This Is This

Why can’t Buddhists hoover in corners?

Because they have no attachments.

Now, you can’t make jokes about Muslims or Jews, and that’s cool, but why doesn’t anyone mind joking about Buddhists. Even Buddhists laugh about it.

There’s the one about the hotdog vendor (”Make me one with everything”). We like a laugh. This site is read by quite a few fellow yakriders, and they’ll no doubt laugh along.

Prettymuchly, Buddhists are fair game. But of which that sometimes gets taken advantage.

There’s an ad for Kleenex on the telly these days which starts with a monk (shaved head and scarlet robes) walking along. Then he takes a step around a turtle, stranded and belly up. He rights it and they both go on their way. Nice.

He then rescues a spider from an uncertain perilous fate.

Then he grabs a tissue and blows his nose and then looks at the box, which says “Anti-bacterial tissues. Kills 99.8% of bacteria.” The monk, in horror, shoots a guilty look skyward. Then there’s a message comes on the screen which says “Thank goodness for forgiveness”.

You can see the ad here.

Now.

1. Bacteria are not sentient beings. You think Buddhists can’t use bleach? If you kill bacteria, your karma is intact.

2. But if you sneeze all over the place without a tissue, you spread germs and this creates suffering for others. The people around you will get your cold and pass it on to the people around them. This creates bad karma.

3. Buddhists don’t have a god. Sure, Shinto and Tibetan Buddhists believe in spirits, but not a sole deity in the sky in the theistic sense. Actually, they can have a god, but it’s not a Buddhist god. Anyway, the ad. Why is the monk looking to the sky for forgiveness? Mr Monkman? Do you think a being up above is going to help solve a bad situation that some packaging has lead you to believe you have created? You don’t need god, mate, you need a holiday.

4. Buddhists don’t have forgiveness as a value. Suffering and loving kindness, maybe, but not turning the other cheek.

You couldn’t do this ad with a rabbi or an imam, so why a Buddhist, who appears to be so devout? It’s not right, I tell you.

So I wrote a little letter to Kleenex, and bugger me if they didn’t write back.*

More tomorrow.

Don’t sniff.

*They did, by the way. It’s a figure of speech, anyway.

Apologies to Bonnie, for whom there is no 3. I’m a 3 agnostic, so I stick it in “juste comme ca”

Suffering With A Cold - Part 1
Suffering With A Cold - Part 2
Suffering With A Cold - Part 3   

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