
Tale of the Two-Eyed Monkey
I don't get as much time as I'd like to read books. Like a lot of
people, I've plenty of books that I bought ages ago but haven't managed
to read yet. Recently though, my older son and I have started reading
books together for about 20 or 30 minutes before he goes to bed. He's
still in elementary school, and until recently I used to read him
children's books at bedtime. But nowadays he prefers to get his own
books at the library and read them himself. So we sit beside each other
in the evening reading our own books.
A few nights ago, my son asked me about a book I was reading at the
time, called “Everyday
Zen”. He asked if it was about Buddhism. I told him it was. Then he
asked what Buddhism is about. Now, my son knows I teach some kind of
zazen class, and he sees me doing zazen at home, and he even does some
zazen himself once in a while, but this was the first time he ever
asked about Buddhism as such. I was a bit surprised. I wasn't too sure
what to tell him, but I figured he might like the story about the
two-eyed monkey. It's a fairly well-known story in Zen Buddhism at
least. Here it is :
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Once there was a monkey with two eyes who lived on an island. One day
there was a terrible storm and the monkey got washed out to sea on a
log. The monkey drifted on the log for weeks until he was washed ashore
on another island far away from where he used to live. The monkey was
hungry so he ran up to the edge of the jungle to look for food. At the
edge of the jungle he saw another monkey. But the other monkey had only
one eye, so the two-eyed monkey was very surprised. But when the other
monkey saw the two-eyed monkey, the other monkey began laughing and
howling. Then more and more monkeys came to see what was going on. All
the monkeys who came had only one eye. When those one-eyed monkeys saw
the two-eyed monkey they all started laughing and howling. They all
pointed at the two-eyed monkey and said “Look, look, he's got two eyes!
He's got two-eyes! Ha, ha, ha, ha...”
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I wasn't so sure if my son would enjoy the story, but he seemed to
think it was alright. After that, I also told him that what's important
in Buddhism is not so much what we say, but what we actually do. I gave
him the example of someone saying they're going to do their homework
tomorrow, but when tomorrow comes they forget all about their homework
and just watch TV instead. That made sense to him too, although I'm not
sure he liked the example.
When he's older, if he asks me what Buddhism is about again, I'll
probably tell him that in some ways Buddhism isn't really about
“Buddhism” at all. It's just about being himself. So he doesn't have to
worry about being a Buddhist, or a Christian, or a Hindu or things like
that. He can just be himself all the time, and that's all he needs to
do.
Of course, it's not always easy to be ourselves. Because we think maybe
there's something wrong with us, or other people won't like us or we
won't fit in and things like that. But one thing we can learn from
Buddhism is that just to be ourselves is the best way. That's why we're
here.
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