[Buddha-l] encyclopedic vs. ["Kwatz!"]

[Gary Gach]

Of course everything said about Richard might apply to the speaker as
well, 'tho that might not be  consolation to any one.

Certainly the tale brings up the phenomenon of the antonym to the
encyclopedic:  the soundbyte, and the column inch (aka "news hole");
ADD, etc.

When asked, HH the Dalai Lama once defined Buddhism as "kindness" ... period.   

This is an issue for me as I write for a living, and flog my writing
as part of the gig.

Not to waste the precious time of scholars with the sundry details of
the mundane, I'll recount just one  tale (briefly) from the field, as
it was illustrative.

Interviewed at 3AM PST (morning drive time, east coast) on a
nationally syndicated network, my host's questions were all
rapid-fire.  Then the host opened the show to calls ... the first:

.... a suicide attempt.

Suddenly the studio was so silent you could hear a pin drop.  Then
pandemonium as the producer scrambled to find a suicide hotline to
read on the air and the talkshow host ad-libbed.

As he cut to a commercial, I said to the host, "THIS is Buddhism!"  He
said, "We can't make it the topic of the show, or we'd be sued."

About five minutes further on, the suicide attemptee called back ...
and I had 60 seconds with him (the talk show host glaring at me not to
take a second more).

Me, I just said life is the most precious thing of all then asked him
to think of everyone close to him, one by one, and then consider how
what he was contemplating would affect each of them, and those around
them -- beginning with a child to whom he'd alluded.)

What would you say?

What would the Buddha say?  (maybe there IS a parable on record ... I
don't know ... but a 60-second one? )

-- 
   gary gach       gary.gach at gmail.com     http://word.to