"SEEING THE BASIC IRONY"

Ghogyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, with a Foreword by Sakyong Mipham (Boston & London: Shambhala Library, 2008) ("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 then seriously, so that one does not seriously play the game of hope and fear. This is why the experience of the spiritual path is so significant, why the practice of meditation is the most insignificant experience of all. It is is insignificant because you place no value judgment on it. Once you are absorbed into that insignificant situation of openness without involvement in value judgment, then you begin to see all the games going on on around you. Someone is trying t be stern and spiritually solemn, trying to be a good person. Such a person might take it seriously if someone offended him, might want to fight. If we work in accordance with the basic insignificance of what is, then you begin to see the humor in the kind of solemnity, in people making a big deal about things." Id. at 134-135.).