Within buddhist tradition there is the saying, "If you see the buddha on the road, kill him."
The meaning is that the buddha is NOT a man but an understanding. Only literalists believe in buddha as person, and to do so is to misrepresent and will accomplish nothing.
Another story has a monk and a priest sharing a cabin in the woods in the winter and freezing. To survive, the priest takes a statue of the buddha and throws it into the fireplace, making a fire. The ignorant monk yells, 'You can't do that!' in protest. When the fire is done, the priest takes a poker and stirs the ashes, causing the monk to ask, "Why are you doing that?" The priest replies, to find the ashes of the buddha." That was meant as a lesson to the monk about the difference between literalist thinking and the use of symbols vs understanding the reality.
Exoteric vs esoteric understanding. What is the difference? It's lost on the literalist.
You don't get to misrepresent something you misunderstand and then critique it from that misrepresentation. The same is true with gnostic vs orthodox christianity. One is a lesser literalistic perversion of the deepest tenets.
Now do Zen.
Can't wait to see the sophomoric slant given to that with half understanding.
Within buddhist tradition there is the saying, "If you see the buddha on the road, kill him."
The meaning is that the buddha is NOT a man but an understanding. Only literalists believe in buddha as person, and to do so is to misrepresent and will accomplish nothing.
Another story has a monk and a priest sharing a cabin in the woods in the winter and freezing. To survive, the priest takes a statue of the buddha and throws it into the fireplace, making a fire. The ignorant monk yells, 'You can't do that!' in protest. When the fire is done, the priest takes a poker and stirs the ashes, causing the monk to ask, "Why are you doing that?" The priest replies, to find the ashes of the buddha." That was meant as a lesson to the monk about the difference between literalist thinking and the use of symbols vs understanding the reality.
Exoteric vs esoteric understanding. What is the difference? It's lost on the literalist.
You don't get to misrepresent something you misunderstand and then critique it from that misrepresentation. The same is true with gnostic vs orthodox christianity. One is a lesser literalistic perversion of the deepest tenets.
Now do Zen.
Can't wait to see the idiotic slant given to that with half (assed) understanding.