Some good lines, courtesy of Tim Harkowitz.
If there is no self,
whose arthritis is this?
Be here now.
Be someplace else later.
Is that so complicated?
There is no escaping karma.
In a previous life, you never called,
you never wrote, you never visited.
And whose fault was that?
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Forget this, and attaining Enlightenment will be the least of your problems.
Be patient and achieve all things.
Be impatient and achieve all things faster.
To Find the Buddha, look within.
Deep inside you are ten thousand flowers.
Each flower blossoms ten thousand times.
Each blossom has ten thousand petals.
You might want to see a specialist.
Be aware of your body.
Be aware of your perceptions.
Keep in mind that not every physical
sensation is a symptom of terminal illness.
The Buddha taught that one should practice loving kindness to all sentient beings.
Still, would it kill you to find a nice sentient being who happens to be Jewish
The Torah says,”Love thy neighbor as thyself.
The Buddha says there is no “self.”
So maybe you are off the hook.
As someone who finds buddhism and ‘modern trendy leftism’ about on par as some of the dumbest ideologies going, I really enjoyed that.
How dull to see every single post through the lens of your own political bias. Buddhism is apparently dumb (missed his own pun here apparently) and there is an ill-defined straw-man ideology called “modern trendy leftism” that is also dumb. Jokes about Milton Friedman would not doubt be met with a stony faced silence.
The great thing about Jewish humour is that nothing is sacrosanct. I have been told that there is a special day in the Jewish calendar where you can take the piss out of anything – the Torah, the Rabbi and his daughters, your favourite pork recipes.
In the same vein as Nick’s post, here are a few Zen-inspired tips on life that have been doing the rounds of the ether. There were actually 20 of them, but I selected my 10 favourites.
1. Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either, just fuck off and leave me alone.
2. Sex is like air. It only becomes really important when you aren’t getting any.
3. Remember, no one is listening until you fart.
4. Never forget that you are unique, like everyone else.
5. If you think nobody cares whether you’re dead or alive, try missing a couple of mortgage payments.
6. Don’t aspire to become irreplaceable. If you can’t be replaced, you can’t be promoted.
7. Before you judge someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you judge them, you’re a mile away and you have their shoes.
8. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.
9. Good judgment comes from experience, experience comes from bad judgment.
10. When we are born we are naked, wet, hungry, and we get smacked on our arse. From there on in, life gets worse
..and there is another not so Zen one: “Always read books that would make you look good if you died in the middle of reading it.”