My favorite Buddhist tale is that of the Chinese monk Birdsnest, so called because he always hung out in a tree.
Now, Birdsnest was famous and highly regarded, and a governor heard of him and decided to seek him out. The governor travelled for days to reach birdsnest, and when he arrived, he asked “hey, birdsnest, what was it that all the Buddhas taught?” Basically, dude was asking for a one sentence summary of religion, like the famous tale of economic study resulting in the one sentence summary of “no such thing as a free lunch”.
Birdsnest answered “Don’t do bad things, only do good things.”
The governor scoffed, and said “my three year old nephew knows that!”
“Easy enough for the three year old to understand,” Birdsnest retorted, “but still very difficult for the sixty year old to do.”
I felt a bit sympathetic to Buddhism up to the point when I actually visited a Buddhist temple and listened to the speeches of monks.
The amount of brain rot disguised as wisdom has made me feel Christianity ain’t that bad after all.
Sorry in advance to any Buddhist out there, but it struck me how the common perception of it differs from the actual thing.
As a Buddhist it definitely varies like any religion. There are some bozo temples out there
Out of curiosity, which Buddhist tradition was this temple out of? I’ve had similar experience, but I get the feeling like Buddhist thought might be about as diverse as Christian.
It’s much more diverse than Christianity, actually. Buddhism isn’t so much a religion in the judeochristian sense as a characteristic that many religions have. There are Buddhist traditions that worship gods, there are godless Buddhist traditions that worship the Buddha, and ones thay don’t even worship the Buddha but just think he was a pretty wise dude. Some require you to meditate daily, others to chant some mantras, and there are Buddhist traditions like Zen that worship nothing and are all about getting your head out of your ass.
Bible stories are the same way, we’ve just heard them a million times so they don’t seem weird
“Hey Jesus what toppings do you want for pizza?”
“Plain with cheese”
Later the disciples are eating pizza with Jesus
"“Hey Jesus why did you say you like cheese pizza when you normally order pepperoni?”
“You dumb fucks how dare you not understand my hidden meaning, I am the true pizza and you are the pepperoni, the grease is my blood”
“Oh of course, sorry boss”
Its almost like nonsensical parables are a recurring theme in religions in general and we shouldn’t be assuming a bunch of mystical morons from a thousand years ago knew any better.
A lot of the “nonsensical” comes from translation issues.
You’re not a Hebrew farmer living in the middle east 2000 years ago, and the parable has been translated from ancient Hebrew to Greek, then to Latin, then finally into English.
The same goes for buddhist parables
I’ve read that some of these parables originally had clever word play.
