There’s this parable that I’ve been thinking of for awhile, I read it in a book some time ago. I wanna write it down and show it to a friend to illustrate a point, but I can’t quite remember the details.
It’s about these two monks who are crossing a river. The older monk helps a woman cross by carrying her on his back, even though his vows don’t allow contact with women. The younger monk is troubled by this, keeps thinking about it as they walk on and eventually asks the older monk how he could do such a thing. The older monk tells him the problem is with younger monk, because “I put her down miles ago, while you are still carrying her”.
At first, I coulda sworn I read this from a JD Salinger story, but now I’m thinking it could have been any number of authors. I found a few versions of this story on the net, but none of them had quite the eloquence I remembered from the book I read. I’m 90% certain it was from a fictional author, probably in a fictional work, though perhaps from an introduction or forward.
Anyone recognize this from a book they’ve read? It’d help me sleep if I could figure this one out, thanks a lot.