Tuesday, April 27, 2004

Does Garlic Cheese Bread Have the Buddha-Nature?

Dale writes about the concept of "enlightenment."
It's curious how much attention people who don't practice in the Buddhist tradition give to the concept of "enlightenment," and how little people who do practice give it. You would think it would be the other way around: that those people who are most interested in enlightenment would be those who would most want to practice. But in fact a dead giveaway of a person who's new to Buddhist practice is that they have lots of questions about enlightenment. Does it include this? Does it look like that? And of course what the questions give you is a precise map of their obsessive cravings and fears. Does it include romantic love? Oral sex? Garlic cheese bread? Does it look like loneliness? Boredom? Indifference?

If enlightenment doesn't include anchovies, you can keep it.

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