The Laughing Monks
We all love how beautiful some people’s laughter is. It’s so contagious. There is always that person in the group whose laughter can get everyone to feel better. Such is the story of the three ancient monks from Chinese folklore.
Once upon a time, in Ancient China, there lived three old monks. They were poor and without any worldly goods. They would travel from village to village and, in every village they stopped, they would sit in the center of the marketplace and start laughing.
At first, everyone just passed by without giving them any attention. But slowly, a small crowd formed that would linger around every day and laugh with them. The laughter was so addictive that eventually, the whole marketplace had tears running down with the intensity of the laugh.
This was when the monks would finally get up and move on to the next village. Their fame grew with time. All of China loved and respected them. Nobody ever preached the way they did. With laughter and nothing else. They never laughed at anything, in particular, but it was as if they understood a very hideous cosmic joke. Just imagine that — three monks spreading joy and laughter without preaching a single word.
Until one day, at a village in the northern province, one of the monks died. When this happened, people all over china wondered what would happen to the other two monks. They thought that the two monks would surely weep and everyone gathered to witness this sight. But instead of crying, the two monks stood beside the corpse, laughing with their bellies shaking.
The villagers asked, “How can you laugh at a time like this?”
And for the very first time, the monks spoke, “We are laughing because our brother has won. We always wondered who would be the first to die and he beat us. Together, we laughed for several years and there is no better way than this to give him a last send off”
As it turned out, the monk who had died also confessed that if he was to go first, he wanted to stay in his clothes. He claimed that his laughter acted as a shield to all the ugliness this world had to offer and he was completely clean since he had not let any evil touch him.
As the flames licked the pyre and the clothes began to burn, tremendous explosions were heard. Arose from the pyre was the most wonderful display of fireworks ever witnessed. The monks had hidden fireworks in the folds of the garments and all the villagers along with the monks, celebrated this moment with laughter.
Regardless of how accurate this story is, the message that the monks managed to pass is really valuable. The idea is that life is to be lived and actually in a good way.
Life is not meant to be taken seriously. Every moment of it has to be cherished with love and laughter. Because this is where real happiness is found. We have to perceive life for what it is and not for how we want it to be.
When we search for the meaning of it and look for answers to the questions we have, we get lost. If we keep thinking about how we are not able to solve our problems and how it is affecting life, we become miserable as we get carried away by those problems.
So, instead of stressing over your problems, just laugh at them. You will notice that those problems are not as big as you have imagined. No other animal is capable of laughter other than humans, because we are the peak of the evolutionary chain. While the same intelligence makes life more complicated, laughing at unimaginable situations releases hormones that have magical effects on our brains.
The reason laughter clubs exist today is that there is real value in laughing. It is infectious and even a burst of forced laughter can turn into something quite relieving.
So, stop looking dull like a grim reaper and start behaving like a laughing buddha.
PS: If you’re interested to listen to these blogs, you can find them in my Podcast, Within 5 Minutes — https://open.spotify.com/episode/74NuVbVoGLQ4DRDpZORcda?si=AA1GaNxnTqirCGpROZNNjw
