Two Monks
in a therapist’s office — part 1
Two carved stone monks sat on the end table in a psychotherapist’s office in downtown Cincinnati. Once a week the therapist dusted them, but didn’t ever stop to look at their faces.
“She dusts us like we’re nothing but polished rocks,” said the younger one. “What good are we doing here?”
“No good at all,” said the older monk.
“We should leave!”
“Sitting quietly doing nothing, spring comes,
grass grows of itself,” said the old monk.
“Oh, please,” said the young monk.
“Whether you are going or staying or sitting or lying down,
the whole world is your own self,” said the elder.
“Ok then, I’m going!” said the youngster, and he hopped off the table onto the floor.
When the therapist arrived in her office the next morning, she was puzzled to find one of her monk statues lying on the rug, cracked in half. She didn’t have time to think about it, so she picked up the two pieces and put them in her large purse, sure that with some superglue she could mend the break at home.
Her first client of the day was a seven year old girl, who came in, sat down on the couch, and said, “Where’s the other one?”
“What do you mean?” asked the therapist.
“The other one of the guys!” The girl looked over at the table where the old monk sat alone. “Where is he?”
The therapist, unaware that the girl had ever noticed the monks before, took the broken statue out of her purse. “He was lying on the floor when I got to the office today. I can’t imagine what happened. No one has a key to my office except me.”
The girl put out her hands and the therapist gave her the two halves of the monk. The girl fitted the pieces together carefully, and turned the monk’s face towards her own.
“What happened?” she asked, bending close to him.
“He says he got tired of sitting all the time. No one ever pays any attention to him, so he decided to leave. He jumped off the table.”
“He did?” said the therapist, looking at her young client.
“Yes. No one ever looks at him or talks to him. He’s tired of it.”
“May I see him for a minute?”
The girl handed her the pieced together statue. The therapist took the broken monk into her own hands and looked at his face, smiling as if remembering something, then handed him back to the girl, careful to keep the two halves aligned.“Where does he want to go?”
The girl looked down at the monk in her lap. “Where do you want to go?” After a moment she said,“He wants to go swimming”
“He does? Why is that?”
“He used to swim when he was a little boy. He used to live near a river. He misses it. And he misses his Mommy.”
“He doesn’t like being a monk in my office?”
The girl gave the monk a kiss on the forehead. “Don’t you like it here?”
“He says he likes it better now,” she told the therapist, “since we are talking to him. He wanted some attention, that’s all. Sometimes people hurt themselves because they want attention and they don’t know how else to get it.”
“Yes,” said the therapist, “that happens sometimes. I’ll take him home and fix him with some glue.”
“Good,” said the girl, “and then we’ll never ever forget to give him some attention, every day. He really needs that. A lot.”
“Ok, we won’t forget.”
Make it out of clay or wood or silk
paint it blue or green and gild it with gold
but if you think a buddha looks like this —
Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy, will die from laughter.
— Daoquan (Tao-ch’uan), 12th century Chan master
