The Three Monks

About

This is a Chinese animated movie, 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". 

Percept

The movie basically depicts the innate nature of human beings, how they respond to various situations, and moreover to the same situation in different contexts.

Initially, we have only one monk who treads his way to the monastery and does whatever was called on for his survival. Not only survival, he was also putting efforts to accomplish the underlying ritualistic intents.

Then comes the second monk, facing similar mundane conditions as the previous one. Both of them begin with an unstated agreement of coexistence. There are efforts to survive, more to coexist but not collaborate. As a result, they reach a sort of edge of sustenance in a few days, not living but sort of elapsing their span in the monastery.

And there enters the third monk, facing similar situations again with certain novelties in responses and individualistic constraints. But this time, as the two monks have already reached ‘that edge’, surviving together becomes a pain. We find a sense of buck-passing amidst the three. The productivity, effort-effectiveness and even the expected cordiality of their relations is all swayed off. Moreover their ritualistic commitment towards Buddha also goes for a toss when they start disregarding their self-stitched norms out of laze and reluctance.

Also, there’s this interesting character of a mouse in the monastery. It has played a significant role in the story. With the first monk alone, it is just a disturbance in his course of action. But with more monks joining in, it exemplifies the sense of irresponsibility and reluctance amidst. This mouse is the creator of various testing circumstances and also the one which brought about a change in the monks’ perspective of coexistence. This event when the monastery catches fire is a turning moment in the movie. In such situation of plight also the monks try to retain their individualistic motives, the difference being that all three motives were quite aligned to each other. All three monks wanted to save their lives and, in a very dogmatic gesture, the monastery as well. And when they observe that they don’t stand a chance to do it single-handedly is when they join hands and really ‘collaborate’. Such collaboration attains a new stature when they re-establish the monastery and re-invent ways to coordinate in a better way oriented towards synergy.

Pick of the story

In a group, it is inevitable not to face individualistic ambitions, and more often than not, their clashes as well. In such instances, it becomes really important to tailor it to achieve a win-win situation.

As we see, for the monks, they were equally competent and efficient by themselves, but since there weren’t any incentives involved, none of them wanted to work in others’ presence. Such a group, can not only be deteriorating for the business it is responsible for, but also discouraging for others. And as we saw, to the verge of diminishing all the fame once earned.

However its only a matter of realisation, when people understand that there’s only a limit to what a person can accomplish single-handedly. And howsoever the components be, they can always be conglomerated to a winning team.

This calls for a sense of coherence, streamlining one’s aspirations with those of the team and seeking the role of a contributor. That is when we can leverage the benefits of bringing together diverse talents.

PS: Yet to come… Revisiting the story with the way it can impact the ‘motivation dynamics’ involved.
Till then, Three Monks @Youtube
Happy Learning... :)