Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Jewish Buddhism

I received this recently in an email and if someone knows the source I would gladly give it the correct attribution.

THE PRINCIPLES OF JEWISH BUDDHISM

1. Let your mind be as a floating cloud. Let your stillness be as the wooded glen. And sit up straight. You'll never meet the Buddha with such round shoulders.

2. There is no escaping karma. In a previous life, you never called, you never wrote, you never visited. And whose fault was that?

3. Wherever you go, there you are. Your luggage is another story.

4. To practice Zen and the art of Jewish motorcycle maintenance, do the
following: get rid of the motorcycle. What were you thinking?

5. If there is no self, whose arthritis is this?

6. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Forget to do this and attaining Enlightenment will be the least of your problems.

7. The Tao has no expectations. The Tao demands nothing of others. The Tao does not speak. The Tao does not blame. The Tao does not take sides. The Tao is not Jewish.

8. Drink tea and nourish life. With the first sip, joy. With the second, satisfaction. With the third, Danish.

9. 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?

10. Be patient and achieve all things. Be impatient and achieve all things faster.

11. Be here now. Be someplace else later. Is that so complicated?

12. Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkes! [i.e., "a hill of beans" or "nothing" -- for Yiddish-deprived people].

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