Posted by Magdalene on October 1st, 2008
Wtf did the Buddha do to deserve this ignominious fate? Two lovely ladies in Derby, Kansas, were about to fry up some tomatoes when they discovered the face of the Enlightened One in vegetable form.
Not being ones to waste an opportunity—the opportunity to receive wisdom being a bit wasted on these self-declared Christians—Tomato Buddha immediately went on eBay, where, filed under “fruit, religious” he has so far received zero bids (and let’s keep it that way, clickers). I speculate this is because the central tenet of Buddhism is that the Buddha achieved nirvana, the final liberation from, you know, here. If the Buddha suddenly gets reborn as a tomato, something’s dreadfully wrong with his information on ending the cycle of death and rebirth.
So, um, lol, ladies. Contrary to your claim that “this is the real Buddha”, what you’ve got on your hands is a bodhisattva at best. If he doesn’t sell, pay attention to what he has to say, because he’s compassionately chosen to delay his entry into nirvana to teach you something. Thank god you didn’t eat him.
Tags: apparition, Buddha, eBay, funny, holy fruit, manifestation, tomato
Category: Buddhism, Humor
Posted by Reason on August 10th, 2008
A nice set of images of the world’s tallest Buddha, 233ft/71 metres (seated, no less), in Leshan, Sichuan, China.
The groovy thing about this massive stone monument is that it was built in 713 to spiritually aid local sailors who frequently drowned in the surrounding rough river waters - turns out the debris from the carving that landed below actually made things safer for river travel, plugging up holes and such. Not a miracle, but kind of nice nonetheless - an example of man projecting his needs onto “god” and then making them happen for himself 
Tags: Buddha, coincidence, monumnet, statue
Category: Buddhism
Posted by Reason on July 17th, 2008
![]()
Only 800 years young, the unique Buddhism of Japan may soon fade from memory, according to the New York Times. The land that brought us Zen is turning away from Enlightenment and looking towards…cremation.
An intersection of forces - low birth rates in rural areas, historically family-run temples with no sons willing to take over the business, and a trend away from $20k+ Buddhist funerals (and towards the pernicious, pervasive & persistent funeral industry’s rent-a-monks) combine to oust the peaceful path from modern Japanese life. Truly, “funeral Buddhism”, so-called because the funeral was the last real bastion of the practice, lost it’s spiritual power after WWII, when close ties with the Japanese military exposed a certain hypocrisy. Honourable Buddhist names were bestowed on dead soldiers, and soon the selling of such names became a mere transaction.
You can see on this map the current distribution of Buddhism. I wonder if the complexity of the philosophy is also contributing to it’s demise in Japan; if this most industrialized, computerized, and futuristic of the Asian Buddhist nations has an attention span anything like ours in North America, there may not be time to work towards satori in between text messaging and reading novels on your cell phone.
Tags: Buddhism, History, Japan
Category: Buddhism, History
Recent Comments