In the Rain You Get Wet

I would like to share one of my favorite Buddhist stories. I see a lot of myself in it.

There was a young boy who wanted to learn about Buddhism. He left home to join a monastery on a faraway mountain top. He shaved his head and became a novice monk. He quickly found that he had far too many chores to do. Early each morning, he would clean the altar even though it already seemed clean. He had to offer the Buddha breakfast, attend morning service, then have his own breakfast. He found it very difficult to chant on an empty stomach.

He wanted to study Buddhism, but it did not seem like there was much time for that. Instead, he was always cleaning, making offerings, chanting, and bowing. He wished he had spent more time in lectures, learning the teachings. He would rather be led from a thesis to a conclusion. Instead, his teachers talked around the subject, often speaking in endless, cyclical riddles. He did not know this, but his teachers wanted him to intuit the conclusion. This is called circumlocution.

After a year, he was on the verge of quitting and complained to the head monk. In response, he got yet another task, which he thought was a punishment. The head monk needed a written message taken across town to an older, senior monk at another temple. The young boy took the note, tucked it into his robes, and left the temple gates. He did not know how far he had to walk. After two miles, he was only halfway there, and to his dismay, it began to rain.

He finally made it to the temple soaking wet. He knocked on the large wooden doors, and the older monk answered. The boy handed him the note, expecting a verbal response. But the older monk merely smiled and handed him another note. He felt like a carrier pigeon, not a novice monk.

The boy returned to his monastery after another four-mile walk, still in the pouring rain. His head monk was waiting for him at the monastery doors, smiling. The boy handed his head monk the new note, who placed it into his robes without reading it.

Our young monk finally lost his temper. The head monk laughed out loud, and said, “Why are you upset? Don’t you know that when you go out into the rain, you get wet?”

The young boy had a moment of sudden insight. Much like walking in the rain, he had been immersing himself in Buddhism all along—everything he had done thus far was a part of it. Now, the young boy could allow himself to simply experience Buddhism.

I realized from this story that just being in a Sangha and showing up for services is enough to immerse myself in the teachings. It is not about intellectual effort or academic learning. It is about experiencing the teachings within our bodies and intuiting them with our minds. It is as natural as getting wet as we walk in the rain.

In Gassho,
Rev. Jon Turner