[Buddha-l] Non attached & mindful culinary triumphalism?

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Wise words at last. I remember a year or so ago there was a review on 
this list of a book about Buddhist selfmutilation in China. Many Asian 
monks took the Jataka about  the Bodhisattva offering himself as food 
for a hungry tigress as a prescription, while Indian readers never 
failed to see it as a hyperbole. Apart from the proverbial lack of 
hygiene in Indian cooking, conspicuous using of fingers in table manners 
and the typical monkish boasting and attachment to rules, the same 
appears to be the case here. I would not be surprised if Chinese monks 
hired leprose to throw their fingers in the mifang so they could eat 
themselves closer to Buddhahood.

erik

Op 10-07-11 04:43, Katherine Masis schreef:
> Hi, Artur
>   
> I sometimes wonder whether we're taking the old texts way too seriously.  Could some clowning monk have written this in jest?
>   
> Katherine Masis
> San Jose, Costa Rica
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