Strange Sound
A man is driving down a country road and breaks down near a monastery.
He goes to the monastery, knocks on the door, and says, "My car has
broken down. Do you think I could stay the night?"
The monks kindly accept
him, give him dinner, even fix his car. That night as the man is falling
asleep, he hears a very strange sound. The next morning, he asks the
monks what the sound was, but they say, "We can't tell you. You're not
a monk."
The man is disappointed
but thanks them anyway and goes about his way.
Some years later, the
same man breaks down in front of the same monastery. The monks accept
him, feed him, even fix his car. That night, he hears the same strange
noise that he had heard years earlier. The next morning, he asks what
it is, but the monks reply, "We can't tell you. You're not a monk."
The man says, "All right,
all right. I'm dying to know. You say the only way is to become a
monk? OK, how do I become a monk?"
The monks reply, "It is
not going to be easy. To become a monk, you will have to feel the
beauty of the world, to become one with nature. You will have to
travel all around the world and count all the blades of grass and all
the pebbles of sand one by one."
The man thinks for a
moment, takes a deep breath and says, "All right. I will do it." And
he leaves the monastery.
Forty-five years later, on a cold winter day he returns and knocks on the door of the
monastery. The monks open the door and let him in. They look at his tired but peaceful face and say,
"So, you did it at last."
"Yes," says the man, "I
have travelled the earth and have found what you had asked for. There
are 145,236,984,732 blades of grass and 531,281,219,382 sand
pebbles on the earth."
The monks reply,
"Congratulations. You are now a monk. We shall now show you the way to
the sound."
The monks show the man a
wooden door. The head monk gives him a key and says, "The sound is behind that
door."
The man
opens the door, but behind the wooden door is
another door made of stone. The man asks for the key to the stone door.
The monks give him the key, and he opens it, only to find a door made
of ruby, and behind it doors made of emerald, silver, gold, ...
Finally, the
head monk gives
him a key and says,
"This is the key to the last door."
The man gets very happy. He
unlocks the door, turns the knob, and behind that door he is amazed to
find the source of that strange sound.
And what do you think it
was?
Click on the button below for the answer:
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