Koans are designed to be given by a teacher to a student when the teacher personally assesses that the student could benefit from considering it. They’re also designed to not be comprehensible rationally or immediately, but rather to prompt introspection and to get someone to reflect on their own thought patterns. You can’t just rip them out of that context while not understanding the belief system and treat them like a riddle from Reader’s Digest and expect to get anything out of them.
Buddha orders a pizza: "Make me One with Everything"
Submitted 2 weeks ago by Godric@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/c876a1cb-6f28-453d-8999-9e65e5053d00.png
Comments
Objection@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Akasazh@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I admire your knowledge of Buddhist theory.
But this is a shit post community so it’s as unserious as the most zen person in the world.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
Balinares@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
Fair, although I wouldn’t assume there is zero overlap between Zen and shitposting. Discordianism for instance is – possibly – a sort of DIY Zen shaped like a shitpost, though the jury’s still out on whether it’s just a shitpost shaped like a sort of DIY Zen.
Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
I once came to understand the answer to the classic: “Show me the face you had before your parents were born.” koan. One of the most amazing experiences of my life - the golden needle penetrated the veil of my mind.
I could tell you my answer but it would seem trivial and uninteresting. The answer has to be grokked (fuck you, Elon).
JackbyDev@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
…and the Lemming was enlightened
cattywampas@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
A Buddhist monk walks up to a hot dog stand and says “Make me one with everything.”
Davel23@fedia.io 2 weeks ago
The hot dog vendor hands over the sausage and bun with all the trimmings, and the Buddhist hands over a twenty. The vendor pockets it.
The Buddhist asks “Where’s my change?” and the vendor replies “change must come from within”.
tetrachromacy@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Then the Buddhist pulls out a pistol and sights it on the hot dog vendor. The vendor holds up his hands and says, “Whoa, whatever happened to inner peace?”
The Buddhist replies, “This is my inner piece.”
inbn@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Reminds me of this excellent video of a newscaster trying to tell a version of this joke to the actual Dalai Lama and absolutely flopping
TargaryenTKE@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
That was honestly painful to watch but oh man was it funny 🤣
nanometer1625@thelemmy.club 2 weeks ago
A buddha walks into a sculpting studio and says “Make me.”
MutantTailThing@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Buddha did say you could put whatever you want on your pizza, even if he himself didn’t like it, which is pretty fucking based as far as religions go.
alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Buddha never had someone order durian pizza for the group.
hansolo@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
The most Zen thing would be to eat it all up, every bite, and say nothing since obviously durian pizza for the group would be intended to get a rise from them. You accept the adversity, and learn never to let that guy order pizza for the group ever again.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
Why are all buddhist stories like this?
Anon has apparently never read a buddhist story
Hoimo@ani.social 2 weeks ago
If you have to ask… then you don’t know
I was reading some Proverbs (Bible 1) in a simplified translation and every second verse is a straight tautology. Better translations use phrasing and rhyme to hide it, but people love platitudes and will meme them into a global religion.
JackbyDev@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
It is what it is!
Hoimo@ani.social 2 weeks ago
I hadn’t even seen the episode yet! Michael Vsauce doesn’t have to ask, so he must know.
But I don’t think it’s very wise to say the same thing twice, it just highlights that there is no actual argument. At least “it is what it is” says something about things outside of our control. When it’s “An honest witness tells the truth, but a false witness tells lies.”, I’m just left there thinking “yeah… I guess that’s what words mean.”
ulterno@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
If it had so many straight tautologies, are you sure it was not a sort of dictionary?
emptiness@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
That’s Zen Buddhism which is like that.
Theravada Buddhism is different, it’s actually comprehensible.
db2@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
If you meet the Buddha on the road, tell him I said hi.
Godric@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
If you meet Buddha on the road, fucking shank that bitch, he owes me $20
emptiness@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Sure thing
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
You haven’t read much Abhidharma if “comprehensible” is how you would describe Theravada.
