5. Mind works in humorous ways

Read following two stories. In what way are they similar?

---
A Zen fable I read in a book:

The pupils of the Tendai school used to study meditation before Zen entered Japan. Four of them, who were immediate friends, promised one another to observe seven days of silence.

On the first day all were silent, but when the night came and the oil lamps were growing dim, one of the pupils could not help exclaiming to a servant: "Fix those lamps."

The second pupil was surprised to hear the first one talk. "We are not supposed to say a word," he remarked.

"You two are stupid. Why did you talk?" asked the third.

"I am the only one who has not talked - thank God!" concluded the fourth.

---
A humorous story I read on the web:

In an ancient monastery in a faraway place, a new monk arrived to join his brothers in copying books and scrolls in the monastery's scriptorium. He was assigned as a rubricator on copies of books that had already been copied by hand.

One day he asked Father Florian (the Armarius of the Scriptorium), "Does not the copying by hand of other copies allow for chances of error? How do we know we are not copying the mistakes of someone else? Are they ever checked against the original?"

Fr. Florian is set back a bit by the obvious logical observation of this youthful monk. "A very good point, my son. I will take one of the latest books down to the vault and compare it against the original."

Fr. Florian went down to the secured vault and began his verification. After a day had passed, the monks began to worry and went down looking to the old priest. They were sure something must have happened. As they approached the vault, they heard sobbing and crying. When they opened the door, they found Fr. Florian sobbing over the new copy and the original ancient book, both of which were opened before him on the table. It was obvious to all that the poor man had been crying his old heart out for a long time.

"What is the problem Reverend Father?" asked one of the monks.
"Oh, my Lord," sobbed the priest, "the word is 'celebrate'!"

---

This is what I can say about the similarity of the two stories:

In both stories, the lead characters failed to understand the very essence of their abstinence; they were supposed to do their abstinence (silence in the first fable, and celibacy in the second) at the thought level!