Letters to the Editor
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Awesomely Insane
I have no idea where this post came from, Andrew, but it's a great story.
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Like Basho's frog jumping into the pond...
...Perhaps someone is trying to tell you something. You wouldn't be the first to achieve satori through a sudden sound, but the decapitated heads of children bouncing off of a Buddha's belly might be one for the books.
The Buddha laughs, but whether he is laughing with you or at you is up to you. In other words, time for a crappy haiku!
Jade heads tumble down
Truly wisdom falls like rain
Aiya! Can't hear sans coffee...
But on to more a important matter than breaking the cycle of reincarnation, what model coffee maker do you use? Mine has a timer of course, which I can hardly be bothered to set as it is, but using the sound of grinding beans as a wake up call is brilliant. I must try that.
Cheers
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Suggestion
Replace the baby heads with Barbie heads. Or leave them headless and take some red nail polish and paint the stumpy necks. Did I mention I am still single?
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HAS HE BEEN TAKING SMIRKING LESSONS FROM Bush & McPAIN?????
WELL, Andrew, YOUR "MONK WITH THE CALICO BAG*"
KNOWN IN BOTH CHINA & JAPAN, WITH BIG BELLY SAG!
MAKE A WISH WHEN YA RUB HIS BELLY
AND THEN LOOK AT THE NEWS ON THE TELLY!
LO & BEHOLD, SEE THE NAKED FAGS Bush & McPAIN PLAYING A ROUND OF TAG!!!!!
*-The Monk with the Cloth Bag. He was a Buddhist monk who was a native of Chekiang Province in China, an itinerant who begged for alms and wandered about propagating the Buddhist Teachings at the end of the Tang Dynasty and the beginning of the Wu Tai Dynasty. He was dressed only in thin monk's robes but could lie on the snow without getting cold or wet, and was also clairvoyant, able to forsee the future. One story says that he had an eye on his back. Besides being a yogi, he was also a learned man, but everyone addressed him as PU TAI, "calico bag" or "cloth bag" after the large bundle he carried with him wherever he went. He soon became worshipped as the incarnation of Maitreya, the Buddha of the Future Age.
It is possible that the his fat belly is symbolic of the Chinese idiom that is used to express someone who is exceedinly tolerant, "has a big stomach." PU TAI the monk may really have been fat, or since Maitreya is both a bodhisattva, a Buddhist saviour being with limitless compassion that is fated to become the Buddha of the Future Age, the quality of character that is shown by an actual "big stomach" is further emphasized by the laughing expression and a version that has numerous, little children swarming over him. As "Laughing Buddha," he is called in one Chinese transliteration, "Ta-pao Mi-Lei-Fo," or "GREAT TREASURE MAITREYA BUDDHA."
The fat belly and the children later led women to rub the belly of images of PU TAI Mi-Lei-Fo in hopes of conceiving children through his supernatural power influence. PU TAI is also worshipped as one of the SEVEN GOOD LUCK GODS OF JAPAN, or SHICHIFUKU-JIN, and is known as HOTEI in Japan. [REFERENCED FROM www.khandro.net/deity_maitreya.htm]
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Ho-tai? Lo-tai?
I've always been fond of the guy who would consume a peach from the crotch of his lover. Dream of Red Mansions?
Geming bushi qingke chifan.
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Buddha Laughing
Thank you! You have set me laughing and rubbing my own belly. Good start to the day. I have consistently requested of the cat sleeping on my pillow that he get up and make me some coffee. He just wants a belly rub, too, so he can go back to sleep.