I saw some sightseeing monks the other day.
They were Buddhist monks with shaved heads and saffron robes. They were near the Eiffel Tower. They had cameras around their necks.
Now call me unenlightened and banish me from Nirvana, but isn't one of the basic tenets of Buddhism that much of the suffering in life comes from desire? Once necessities are covered -shelter, food, soft toilet paper- then isn't it the relentless chasing after superfluous crap that makes us miserable especially when we can't afford it?
I could be wrong, of course. Maybe the goal of freedom from desire doesn't include the desire to take your Nikon D3200 with telephoto zoom on a jumbo and fly across the globe to take photos of the Eiffel Tower.
Actually, I hope I'm wrong, because otherwise I feel some bad karma coming my way...
And yet those monks sound happier innocently taking their photographs than you are in viewing it and judging it. Wanting to feel superior is a desire, whereas a monk with a camera is just uninspiring.
ReplyDeleteBoy, bad karma didn't take long...
ReplyDeleteAnd yet I sound innocently happier commenting on it than you do reading and judging my comments.
If you think I'm being superior aren't you being superior by pointing it out?
But I remain superior in knowing beforehand that you would be so predictable in your response. Sometimes superiority is real. You are not listening yet, you are still wanting to be superior rather than actually being superior. I sound happier knowingly pointing this out than you do pretending to sound innocent when making a predicable response.
ReplyDeleteThis can go on forever and I don't mind if it does. We may get somewhere.
ReplyDeleteSomehow, I predicted you may say something like that...
ReplyDeleteI predicted that you would take a long time to think about it only to realise that saying something predictable was the best way of being unpredictable. Well done, I laughed but it may have been a cough.
ReplyDelete