A Buddhist Journey

My religion high school teacher during senior year once told me an old Buddhist story about two monks walking along a river during their journey to a neighboring land. The specifics of the story are not prevalent, but the overall message is what is important. For the sake of story, simply use your imagination to formulate what the monks were discussing. The story begins half way through the monks’ journey as they were discussing deep topics about life. One monk said something particularly odd that the other found incredibly horrible. Shocked and uncomfortable, the monk bit his tongue and began to think to himself how should he address his issue with the other monk’s comments. Instead of addressing the issue a few moments later, the monk allowed a few days to pass before

During a social event, we surprisingly ran into each other. We both initially froze at the sight of one other, but then smiled. We approached each other, hugged and smiled again. In all honestly, I should have been furious to have seen her, but I wasn’t. I didn’t hold anything against her that moment not because I love her and will always love her, but because I allowed myself to let go of everything I was bottling inside. I realized that feelings I was holding against her was not the right way to handle my situation. In a moment of silence filled compassion and understanding I could see the bigger picture of my situation. My situation was in fact no situation, the past had already happened I could not change it. All I could at that moment was live in the present the best way I could and that was forgiving the person I love. While I usually do not forgive others this quickly, I try my best to find the positive side of every situation no matter how bad it is. Seeing the positivity in every situation had helped me forgive others. Society tends to view forgiveness as moving past an issue without ever finding