When religions are used in the process of state building, particularly transforming ethnic chiefdoms into multi-ethnic nation states, they get hijacked. The Buddha was aware of this and made some statements about it, but realized it was futile. There was no way to teach something as profound and important as he was teaching, at that time, without it being distorted and used for other means. In general, we call this 'the decay of the dharma'. He said his teaching would lose their freshness, be distorted and eventually become totally worthless, as a natural process that happens to all things.
I strongly agree with the point about jokes. That's one of my first tests for a believer - if they can't take a joke, they have nothing I want to hear. Everyone knows the joke about the Buddhist and the hotdog vendor - anyone know a good one about Islam?
"At a session devoted to bringing together different varieties of Buddhism, when it was the Zen master's time to speak, he grabbed an orange from the bowl jumped from person to person, demanding, "what IS this? what is it REALLY? what is its true NATURE?" The Tibetan whispered to his Theravada friend, "Don't they have oranges in his country?""
I strongly agree with the point about jokes. That's one of my first tests for a believer - if they can't take a joke, they have nothing I want to hear. Everyone knows the joke about the Buddhist and the hotdog vendor - anyone know a good one about Islam?
"At a session devoted to bringing together different varieties of Buddhism, when it was the Zen master's time to speak, he grabbed an orange from the bowl jumped from person to person, demanding, "what IS this? what is it REALLY? what is its true NATURE?" The Tibetan whispered to his Theravada friend, "Don't they have oranges in his country?""
My book, a setting for fantasy role playing games based on Bantu mythology: Ubantu
