On the up: Being inspired...
On the down: ... for quite the wrong thing!

This has to be blogged because it's so funny.

We've been reading this book, Dragon Thunder, about Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, one of America's most famous and controversial Lamas in the 1970s who initiated an incredible spread of Tibetan Buddhism and Dharma in the West.

The book is supposed to inspire. Like, you know,
- make you want to be a better person
- push you towards doing more Dharma work
- find your own incredible Dharma teacher
- help your teacher to bring his teachings to the world.

Oh
So
Profound.

JP, on the other hand, read the book, came across a passage where he read something about someone having a fish tank and thought to his little hobbity self, "Oh fish! I feel like buying fish!" and so took himself off to Pet Safari and bought himself some fish.

He was very, very proud of his fish. He even had photos on his phone which he proudly showed off to us. He even told Rinpoche all about it.

And then *cold water*

Rinpoche told him how much work you need to put into maintaining a fish tank. Really, it seems there's nothing that a Rinpoche cannot do! He used to work in a pet shop as a kid, and took home some fish so knows alllll about how to look after them

And heck, it ain't easy.

He spent a good 20 minutes just explaining to JP what it means to maintain fish.

JP didn't look quite so excited anymore. I think maybe he was starting to worry a little bit about how he might come home one day soon and find all his fish belly up.

Chin Li was sitting next to me going, "Yah right, he's not going to look after it. It's going to end up being his poor maid doing it."

Really, JP is just so profound sometimes. It's pretty amazing, you know!