Once it happened that two monks were travelling. They crossed a river in a boat, and the ferryman said to them, “Where are you going? If you are going to the city beyond this valley, go slowly.’
But the old monk said, “If we go slowly we will never reach, because we have heard that the gates of that city are closed after sunset, and we have just one or two hours at the most, and it is a very long distance. If we go slowly we will never reach, and we will have to wait outside the city. And the outside of the city is dangerous to wild animals and everything so we will have to make haste.
The ferryman said, “Okay, but this is my experience: Those who go slowly, reach.”
The other monk listened to it. He was a young man and he thought, “I don’t know this part of the country, and this ferryman may be right, so it is better to follow his advice.” So he walked slowly, leisurely, as if not going anywhere, not in a hurry, just for a walk.
The old man hurried, started running. He had many scriptures on his back. Then he fell down: Tired, carrying weight, old, in such a hurry, so tense, he fell down. The man who was not in a hurry simply walked and reached.
The ferryman was following and he came near the old man. He was lying by the side of the road; his leg was broken and blood was oozing out.
The ferryman said, “I told you that this has been always so: Those who walk slowly reach, those who are in a hurry always manage to stumble ‘somewhere or other.
These parts are dangerous. The road is rough and you are an old man. And I had advised you, but you wouldn’t listen to me.”
