Learn Forgetting

Two monks, in a Zen parable, were walking in deep silence. They came across a spring on the way. A young lady was standing at the edge, seemingly worried about spoiling her clothes while crossing the stream. One of the monks lifted her in his arms and carried her over the stream.

His mate was shocked with his colleague’s act. But, he remained silent until the night halt, when he burst out, ‘As monks, we have sworn not to touch women... yet you carried her?’ The first monk replied calmly, ‘I left that girl on the other side of the stream. It is you who still carries her in your mind!’

So often, we hold on to views that are irrelevant in the larger scope of the situation. So often, we carry emotions turning them into a burden. So often, we chain ourselves to past experiences and fail allow them to hold us in a vice that chokes progressive thinking and clouds our perspective.

The phrase - ‘forget learning… learn forgetting’ – is very meaningful. We need to let go the unnecessary if we want to move on in life. For every harvested crop of experience, we need to sift the grain of understanding from the chaff of misinterpretation. We must learn to let go of the needless.

Forget learning… Learn forgetting
ignoring the needless is truly liberating!

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.