Story - Three Monks

Background:

Three Monks  is a Chinese animated feature film produced by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio in 1976, It is also referred to as The Three Buddhist Priests.
The film is based on the ancient Chinese proverb "One monk will shoulder two buckets of water, two monks will share the load, but add a third and no one will want to fetch water.

Plot:

There was a monk who lived in a temple built on the top of a hill. everyday he used to get two buckets full of water from down the hill and carry them back to temple using a shoulder pole.The water he got was more than enough for one person.

One day a monk visited the temple and started living there. next day when they got up, first monk thought of giving the responsibility to bring water to the new monk.

But the new monk refused to do it alone. therefore they decided to share the responsibility but the shoulder pole was small and could accommodate only one bucket then.

The water they got was still enough for both of them.

Later a third monk came to stay with them. On the next day morning when all the monks got up, nobody took the responsibility to fill the buckets as the shoulder pole could accommodate only two persons and they could not decide who should stay back.On that day, they began to suffer from thirst since water had finished. That night temple caught fire.

Finally all the three monks got together to fight the fire and started working together to get the water every morning and no one suffered from thirst thereafter.

Learning:

1) Everyone is capable of being selfish, but doing so diminishes our ability to cooperate with one another.

2) As the saying goes, :Unity is strength" we should co operate with each other and work together in a harmonious manner.

3) This story teaches us that it is inappropriate to shirk responsibility and proper measures should be taken before a catastrophe occurs.