[OceanofDharma] Quotes of the Week: The Mouse and the Turquoise

[Carolyn Gimian]

Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week

February 7, 2008 SHAMBHALA DAY

A story for the Year of the Earth Mouse

THE MOUSE AND THE TURQUOISE

There is the Tibetan story of a certain monk who renounced his 
samsaric, confused life and decided to go live in a cave in order to 
meditate all the time. Prior to this he had been thinking continually 
of pain and suffering. His name was Ngonagpa of Langru, the 
Black-faced one of Langru, because he never smiled at all but saw 
everything in life in terms of pain. He remained in retreat for many 
years, very solemn and deadly honest, until one day he looked at the 
shrine and saw that someone had presented a big lump of turquoise as 
a gift to him. As he viewed the gift, he saw a mouse creep in and try 
to drag away the piece of turquoise. The mouse could not do it, so it 
went back to its hole and called another mouse. They both tried to 
drag away this big lump of turquoise but could not do it. So they 
squeaked together and called eight more mice that came and finally 
managed to drag the whole lump back into their hole. Then for the 
first time Ngonagpa of Langru began to laugh and smile. And that was 
his first introduction to openness, a sudden flash of enlightenment.
             So a sense of humor is not merely a matter of trying to 
tell jokes or make puns, trying to be funny in a deliberate fashion. 
It involves seeing the basic irony of the juxtaposition of extremes, 
so that one is not caught taking them seriously, so that one does not 
seriously play their game of hope and fear.

 From "A Sense of Humor" in CUTTING THROUGH SPIRITUAL MATERIALISM pp. 114-115.

All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used 
by permission.

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Carolyn Rose Gimian

Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the Week: teachings by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.
Taken from works published by Shambhala Publications,  the Archive of 
his unpublished work in the Shambhala Archives, plus other published sources.
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