When you are traveling on the path to enlightenment...

[alexandraerin]

...if you should meet the Buddha on the road, tell him he's heading in the wrong direction.

It's only polite.

"Yo, dude. Enlightenment's that way!"

Comments

[mazzon.livejournal.com]

But if it's really Buddha you meet, then isn't it most likely that he's already been there and is just on his way back home?

[blue-x.livejournal.com]

Lin Chi (Zen master, 800s I think) is quoted as saying, "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." So I think the point is, you shouldn't assume he's doing the right thing at all.

[mazzon.livejournal.com]

Perhaps so. Then again, my mom always told me not to take advice from people who advocate murdering people you meet on the road.
Well, except mimes of course.

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

How would you take advice from a mime?

[rhakash.livejournal.com]

Well, I guess he just hands it to you...

(and now I feel very dirty inside for having made such a cheap pun)

[mazzon.livejournal.com]

That part isn't really obvious to me. Which is kind of the point, see? If you actually do get advice from a mime somehow, it's a rare and prescious event that's unlikely to ever come your way again. Plus the advice is probably something really important for the mime to deviate from their usual creepy antics to get it across.
And that is why mime advice should be taken, even though usually listening to folks advocating roadside violence is bad.

[ego-sideways.livejournal.com]

If you should meet the Buddha on the road, ask him for his re-entry bracelet. The Buddha has double-jointed thumbs and thick wrists, so you should be able to get in free.