RichMartini: The Dalai Lama & The Mouse

RichMartini: The Dalai Lama & The Mouse

The Dalai Lama & The Mouse

Was in Tucson today, went to see the Dalai Lama.

It's always good to see him - he's surrounded by really nice people and I always enjoy seeing them as well. Today he was hosting an interfaith conference, with a Catholic Bishop, a Protestant Minister, an Imam and a Rabbi. I know, it sounds like the start of a joke, but it was interesting to hear everyone talk about compassion.

The Protestant Minister - his name escapes me, told a very cool story, which I'd like to post here.. it went like this:

This Minister was camping in the woods about 12 years ago, up in canada, and about day 9 he was meditating (a protestant minister who meditates; cool!) and he was suddenly aware of a sound behind him. He looked back and saw a mouse coming out of his backpack of food. He said his first reaction was to freak - he needed to kill that mouse, and get him out of his food supply. He saw him scamper under a leaf and into a hole. Then after thinking about it for a minute - he's a minister after all, he changed his attitude, then thought, "You know what I'm going to share some of my food with that mouse and make a little mound of food so we can both have it."

So he went over to the mouse hole and knelt down, put a little food out, and said a little prayer 'Here you go mouse, I'm going to share this food with you, because you probably need it too." Then he went back to his perch and sat down to meditate some more. After some time went by, and he was deep in meditation, he opened his eyes and saw the mouse was sitting on his knee, looking at him.

True story.

So. What does that tell us about compassion? I thought it was pretty amazing. The Dalai Lama was as well.