The Tale of the Happy Buddha:
By
Theseustoo
(This story was written in response to a post by ‘Silent’, a poster on the Unleashed website; Silent was hesitantly suggesting that some Buddhists can be atheists too. Here is my response; I do hope Buddhists will understand my humorous retelling of this story, and that they will not be offended by my little tale)
Silent, your position on Buddhism puts you in the more intellectual Buddhist category. Here’s a little story, and believe it or not it’s true (more or less!):
When Buddha, after many years of sitting and meditating under the Bodhi tree, finally achieved Supreme and Ultimate Enlightenment, his followers all kept pestering him, “Master, master, please, PLEASE tell us… Just exactly what IS this Supreme and Ultimate Enlightenment?” Buddha just laughed at their folly and their laziness, “Go and find out for yourselves!” he told them.
But his followers then thought their master didn’t love them any more and started to cry… Eventually, after much more persuasion and many, many more tears, Buddha felt compassion for them and finally he relented and said, “Okay, look, what I’ll do is this: We’ll form a church, the Sangha, we’ll call it; and in it I’ll give you all a whole lot of rituals and chants and prayers and meditations; all designed to eventually bring you all to Supreme and Ultimate Enlightenment… provided you do everything I say and don’t get any of it wrong!”
“Thank you Master! Oh! Thank you Master!” the followers all cried, and started to shower the Buddha with all kinds of gifts… Day after day they brought their master lots of delicious foods including all manner of cakes and lollies. Many of them even gave him money; even though they were all very, very poor… They were so happy now they had a church which gave them a path to Supreme and Ultimate Enlightenment!
But after a while, as a result of all that extra tucker, the Buddha found that whereas he’d always been a fairly lean sort of bloke, he’d grown remarkably fat as a result of all the extra food. So to get a bit of exercise, he walked off, laughing… all the way to the bank! Then he decided he needed a holiday, so he travelled to China, where the people admired this jolly fat man and his sense of humour so much that they called him the ‘Happy Buddha’.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
Davy, when I was a boy buddha meant something else?
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But still very much ‘happy buddha’ eh, Hung?
🙂
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Hey, GO, are you home, and in one piece??
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Big M:
Thanks for your concern.
Yes, I got home still ‘entire’, nothing was cut off.
The experience was very good, hospital efficient and quick with treatment and lovely sandwiches. One side was white bread and the other side wholemeal with nice filling in between. A bit boring for the lovely H. She has the patience of a Buddha.
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…and I have been too busy with the kids, the cottage and Easter eggs to have time to check if all the bits are still there…
He might have left his heart behind, keeps talking about some lovely Persian doctor…
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Sounds by the tone of your conversations that you are BOTH still full of pith and vinegar!!
Don’t worry about that Persian doctor. Health care workers always seem so much more lovely when you’re ill. She’ll be cod ordinary at the deli.
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Ha,ha. A good story. It is apt and could apply to all churches. I would rather be an atheist than a believer and find out that angels are just bludgers with fake wings and untuned harps
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Those bludging angels.
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I’m with you on that one, Gerard! The path to ‘Enlightenment’ is an inherently individual and personal thing. In the end, though, it must free the individual from mystical superstitions; and reveal the angels’ wings for the cardboard cutouts they are; or at best, guaze stretched over a wire frame. ‘Untuned harps’ reminds me; I must put some new strings on Suzie-Girl.
The story is as true as any story about the Buddha, who at least was an historical person, of course: the Prince Siddhartha. I loved Herman Hesse’s novel ‘Siddhartha’… a very profound book.
😉
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