embellished it to be a bit more PG-13 but its got a good ring to it…

Two monks were on a journey back to the monastery and the path crossed a river at the waterfall but the bridge had washed out. The elder monk noticed a women had fallen in and grabbed the young monk to go save her but the young monk had turned away. The old monk jumped in and carried the women safely to the other side.

Farther up the road the old monk noticed the young monk acting out the story in silence as they walked getting more and more frustrated as the young monk looked down at his arms again and again. Finally the young monk broke his silenced and exclaimed, “how could you teacher, I could not even look at her, and you broke your vows and you carried her body in your arms as if she was not a woman.

“True, but young monk, I look at you and wonder why do you still carry her?”

I had always thought this was a great illustration of how the mind works but I think that for me it is more about the body’s role in emotion; several years ago I found that I was often angry, even when I was doing happy things such as going on hikes, dates, out with friends. In contrast I wasn’t angry while practicing aikido (I had been really good at being angry while doing karate years ago so this was surprising from two angles.). I realized that what I was doing in aikido changed what my body had been doing most of the day. Most of the day I was still being angry with my body which helped me stay angry even when I thought I was having a good time. Without the tension, posturing, etc. I was unable to be angry at aikido. I had let go of the burden I was carrying.