[ExI] Enlightenment

[Adrian Tymes]

--- On Fri, 5/14/10, Tomasz Rola <rtomek at ceti.pl> wrote:
> 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.

The difference is, in the zen stories, there is a lesson to
be learned - which the master demonstrated without excessive
cost.  For instance, in the story you cite, the master could
be pointing out that one may be "armed" when surrounded by
objects that can be picked up, yet the student was insisting
that "armed" only counts if one has something the student
thinks of as a weapon.  (Or, as Jackie Chan has demonstrated
repeatedly: anything can be a weapon.)

In your example, there is no lesson, only destruction of
everything the programmer has done.  Though it could be
altered to include a lesson:

A programmer asked whether a computer had Buddha's nature.
The master replied, "You have spent all your time with us
on philosophy instead of working," and did "rm -rif" on
the programmer's home directory.  The programmer became
enlightened.