monks

[Shaney_R]

A man is driving down the road and breaks down near a monastery.

 

He goes to the monastery, knocks on the door, and says, "My car

 

broke down. Do you think I could stay the night?"

 

 

 

The monks graciously accept him, feed him dinner, even fix his

 

car. As the man tries to fall asleep, he hears a strange sound.

 

A sound not like anything he's ever heard before. The Sirens

 

that nearly seduced Odysseus into crashing his ship comes to

 

his mind. He doesn't sleep that night. He tosses and turns

 

trying to figure out what could possibly be making such a

 

seductive 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."

 

 

 

Distraught, the man is forced to leave.

 

 

 

Years later, after never being able to forget that sound, the

 

man goes back to the monastery and pleads for the answer again.

 

 

 

The monks reply, "We can't tell you. You're not a monk."

 

 

 

The man says, "If the only way I can find out what is making

 

that beautiful sound is is to become a monk, then please, make

 

me a monk."

 

 

 

The monks reply, "You must travel the earth and tell us how

 

many blades of grass there are and the exact number of grains

 

of sand When you find these answers, you will have become a

 

monk."

 

 

 

The man sets about his task. After years of searching he returns

 

and knocks on the door of the monastery. "I have traveled the

 

earth and have found what you have asked for: By design, the

 

world is in a state of perpetual change. Only God knows what

 

you ask. All a man can know is himself, and only then if he

 

is honest and reflective and willing to strip away self

 

deception."

 

 

 

The monks reply, "Congratulations. You are now a monk. We shall

 

now show you the way to the mystery of the sound."

 

 

 

The monks lead the man to a wooden door, where the head monk

 

says, "The sound is beyond that door."

 

 

 

The monks give him the key, and he opens the door. Behind the

 

wooden door is another door made of stone. The man is given the

 

key to the stone door and he opens it, only to find a door made

 

of ruby. And so it went that he needed keys to doors of emerald,

 

gold and diamond.

 

 

 

Finally, the monks say, "This is the last key to the last door."

 

 

 

The man is apprehensive to no end. His life's wish is behind the

 

door! He unlocks the door, turns the knob, and behind that door

 

he is utterly amazed to find the source of that haunting and

 

seductive sound...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But I can't tell you what it is because

 

you're not a monk.

 

[Miss Minx]

but please go on i wont tell anyone else i promise

[Phil rr]

hahahaha...my dad used to tell this..er...joke (shaggy dogs tale?) sometimes...called the piece of lead piping and a hammer. exactly the same thing.

 

he used to make the story go on for like 10 minutes

 

i used to love it at the time