[Buddha-l] Re: Pennsylvania and crying Buddhas

[Chan Fu]

On 10/6/05, jkirk <jkirk at spro.net> wrote:
> >
> > There is a Buddhist abhidhamma treatise that has an elaborate discussion
> > of laughter. What it says is that Buddhas and other arahants can smile
> > without parting their lips, but they would never do anything as unseemly
> > as showing their teeth while smiling, let alone something as utterly
> > unrefined as slapping a knee, rocking back and forth, wheezing,
> > whooping, snorting, cackling, giggling or ejecting coffee or other hot
> > liquids through the nostrils onto a keyboard.
> >
> =============
> Well well, this required behavior of overt expression of risibility is
> identical to the display rules of the same for married women and virgins
> in those days, such signifying purity and self-control. (This comment is
> reading the culture backwards, haven't found any Buddhist texts on
> female manners to back me up.)  Courtesans could be more expressive.
> These laughter rules, if true (and not a, um, joke?) seem to reflect one
> of several ways whereby Buddhist texts proscribed displays
> reflecting excess testosterone.
> Joanna

I recently told Joy this story, which seems to fit here:

AC (Ajahn Chah) was a full-fledged comedian. One time, I went to visit
and he was out in the woods with a bunch of villagers, so I came and
sat by him while he made holy water with which to bless them. While he
was sprinkling them with it, using a palm frond, he turned to me and
said (sotta voce), "They just come here to get a bath."

Another time, we were walking and I asked, "What about all this?". He
took out his teeth (he had false teeth years before I knew him) and
said, "These can't bite by themselves". I cracked up laughing (samsara
is harmless by itself) and he put them back in his mouth and smiled. 
Later, back at the ranch (his khuti), he settled down for a munch of
betel nut (he was addicted). When he had prepared the leaf, nut, lime
and was about to put it in his mouth, I said, "Watch out for those
teeth!" and he laughed so hard that he sneezed. Never dropped the
folded mix, though.