---Right on, Rev. Genryu. You tell it as it is, not how it ain't.:) Guy
In [email protected], "Rev. Genryu" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Pissing off the 'Buddhists' - Brad Warner > > Guys who like to run around telling their friends they're Buddhists have to work very hard at keeping up a certain pose. They've got this special "Buddhist" way of talking, kinda like Mr. Rogers as a guest on a New age talk show quoting lines from Richard Gere movies. Then there's this little smile they've got stapled to their faces at all times to tell the world they've achieved a rare state of inner peace and enlightenment. Maybe they think they're fooling their friends. But that shit never fooled anyone. You can tell it's really rough keeping up the pose by the way they've permanently stiffened their facial muscles into that cute little grin so hard it looks like a plastic mask. > > People like this would be massively annoying if they weren't so God damned funny. Whenever I get around a group of them I always feel like I've walked into a convention of teddy bear collectors or maybe a baby powder factory or something. It's like they've created this intensively cute fantasy world in which there are no sharp edges and everything is all soft and warm. They love you. They love me. They love the Bush administration. They love Saddam Hussein. Lots and lots of icky sticky gushy sugary sweet love. You better not do anything to contradict their fantasy or they'll -- oh my God -- they'll shoot love beams at you to melt your cold hard heart (You think I'm kidding? I've actually had "Buddhists" try to shoot imaginary love beams at me out of their eyes -- No joke!). > > Guys like this always want to give you their teachings. No matter what you say to them, it's an opportunity for them to point out where you're wrong and how your life would be so much better if you could only learn to be just like them. "I've got this hangnail," you say. And they come right back at you with, "The body is but an immaterial object, remain in the now and do not be bothered by its sensations." Hey, just lend me some nail clippers and shut the fuck up, OK? > > The thing that makes it real fun to piss phony Buddhists off is the fact that when they get pissed off, it's not enough for them to just be pissed off. They're also pissed off because they're pissed off. And they're pissed off that they're pissed off that they're pissed off. And... well, you get it, it just goes on like that forever. > > Plus they're extra especially pissed off that the guy who's pissing them off claims to be an ordained Buddhist priest, something they've fantasized about becoming for years. Maybe they've never even actually met a Buddhist priest before. But they know exactly what they're supposed to be like. Buddhists priests are supposed to be safe for guys like this. They're supposed to agree with whatever they say. They're supposed to be lovey dovey people who'd never do or say anything that could ever bother anyone. > > When I used to get these just absolutely poisonously angry e-mails from guys like this, I made the mistake of saying stuff like, "I'm very sorry what I wrote upset you." Really, though, I meant it. > > But boy does that ever tick off a "Buddhist!" The last thing they'll admit to anyone in the world is that something yanked their chain. They're above that sort of thing, you see, since Buddhism showed them The Light. And they consider it an insult to be apologized to. So now not only are they so mad they could spit (and even madder at the fact that they're mad in the first place), they have to pretend they're not mad, which gets them even hotter under the collar. Reading what they write I swear I can hear them just slamming away at their keyboards like Sean Penn wailing on some tabloid reporter's face. > > I'd like to believe maybe a couple of these guys took a few deep breaths and thought to themselves, "Hey, maybe there's a little problem here." But I tend to doubt it. See, they'd already figured out what the problem was. It's that guy who writes the stupid Buddhist web page! Buddhism is supposed to calm you, soothe you. It's supposed to be stilling. Kind of like a lullaby from mommy. When someone starts using Buddhism in a way that makes people angry - - especially people who've devoted so much time and effort to memorizing every little tid-bit in every book at the local Barnes and Nobles with "Zen" in the title -- well, that's (pant, gasp) that's just... (twitch, twitch) that's just not right! > > But that kind of gooey candy coated garbage isn't Buddhism at all. Buddhism is realism. And reality is rarely soothing. It's not a warm fuzzy blanket you can curl up into. Sometimes it's ice cold and hard as a rock. It's got all kinds of jagged edges and nasty little pointy bits that can scrape you up pretty bad. Ah, but here's where Buddhism comes in. That stuff can only hurt you when you believe it's something different from you. When you discover that that coldness, those jaggedy edges, all those nasty little things you wish you could avoid are really just you, when you see that what's hurting you isn't the stuff outside, but your reaction to the stuff you encounter, then everything changes. Inner balance doesn't come from finding a clever way of hiding from or steeling yourself up against what you don't like in life. It comes from facing it head on. > > Nishijima once said to me, "It's important to face hated information." I'd been talking to him about some stuff which I found very disturbing to read about. His advice was to read as much of that stuff as I could get my hands on. And y'know, when I did that, I started to see right through that stuff, to see that what I thought was powerful and even dangerous to my psyche was really nothing at all. Just words typed by some human being who saw the world in a certain way. Big, fat, hairy deal. > > If my "Buddhist" friends out there in computer land were able to see things in a realistic way, they'd see that that's all my writing was too. Just words. What's far more important than reacting to words is to see just how that process of reacting to words works. You've got to say to yourself, "Who am I? And why is it that I'm getting this kind of a reaction to what I'm reading?" Why is it so important for you to establish that these words are WRONG. Why do you feel the need to try and silence those who say the things you don't like? Or on the other side what is it that makes you think certain words are right, that they're beautiful and stilling. What is it that drives you to seek out stilling, calming words while doing your utmost to avoid anything that disturbs you? > > I hate bigotry, racism, sexism and just plain stupidity and ignorance in whatever flavor it comes. For years I tried to shout it down. I wished I had the power to somehow rip the larynxes out of every member of the Moral Majority or the NRA, to break all their fingers so they could never even type their poison words again. My change of mind about this began when I watched a public access cable TV show produced by the KKK. The thing was so utterly stupid I was glad no one censored it. I think the people with the dumbest, most ignorant, most asshole-ish beliefs should be given free prime-time network access. There would be no better way to show the world just how stupid their ideas really are than to let them explain it for themselves. (Actually when I get tapes of American TV from friends, I wonder if this isn't already happening.) > > I know what you're thinking, sometimes jerks like these can be very convincing, if not to a majority then to a fanatical minority who are crazy enough to start trying to put those idiotic notions into practice. BRING 'EM ON, THEN! The idiots out there who'd fall for drivel like that are out there anyway, make them show themselves so the rest of us can identify the bastards and remove them from our midst. The sooner, the better. > > Cuz believe it or don't, there always have been and there always will be a lot more sensible people in the world than there are idiots. I know that's hard to believe when you're standing in line at the post office with exact change in your hand waiting to buy three stamps and there are twelve morons in front of you with unwrapped wooden ponies for their nephews in Peoria going, "Do you have a box this can fit in?" But I still believe there are more basically intelligent people than there are complete dumb-asses. And that means that in terms of sheer numbers alone we have the advantage. Truth is power. It's the Ultimate Power. Just try going against it. You'll always fail. > > Always. > > > Would it be possible to cease and desist with your > incessant new age Deepak Chopra 'wrinkless wisdom' > types of assaults? This is a forum dedicated to the > practice of Dharma, not some brainless 'discover > yourself' crapola. > > Alex > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> In low income neighborhoods, 84% do not own computers. 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