Not saying anything is wrong with Theravada. Entire cultures are built on its principles. But it takes a surface-level glance to think of it as something simple and easy to understand.
Zen though, most of the teachings are about pedagogical methods rather than doctrine. That’s why it sounds weird to westerners who think of “religion” as dusty old books and priests who tell you what to do/think.
Zen teachings literally tell you “Don’t cling to fixed ideas. Don’t seek answers from some external authority figure.” Everything they teach is about guiding you to internalize those things. It’s about showing, not telling.
So expecting it to “make sense” in the lens of “just let me read a book that will tell me what to believe” is already starting from the wrong foot.
A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Rinzai Zen to be specific. Soto Zen doesnt emphasize koans.
zimy@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Mahayana can be pretty out there too.
Siddhattha overhears these doubts being expressed so he takes of his clothes, spreads his legs and shows the ladies what is there - and what was there is his kosohitavatthaguyha glowing with a golden light. Then a lotus appeared and from its centre a baby boy’s penis emerges which gradually grows into an adult’s. More lotuses appear, each with a bodhisattva in it. The sutra doesn’t record what the ladies-in-waiting said about this extraordinary exhibition
Bluewing@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I just have 2 verses in my personal book of Philosophy and Words to Live By.
Verse 1: If you think you understand what’s going on, you haven’t been paying attention.
Verse 2: There is no situation that is so bad that it can’t get worse. And it’s about to get worse.
emeralddawn45@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Reminds me of the kind of think you’d read in a Douglas Adams book.
YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Scientist theorize that if we knew why the
bowl of petuniaspiles of shit thought this, we’d have a better understanding of the universe.
InputZero@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
My preferred version of verse two is: There isn’t anything you can’t blow up twice.
Bluewing@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
My verse 2 stems from when I was a medic back in the day, and we got paged for a “don’t feel so good” call. We got there and the patient was visually not in the best shape. I decided we were upgrading the call to a “swoop and scoop” to hit the road to the hospital with little delay.
We were lifting that patient out of her recliner and turning her enough to sit her down on the cot when she literally died right then and there. Which of course got the patient another upgrade from the “swoop and scoop” to “Oh shit! Oh shit! We gotta go! We gotta go now!” which also adds the “Inject ALL the diesel!” upgrade for the driver.
A quick check found no pulse or respirations. So I started CPR and my partner grabbed the 12 lead to get the big pads if we needed to shock and placed the pads. I did 2 rounds of CPR and we hit the analyze button. Which said no shock. And a quick check of the patient’s vitals showed everything was working again. If in a bit of a sketchy fashion.
We got loaded and roared off in a cloud of diesel smoke and made the 20 mile trip to the hospital with little delay and no worsening of the patient’s condition. After radioing in to the hospital with a patient report, the patient was met with all hands on deck at the door when we arrived.
I heard the patient died about 2 months later in a nursing home. One of the perks of working rural EMS where you work on family and friends.
And thus, rule #2 was born.
btsax@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
You (self) will never achieve nirvana (enlightenment) unless your Buddhist (eastern religion) stories have a bunch of untranslated Sanskrit (language) words in them that the translator (language expert) was too lazy (high on their own farts) to translate (explain). So every Buddhist buddhavacana (text) reads like this
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
Honestly if I’m reading a translation, I’d rather read “sunyata” than “emptiness,” rather read “skandhas” than “aggregates,” rather read “prajna” than “wisdom”, etc…
“Emptiness” has a range of meanings in English that distract from what’s indicated by “sunyata.” A cup is empty after I drink it. Lacking any permanent/inherent/essential nature is sunyata.
“Aggregate” is what you put in concrete to give the cement something to bind to. “Skandhas” are the aspects of identity that we tend to conflate as an essential self-image; i.e. body, sensation, perception, cognition, and awareness (now be grateful I didn’t say rupa, vedana, samjna, samskara, and vijnana).
