[Buddha-l] Buddhist Charities (was Will new the pope verify Buddhist doctrine?)

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Sat, 2005-04-23 at 09:32 -0600, Jim Peavler wrote:

> I was sore tempted to reveal myself as a Buddhist on a number of
> occasions, but managed to hold my tongue. Luckily I still used their
> language for swearing whenever I mashed a finger, or I would have
> given myself away.

For most of my life I have tried to learn to swear like a Buddhist. I'd
drop a bucket of cement on my foot and cry out "By the sacred blood of
Amitabha's mother!" Or I'd hit my thumb with a hammer and say "Gotama
damn it!" Or I'd bang my head on a low doorway and ejaculate "Suffering
arhants!" But it always sounded a little contrived. 

Once I read that in Sri Lanka people say "Buddho ma," which allegedly
means "Mother Buddha!" I quite like the sound of that. First, it helps
dispel the traditional false dogma that only males can be buddhas.
Second, it makes the buddha feel more like somebody who would give me a
banana Popsicle when I got injured instead of saying, as any dad would
say, "It's your own goddamn fault for being so careless!" For reasons I
could never quite explain, I always preferred getting sympathy to being
rebuked. Maybe that's why Zen masters never appealed to me much.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico