Source

Strength of Character

There is an old Zen story about two traveling monks who had met a young woman near a riverbank. Unable to gather courage to cross the river, she asked for help. One of the monks hesitated, but the other quickly picked her up onto his shoulders, transported her across the water, and put her down on the other bank. She thanked him and departed.

Unable to hold his silence, the hesitant monk inquired why the other monk had carried the woman on his shoulders when their spiritual training forbade any contact with women.

The second monk replied, “I set her down on the other side, while you are still carrying her.”

True strength of character is not avoiding temptation, it’s staying strong in the face of it.