[the quote]
I have heard it a dozen times or more. Some fellow quotes,
"If you see the Buddha on the road, kill him!" and laughs.
Everytime they have been reciting the punchline from a very
long joke they do not understand. They asume it means
something about rebelling against authority or promoting
atheism or just being a crazy, mysterious Zen Bastard.
[taoism]
The Taoist ideal is not commonly reached but getting part way
there is still useful. Losing desire, following intuition,
pursuing kindness and work without expecting rewards, shrugging
off both pain and failure: each step of our journey landing
on the most natural next point without knowing or caring about
the destination. This takes us to strange places rich with
pleasant coincidence and occassional eerie synchronicity.
The essence of Taoism is ineffable, but the Lao Tsu gave it
a good try in the Tao Te Ching.
[buddhism]
Achieving full Enlightenment is not common, but the man who
became Buddha got there (long story, different day). Filled
with joy, he wanted to do the ultimate charitable act and
show Everyone how to join him there. He tried to put the
unsayable into words and write a textbook for the unteachable.
Since it was a generaly illiterate culture he made lists
suitable for memorization of the eight virtues and other paths,
setting to formulae that which has not form. I cannot say
that he failed because Buddhism is a fine guide for living
well and Playing Nice. He did not create Taoism for the
masses, however. He created Buddhism: people generaly need
simple, concrete images of the divine so they can finish off
their religious duties and get back to work each day.
(Those crops ain't going to plant themselves.)
[zen]
Eventually it became a dogmatic and stagnant religion, with
Buddha worshipped as a living god who performed miracles and
was more than human. That is excactly NOT want he wanted:
the whole point to the philosophy is that anyone can become
Enlightened. About 500 A.D. (and no, i will not say CE
and BCE) there developed a Back-to-Basics movement was called
Zen Buddhism, and it stressed not memorizing lists, not thinking
too hard and not worshipping the Buddha as a god. The Symbol
that Buddha had become was an obstical to achieving the goal of
the philosophy, and thus admonition to Kill Him. It means to
throw off the centuries of piled up dogma and go straight for
the original message.
[fin]
And that is the set up for the punchline.
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