What Makes You Not a Buddhist

[athenaltena]

By chance yesterday I found the book What Makes You Not a Buddhist by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse (good luck pronouncing that) in the GCC library, and I've been glued to it ever since. It's certainly well written, and uses the type of humor that Buddhists are apparently famous for.

For instance, I actually laughed out loud when he said this about showing truth to people just beginning the study of Buddhism: "But of course, you can't just show the truth to Jack right at the beginning, because Jack is an idiot." It wasn't said at all in a mocking or scornful way, but in brutally honest way. Apparently when my Dad interviewed the Dalai Lama several years ago he got a similar sort of response about why China is still in Tibet after Chairman Mao said they'd be out in fifty years: "Yes, Chairman Mao did say that then. But now Chairman Mao is dead!" *laughter*

This author, who is a monk himself, also uses lots and lots of stories to illustrate his points, most of them funny. Given that I tend to learn and remember things like that it's a match made it heaven -- granted that Heaven itself doesn't exist in Buddhism, nor does Hell -- and today at work I managed to get through about 2/3 of the book before I left.

As for whether I am a Buddhist or not... I'm still not sure, but I certainly already apply a lot of the ideas of in within my own life. There's also a wonderful quote in there about how Buddhism itself is only a temporary state, and that the goal is essentially to not need it anymore. That's what I love about it, really, the fact that the profound and humorous exist both side by side and within each other. :)

Comments

[le-section-8.livejournal.com]

...sorry, I must have read that wrong, because I thought you said that your DAD interviewed the Dali Lama, which would make him awesome.

Buh?

[athenaltena.livejournal.com]

He really did in the late 1970s. His Holiness (the Dalai Lama, not my Dad) occasionally visits this area because there's a pagoda in one of the neighboring towns and he knows members of the academia in this area. When my Dad interviewed him he was staying at an inn in one of the bigger towns while visiting a friend of his at a university and offered to have an interview done.

[roan-inish.livejournal.com]

Hmm... Must check that book out.

I'd love to meet the Dali Lama himself someday. :)