Naigu looked into a mirror. His long nose was shorter. Before, it came down to his chin. But now it was above his lips. No one would laugh at him anymore. Naigu smiled happily at the face in the mirror. The face smiled back.
But Naigu wasn’t completely happy. He was now afraid that it would get long again. So Naigu kept touching his nose all the time. He touched it when he was praying, when he was eating, and whenever he had time. But his nose stayed short. He became so happy. His long nose was finally short. Naigu felt like he was free from his problems.
After a few days, however, Naigu found a big surprised. When Naigu went outside, people now looked at him more than before. They looked at him with funny faces. When they talked with Naigu, they only looked at his short nose. Even the young monk who had dropped Naigu’s nose into the rice porridge bowl looked down to hide his smile. But the young monk couldn'ta hide it very well, and Naigu heard him laughing. Other monks listened well while Naigu talked, but they too would start to laugh after Naigu left. This happened not only once, but many times.
At first, Naigu thought it was because his face had changed. His nose was shorter, so it must look strange to them. But something was different. The way they laughed at him was different from when his nose was long. During his daily prayers, Naigu thought, I don't understand. They didn’t laughed at me like that before.
Naigu looked at a picture of a Buddhist statue and thought long and hard. He thought back four or five days earlier when his nose was still long. Now he was like a poor person who used to be rich. He was sad looking back to the good all old days. Naigu didn’t understand at all. Why were people laughing at him more now? Unfortunatly, Naigu didn’t have the wisdom to understand.
People often have opposite feelings inside. If they see someone in trouble, they feel sorry for that person. But at the same time, if that peoron succeeds in getting out of the trouble and becomes happy, they feel unsatisfied. If we say it in an exaggerated way, people might want that person to become sad and in trouble again. And if that feeling gets bigger, they start to feel that person is their enemy. People are hard to understand sometimes. Naigu had felt this without understanding it. He had thought people would be happy because he was happy. But they weren’t.