In a small village shadowed by a great mountain, there lived an old monk known for his wisdom and serenity. One day, a young man came to him, burdened with heavy anger and resentment towards his parents for past wrongs he felt could not be forgiven.
The monk listened quietly to the young man’s woes and then invited him for a walk the next morning. At dawn, they met at the base of the mountain, where the monk handed the young man a large sack filled with stones.
“Each stone in this sack represents a grievance you hold against your parents,” the monk explained. “Today, we will climb the mountain, and you will carry this sack with you.”
Weighed down by the sack, the young man followed the monk up the steep path. With every step, the sack grew heavier, and the young man’s breath became more labored. Hour after hour, they climbed in silence, the only sound the crunch of their feet on the rocky trail.
Halfway up the mountain, the young man was exhausted, his energy sapped by the weight of the stones. He slumped down on a rock, the sack tumbling off his shoulders. “I can’t carry this any further,” he gasped, defeated.
The monk sat beside him and asked, “How does it feel to carry this weight?”
“It’s unbearable,” the young man replied, his face etched with pain.
“And who is choosing to carry it?” the monk asked gently.
The young man was silent, realizing that it was he who had agreed to pick up and carry the sack. He looked at the monk, a glimmer of understanding in his eyes.
The monk nodded, encouraging him. “You cannot change your past, just as you cannot flatten this mountain. But you can choose to put down the weight of these stones.”
With trembling hands, the young man reached into the sack and, one by one, started to remove the stones, tossing them aside. With each stone he threw, he named a grievance he was letting go of. The sack grew lighter, and so did his heart.
By the time they reached the peak, the sack was empty. The young man looked out over the vast landscape spread before him, feeling a profound lightness. He realized that the resentment he had held onto was his own burden to release, not his parents’ to resolve.
As they descended back to the village, the young man felt as if he was walking on air. He understood now that forgiveness was not about condoning the past but about freeing himself from its weight. The old monk smiled as he walked beside him, knowing that the young man’s real journey had just begun.