The Two Monks Myth in Cumae: The Orbis | World Anvil

The Two Monks

Two monks of Typhoneth were taking their meditation hour in silence.   Deep in meditation, the first monk realized that the other was making a noise as he meditated - a soft clicking sound, tapping with his tongue. Didn't the man realize how distracting it was?   For the rest of the hour, rather than meditating, the first monk wrestled with the need to tell the second monk to be quiet; that he was being terribly impolite; that meditation each day for an hour in silence was the vow they were following, and that by making noise he was in fact breaking his vow. The first monk worked out in his head everything he would say, the tone of voice he would use, the expressions on his face. He was in a lather for most of the rest of the hour, waiting to unburden himself.   When the hour ended, he rose from his place of meditation, and the second monk did the same. But the sound continued. The first monk looked at the second monk's face, his mouth, his lips - no motion at all, but the sound continued. He looked around the room.   Then he realized the sound was not coming from the second monk - that man had been perfectly silent the whole time. The sound was coming from the glass window panes behind the second monk. Outside, a rainstorm was blowing across branches, causing a steady soft clicking sound where they rubbed the glass. So of course there was nothing to be said.   And when meditating in the rain, the sound never bothered the first monk again - even though the sound itself was no different than when the first monk thought the second monk was making it, and lost all concentration. But the second monk had never noticed it in the first place.   Typhoneth teaches: Often, the distractions all around are not about them, they are about us. It's simply weather.

Historical Basis

Conforms to the general style of Typhonetic folklore, in which the cosmic-scale Angel simply is - like a hurricane or earthquake - rather than taking on a mortal form and doing mortal things. When Typhoneth interacts with the world, it's not subtle. In this myth, however, the message is wholly pragmatic, and it's thought that originally the story was associated with a different Angel, perhaps Bretranel and good work or steadfastness; but the weather reference was simply too much to leave it there, and it became Typhoneth's story.

Spread

Well known among the priests and monks of Typhoneth, and admired among the clergy and worshipers of Bretranel; less familiar elsewhere. An hour of meditation is a vow taken up by the clergy of all the angels.
[from a story by Pema Chodron, via Seth Godin]

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