“If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” Ancient Buddhist koan.
A young Buddhist reader from West Covina, CA has asked, “is it really okay to kill the Buddha?”
MH: The key to this riddle is the prepositional phrase “on the road.” Most Buddhas hang out in museums, topiary gardens, and bad Chinese restaurants. I’ve never actually seen one on the road. Furthermore, this koan dates from a time before Get-A-Rounds (the parent company of which does not agree with the views represented on this site), those wonderful carts that seem so popular with the WalMart crowd (WalMart also disavows any association with this site). Face it, Buddha’s a pretty fat guy, even by today’s more expansive standards—if you see Buddha walking down the road, it’s not Buddha, it’s an imposter, the AntiBuddha, so of course the Buddhists want you to kill him.
And Christians, the same goes for you: If you see Christ walking down the road, you can kill him ‘cause he’s probably the AntiChrist. WARNING: If you see Jesus walking down the road, don’t kill him, ‘cause he’s probably just Latino.
Personally, my peers and I object to the term "fat." We prefer "gravitationally secure" or "cellulose positive."
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