The Three Laughing Monks- A Beautiful Life Lesson
The Three Laughing Monks:
Dear Readers..
In China, there is this legend of the three laughing monks. They are also today sometimes referred to as the three laughing saints. These three laughing monks used to travel from village to village in China. They were poor and without worldly goods or fine clothing but were full of joy. In each village where they stopped, the monks would sit in the marketplace and laugh, and before very long everybody would be gathered around them, bellies shaking and tears running with the intensity of their laughter. The three laughing monks were loved and admired very much.
As the years passed, the laughing monks’ fame grew and grew. All of China loved and respected them. Nobody had ever preached the way they did: with laughter and nothing else. They never laughed at anyone in particular, but rather as if they had understood a great cosmic joke. The three laughing monks spread joy all over China without using a single word.
After living long lives together, one of the three laughing monks died. When this happened, the whole village in which they were staying wondered what would happen next. They thought that when the monk had died, the other two would surely weep. The whole village gathered expecting to see this unusual sight. But instead of crying, the two remaining monks stood beside the corpse of the third laughing a great belly laugh. The villagers asked, “How can you be laughing at a time like this?”
So, for the very first time, the two monks spoke and said, “We are laughing because our brother has won. We always wondered who would die first and he has defeated us. He lived with us for many years and we laughed together, and we enjoyed each other’s company. There is no better way of giving him a last send off. We can only laugh.”
They began to prepare the body to be put on the funeral pyre. As the flames licked the pyre and the clothes began to catch, tremendous explosions were heard, and from the pyre arose the most wonderful fireworks display ever seen. The monk had hidden firecrackers in the folds of his garment before he died. All the people of the village, along with his fellow monks laughed and laughed and laughed.
Take life easily and lovingly. The one who lives and laughs abundantly lives a beautiful life!
Keep Laughing..
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