Searching for riches we already possess
Favourite teachings: The poor family and the treasure of gold
You wander from room to room
Hunting for the diamond necklace
That is already around your neck!
Rumi
There is a traditional Tibetan Buddhist metaphor I like to share when teaching people about my favourite subject: the nature of mind. I can see from people’s expressions that it’s a metaphor that resonates with many.
A few weeks ago, reading a book by Andrew Harvey called The Direct Path, I discovered a similar metaphor told by a Greek Orthodox monk - one wrapped within a story.
It should come as no surprise that the same concept is shared in both these traditions – Greek and Buddhist traditions being so closely interwoven in the immediate centuries after Buddha’s life, a subject I explore in my blog: Is Buddha more Western than we think? It’s also a concept wryly illuminated by the great Sufi poet Rumi, in the lines above.
I know that you, dear reader, enjoy stories and parables with a deeper meaning every much as I do. Before I share the Tibetan Buddhist metaphor, here is the story courtesy of Andrew Harvey:
BEGINNING OF EXCERPT
There is a story that I was told by an old Greek Orthodox monk that describes this joke deliciously. I was twenty-five when I met him in a monastery in central Greece; he took me to his room and gave me thick black coffee and we talked of God. He said, “Have you heard the story of Stassinopolos Street?” When I said I hadn’t, he threw up his hands in mock horror “Then you still don’t know the meaning of life.” And he began:
“There was a poor young man who lived in a village in the Pelepponese who had a dream. In it he saw a courtyard with turquoise tiles with an old man sitting on a vast pile of treasure. The old man said to him, ‘All this treasure belongs to you. Come and get it! You’ll find me at 3 Stassinopolos Street in Salonika.’ When the poor young man woke up, he leapt for joy. ‘God is good! God has told me how I can become very rich! And in such a detailed way too!’
“So he set out immediately for Salonika. Well – to cut a long story short – everything conceivable happened to him to stop him getting there for years. He was robbed, beaten, left for dead, kidnapped, sold to slavery for two decades on the Barbary Coast. As a middle-aged man, weary, disillusioned, he found himself in Salonika at last and decided, ‘What the hell, I’ll see if Stassinopolos Street really exists.’
“Well it did exist and there was a number 3. And, sure enough, when he entered through the door, he saw an old man sitting on a bench in the sunlight in a courtyard with turquoise tiles just like the old man in the dream. His heart leap with joy.