This morning, Head Monk gave each of the monks a blank sheet of paper, a box of crayons and said, “Draw a vase filled with flowers that you would like to give Sensei.”
When the monks opened their crayon boxes, they were surprised to see that all their crayons were of only one colour. Sincere Monk had got blue crayons … Honest Monk had got yellow crayons and so on…
When the sheets with drawings were finally collected, Head Monk was happy to see that all the drawings were multi coloured.
Head Monk invited Angry Monk to describe the lesson he had learnt. Angry Monk said, “When I opened my box, I had green crayons inside. I got angry. Then slowly I overcame my anger and exchanged my crayons with the others to complete my drawing. I learnt that anger was the one being coloured.”
Head Monk said, “In life, we usually have one or two colours. But that doesn’t stop us from borrowing the colours of others and lending them our own, so as to become beautiful and meaningful.”
*****