[ExI] Enlightenment

Tomasz Rola rtomek at ceti.pl
Fri May 14 14:27:18 UTC 2010


On Fri, 14 May 2010, Ben Zaiboc wrote:

> I'm a little intrigued by Tomasz's email sig:
> 
> ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
> ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
> ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
> 
> 
> It seems to me that either it should be "And then the computer became 
> enlightened", or that englightenment = rage, rather than nirvana. 
> 
> Ben Zaiboc

I am mimicking some koan/zen stories. Those in which, say, master kicks a 
stone and a pupil becomes enlightened, or pupil wants to hit master with a 
stick and master defends himself with a pot in which case pupil is in 
tears and goes into enlightment. In zen, enlightment is important but 
nobody knows why until s/he becomes enlightened. If I understand the word 
"rage", it has or has not much to do with it. No good answer.

So, nothing intriguing here. Just a computer, Buddha, master and wondering 
C programmer. A computer is or is not enlightened simply by being a 
computer. Depending on how one sees it. A programmer, well, that's a 
different story.

I don't think I can explain it better. Sorry if I left you intrigued :-).

In case you are curious but too shy - I am not enlightened, I am just 
kicking stones to see what happens. Nothing zenish here. My leg hurts.

Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **



More information about the extropy-chat mailing list