Wednesday, September 21, 2005

the shoveling monk

One day the shoveling monk was in deep meditation, as he was shoveling stones, when his concentration was abruptly shattered by the snide comments of a passing ninja-arachnologist. The ninja-arachnologist merely commented on the incredibly inefficient method of shoveling that the shoveling monk had, which to a shoveling monk was like squashing a spider would be to a ninja-arachnologist. But the shoveling monk, who could have easily beaten the ninja-arachnologist in fair fight, chose to respond in an another indirect way.

He asked the ninja, -"what is the most famous saying of a ninja arachnologist?"

The Ninja Arachnologist replied "hah, thats easy,..When a ninja-arachnologist cuts the web, the spider doesn't even know!"

The shoveling monk waited for a few seconds and quietly said "I was the one who coined that phrase"

The ninja arachnologist was really perturbed; -shocked that someone who he thought was an incredible waster of energy was actually the coiner of the most famous ninja-arachnologist's sayings. He immediately started looking at the shoveling monk's shoveling technique. And lo and behold...patterns of efficiency started appearing in front of his eyes. The angle of the shovel, the depth of the heave, the usage of gravity itself to fill the shovel head and even the delicate balancing of the shovel by using just two fingers as a fulcrum. All these saw the ninja arachnologist. And he bowed. And the shoveling monk bowed. And both went their separate ways.