“Prajna” is a direct insight into the nature of reality that defies verbal explanation. “Wisdom” is a loaded term with many possibile meanings, including the unsolicited advice that your older family members get upset when you promptly ignore, the inane tautologies that a preacher spoon-feeds his unquestioning flock every Sunday, or even the snakepit of discursive reasoning that’s come to be known as “philosophy” in the west. Prajna is none of those things, and the closest any of them come is probably when Plato says true philosophers are derided as cloud-gazers.
So you see, when translators choose to preserve a Sanskrit or a Pali word, it’s not them being lazy. It’s them deciding that English (or the language they’re translating to) doesn’t have an equivalent concept, and that it’s better for the reader to learn a new word with its full range of associations, rather than try to squeeze so many layers of meaning into an existing English word that is already loaded with pre-conceived notions.
refreeze@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know
kestrel7_7@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Unless you can master your anger, your anger will become your master
CrimeIsLegalNow@ani.social 2 weeks ago
But the guy who said that was speaking
Wunz@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Unless he wrote it down.
username_1@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
Note to myself: Do not put pineapple on pizza in presence of Buddha.
AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I was gifted a book called “Pointing at the Moon” that was filled with these things. Stuff like "A student was asked by a master, “what was you’re face before you were born? The student walked to a river, saw his face reflected in the water, and was enlightened.” Like wtf is that supposed to mean? Lol.
I didn’t even understand the title of the book until I saw this meme.
Balinares@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
The idea is that those are supposed to make you understand something that does not fit in your existing thinking habits. So they’re puzzling all right, and the idea is you reflect on them over and over, for as long as it takes, until epiphany strikes, and you get it in a way that would be hard to achieve with words alone, and unlocks thinking about things in new ways.
So for instance, in this case, the words “What was your face before you were born?” would not be the titular moon, but the finger pointing at the moon. Reading them and responding to that with “WTF, it’s not the moon, it’s just a fucking finger” is a natural immediate reaction, I suppose, especially if your were taught highly materialist thinking habits, though I’ve found there’s value in unlearning that reaction.
ulterno@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
To the person who replies to this, with a 4 dimensional “TRUTH” of this 3 dimensional TRUE projection, please ping me too.
Agent641@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
If you immediately know the candlelight is fire, the meal was cooked a long time ago
Pupschism@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Zen buddhism kōans are intentionally incomprehensible www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p5Oi4wPVVo
Sly2@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Everyone here is wrong and the gum on your shoe is a rock on your Lake. If you look at it.
Hupf@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
If you immediately know the candlelight is fire, then the meal was cooked a long time ago.
Sly2@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yes but yet A tree has leaves even when you eat dinner.
dylanTheDeveloper@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Then buddha detonates 20 old people
Hanrahan@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Australian Buddhism is much easier to understand
- don’t be a cunt
- see #1
alas, not many practitioners.
pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Chat is this real? Which Buddhist stories are like this?
abc@suppo.fi 2 weeks ago
They’re the OG postmodernists
softwarist@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
I think I can explain. In Buddhism, you have to understand if he didn’t the last into the pizza, but from where I stand it simply is. I hope that helps.
resipsaloquitur@lemmy.cafe 2 weeks ago
Yes.
MasutaHarada@thelemmy.club 2 weeks ago
Because in retrospect , juat because you know and understand , doesn’t mean other side willing to do the same when you convey it to them in your way, you need to somehow make other understand in their way and miraculously result in same understanding. Now it doesn’t need to be miracle if the one that both need to understand is the truth.
Pizza!
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Godric@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I love how, even never having read this before, I know it’s Terry Pratchett
RaoulDook@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Here’s a legit Zen koan that fits the bill:
Mumonkan number 14: Nansen kills the cat
Once the monks of the Western and Eastern Halls were arguing about a cat. Nansen, holding up the cat, said, “You monks! If you can say a word of Zen, I will spare the cat. Otherwise I will kill it.” No one could answer, so Nansen cut the cat in two. That evening, when Joshu returned, Nansen told him of the incident. Joshu thereupon took off his sandal, put it on his head, and walked off. Nansen said, “If you had been there, the cat would have been saved!”