[ExI] Enlightenment

Tomasz Rola rtomek at ceti.pl
Sat May 15 23:49:55 UTC 2010


On Fri, 14 May 2010, Adrian Tymes wrote:

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

Yep. But this is cheap reproduction of a koan. Promotional free sample.

My feeling is, destruction is ubiquitous in koans. Or about half of them 
(the better half, of course).

But you are using logic too much. Lesson? What lesson? Two pounds of salt?

Or maybe, a koan is like me. Full of destruction and violence without 
purpose. And no lesson at all. If you want something deeper, definitely 
turn your attention to people with deeper thoughts.

;-)

> 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.

Nice, you've just made a new version of the story. I think there is a lot 
of possible versions, including R-rated one. But in this case, I don't 
want to know what master did to a programmer, or wheter them both 
humiliated Buddha and how.

:-).

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             **



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