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 allthe time. Prior to this he had been thinking continually of pain andsuffering. His name was Ngonagpa of Langru, the Black-faced one ofLangru, because he never smiled at all but saw everything in life interms of pain. He remained in retreat for many years, very solemn anddeadly honest, until one day he looked at the shrine and saw that someonehad presented a big lump of turquoise as a gift to him. As he viewed thegift, he saw a mouse creep in and try to drag away the piece ofturquoise. The mouse could not do it, so it went back to its hole andcalled another mouse. They both tried to drag away this big lump ofturquoise but could not do it. So they squeaked together and called eightmore mice that came and finally managed to drag the whole lump back intotheir hole. Then for the first time Ngonagpa of Langru began to laugh andsmile. And that was his first introduction to openness, a sudden flash ofenlightenment.
So asense of humor is not merely a matter of trying to tell jokes or makepuns, trying to be funny in a deliberate fashion. It involves seeing thebasic irony of the juxtaposition of extremes, so that one is not caughttaking them seriously, so that one does not seriously play their game ofhope and fear.
From "A Sense of Humor" in CUTTING THROUGH SPIRITUALMATERIALISM pp. 114-115.