From ioniccentre@hol.gr Sun Mar 11 14:42:20 2001 Received: from mxu2.u.washington.edu (mxu2.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.9]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.11.2+UW01.01/8.11.2+UW01.02) with ESMTP id f2BMgJL17994 for ; Sun, 11 Mar 2001 14:42:19 -0800 Received: from isis.hol.gr (isis.hol.gr [194.30.192.21]) by mxu2.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with SMTP id OAA30933 for ; Sun, 11 Mar 2001 14:42:17 -0800 Received: (qmail 14296 invoked from network); 11 Mar 2001 22:42:05 -0000 Received: from vdp177.ath11.cas.hol.gr (HELO ?195.97.119.245?) (195.97.127.178) by isis.hol.gr with SMTP; 11 Mar 2001 22:42:05 -0000 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: ioniccentre@mail.hol.gr Message-Id: Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 00:44:37 +0200 To: classics@u.washington.edu From: Isidoros Subject: "Kill the Buddha!" (Mulahs, Christians and Odysseus) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Ah, that is but small harm. They 've been carrying, these busy buddy minding mulahs, a whole Mohammed, and the weight of that teaching for eons now. So recently they took on, too, whatever Buddhism was left there in Afghanistan, and then some Buddhas. So, what matters if they shoulder, also, a few more chips of stone? Zen Buddhist masters like once in a called for while to tell listeners not to hesitate to "Kill the Buddha!" Kill the Buddha, if the Buddha has become an object of your worship, they exhort. Kill the Buddha, if He/It has come to stand Erect before you -- that is, if It's an Other than You: a god, God, or an Idol. Mahayana Buddhist tradition has it that there are three final great difficulties, obstacles, on the Way to Obtaining, to Buddhahood, i.e., to True Self-- all of which one has to "kill," to make away, be done with. The first (the easier) is one's own parents and, by extension, all one holds dear, those for whom one bears an attachment; second comes the Killing of the Buddha; rid the Whatever objectified Ideal Image you nurture: your God, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Zeus, Whatever; third, says the tradition, "Kill Him;" or, as I like to render it, kill objective Self, Ego, Self Identity, the Other-One (with whom the One-Other of the Two-split-Self) likes to maintain a "thinking dialogue." Duality. "Kill the Whatever-Self," then, is the ultimate challenge -- as did Odysseus, along that great Hellenic "trip," did make away with his Other Self Polyphemous' (his "Many-Names, Identities, Self-Other.) Cycl-ops was really all his Eye; and it was with even that Higher than Ordinary-Rational Being Self, the Higher Other Self that was, still, Left as "Third" Eye (so, still somewhat "dual" and objectifying-subjectifying) Odysseus did battle with in his mind's "high" cavern. And assuming "his" "Practically No ("Not-even-a-Trace," OUT-IS) Identity" re-embarked for True Home. "So, what's the didagma here? Must we smash Gods' idols, master?" "No, stupid! Put them, instead, in the museums, for art historians and classicists!" Haven't you seen the Christians? They've smashed Athenas, Apollos, Zeus... by the thousand!! They 've torn down and broken hundreds of the Greeks' temples; burned myriads of their wisdom books and of their libraries; tortured and crucified the Hellene priests and philosophers by the thousands. What have they really accomplished? And, no, you need not have read Cavafy's "Ionic" to know that their spirit is still a-fluttering. They have just become even more Christian for this--while whatever few books escaped the sweep today are really worshiped; their priests becoming Professors (if abject), their temples mushrooming into thousands of universities, even if (reacting, and of ignorance) objectified. And the gods' marble idols? But they too were variously reproduced soon after, where "my Father God in Heaven," oh, well, that is Zeus; Jesus was dressed after Apollo, first as if born immaculate (and as was Buddha) etc, and then as "youth" at Delphi; or, as Adonis (Osiris) each year the Pascha; but, too, androgynous as it were, as Persephone-kore. Mary was become after Leto, and prominently Demetra, and Aphrodite -- to name few of the many impersonations. And then were all those "twelve" Apostoles and the Saints! All reproduced in billion "beautiful" icons, and in thousands, if no million, of cherubic baby Christs-Eros, together with some Virginal Aphrodite statuette. Or as horridly spiked wooden flat Christs that they mistakenly become the adorable Adonis, unrecognizable, mutilated, there projected the hatred and fear that it were as if in their own minds. Same with the mulahs. They, too, will become ever more rightful; more faithfully attached to their great religion-- for smashing the Buddhas. And, of course, proudly Victorious, as became the Roman Christians. I tell you: Great is God. And God, for all who believe, is One. As Greater has become their religion, to them, for the glory of Mohammed, and of Jesus. The Mohamed they venerate, follow and to whom they are faithfully attached will have by now grown greater in size-- by at least the weight and the fame, of those smashed Greek generated Buddhas. Can you imagine! I. (?!) .