Crosstalk
2 Mar 2008
Most incense bearers coming to our monastery live in the nearby Watery Town, but we also have people visiting us from a distance regions, and one of such guests surnamed Sun is a resident of Ma Family Town (马家镇), who comes weekly to pay his tribute to the Buddhas. One day after burned incenses, Mr Sun sat in the courtyard chatting with us, and mentioned a theatre troop that recently performed daily in their town. Among their large selection of programs, there were short plays, martial arts performance and crosstalk (xiangshen 相声). Sun recounted some humorous episodes and lines of the xiangsheng, which made No Ego and me nearly laughed our heads off. That night, No Ego kept tossing and turning all over his bed with excitement, and eventually said to me, “I say, No Anger, how about we make a time to go to the town to watch the show with Mr Sun?” I was about dozing off in my bed, and blurred out my reply readily, “Yeah? Why not?” But immediately after that, I woke up with a start that allowed me to consider his proposal carefully. Finally I said to him, “I think we’d better not to go.” “Why no?” No Ego became anxious. So I presented my following reasons to him: If the show was taken place in the Watery Town, it might not be an issue as the local people have got used to our presence, but since it was in a far away town, things could be quite different. Nowadays, anyone in any situation could be filmed by anybody with a mobile phone and the embarrassing pictures can be easily spread across the Internet like wild fire. We’ve already seen the images of young novices playing computer games at a parlour, and a senior master posing side by side with sexy babes at a car exhibition, and someone in a monk’s robe munching his way through fried chicken pieces in KFC. If we went to watch the show, the next day the photos in which young monks opening their month wide laughing could be posted online for everyone to view. No Ego mused over that, and signed. He did not mention about going to watch the show again. Some days later, Mr Sun revisited our monastery and recalled new funning lines in the crosstalk. No Ego singed again. “If only I can hear them talk with my own ear,” said he. Masgter Wisdom Follower, who just happened to be there at the time, responded, “Then just go there to watch the show after your afternoon meditation cession.” No Ego was surprised to hear that, and recited my concerns over paparazzies. “Why should we weight so heavily other people’s views of us?” Abbot asked back. “Everyone has his own standards to judge the things, there is no way we can please everybody, and certainly there is no need for that. After all, others can only see your external appearances, you are the one who truely knows your internal states. As long as you believe you do the right thing, you just go for it, don’t let the opinions of others dictate your life.” Both No Ego and I were so releaved, and few days later we happily went to the Ma Family Town with Mr Sun. 心若无尘, 何惧红尘? (You can visit Monk No Anger's personal blog to read his original posts in Chinese at "user.qzone.qq.com/787129669/blog/1204244966") Pre: Mr Zhu's
Words to His Children
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