jen's everyday blog

Killing the Buddha

An interesting website for those of us raised in ambiguously religious households. My singing friends might enjoy this article about singing Christian music when you aren’t Christian. I had this experience when singing the Messiah these past two years.

The name of the website comes from a Buddhist koan. There are various versions the simplest of which is “If you meet the Buddha, kill him.” Another version from this site is: When you meet the Buddha, you kill the Buddha. When you meet Bodhidharma, you kill Bodhidharma.” Here’s a discussion of what this might mean, although I find the attempt to provide an explanation a bit puzzling, since it is my understanding that the point of a koan is to not understand it, and thus liberate yourself from understanding.

posted at 12:51 on Thu, 12 May, 2005 | path: /living



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