The Lotus and the Mishpokheh -- The Principles of Jewish Buddhism
1. Let your mind be as a floating cloud. Let your stillness be as the wooded glen. And sit up straight. You'll never meet the Buddha with such round shoulders.
2. There is no escaping karma. In a previous life, you never called, you never wrote, you never visited. And whose fault was that?
3. Wherever you go, there you are. Your luggage is another story.
4. To practice Zen and the art of Jewish motorcycle maintenance, do the following: get rid of the motorcycle. What were you thinking?
5. Be aware of your body. Be aware of your perceptions. Keep in mind that not every physical sensation is a symptom of a terminal illness.
6. If there is no self, whose arthritis is this?
7. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Forget this and attaining Enlightenment will be the least of your problems.
8. The Tao has no expectations. The Tao demands nothing of others. The Tao does not speak. The Tao does not blame. The Tao does not take sides. The Tao is not Jewish.
9. Drink tea and nourish life. With the first sip, joy. With the second, satisfaction. With the third, Danish.
10. The Buddha taught that one should practice loving kindness to all sentient beings. Still, would it kill you to find a nice sentient being who happens to be Jewish?
11. Be patient and achieve all things. Be impatient and achieve all things faster.
12. To Find the Buddha, look within. Deep inside you are ten thousand flowers. Each flower blossoms ten thousand times. Each blossom has ten thousand petals. You might want to see a specialist.
13. Be here now. Be someplace else later. Is that so complicated?
14. Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkes! (nothing)
"I have to admit that you think a lot on resolving issues. But I’m afraid your idea of combining religion for the common good has already been put into play. For example, recently a religious merger took place to create 1 billion HindJews (960 million Hindus and 40 million Jews worldwide) to help offset the population imbalance of these two religions with Islam, which is nearing 1.5 billion folks. The two former are always at odds with the latter religious followers.
HindJew leaders recently conceded the merger of Hinduism and Judaism has not worked out exactly as planned. Instead of forming a super-religion to fight off the common Islamic enemy, they have instead created a race of 1 billion people who, no matter how many times they are reincarnated, can never please their mothers.
There is also the awkward matter of carnivore and Kosher traditions being offset by more carbohydrate content in foods. For example, temple picnics now include bagels with Sacred Cow cream cheese.
On paper, this is a textbook alliance — two smaller competitors join forces to take on a larger adversary. But the synergies are just not there yet. For instance, many Hindus be;eieve the must pursue their own dharmic path to ultimate happiness, but when they get there, they just know their mothers will find something wrong with it.
Military officers, in particular, have found assimilation a bit difficult. They were all excited at first, especially about the Kama Sutra parts, but it's not working. For example Israeli soldiers say the illustrations are exciting but the Hindus want to see nude pictures of their wives as cultural exchange. In the rare times this exchange occurs, the Hindu officers says the Israeli’s wife looks like a cow, an insult to the Israelis but meant as a compliment by the cow-reverent Hindus.
One good thing that has come of the unison is that HindJews across the world say they also were too busy dealing with integration to worry about Pakistanis, Palestinians, or any other opponents. This is keeping the peace somewhat.
Surprisingly, it's not the big issues, like is there one God or are there many? It's the little things like their Hindu halves acknowledge that this world is full of suffering, but their Jewish half just goes on and on about it.
However, most agreed that even if other issues could be overcome, maternal obstacles to HindJuism would always exist. For example, one HindJew told me,
"Yesterday, my former self was killed in a car accident, but I had good karma, so I was reincarnated this morning into the Vaisya caste. To me, this is a step up, right?" But then his former Sudras caste mother tracked him down. "She said, 'Oh, Vaisya now, is it? Very nice. Of course, your former brother is a Ksatriya, but he was always an overachiever.'”
Meanwhile, Muslim nations, citing the difficult HindJew merger, said they have discontinued talks with the world's largest religion to form Chrislam. Even though there are Pentecostal sects located in Cassadaga and Pierson that still send out spam emails for re-forwarding to “as many people as you can before midnight.”
"It wouldn't have worked anyway," said Imam Ibn Mohammed of Daytona’s Muslim community. "The first time we drank the communion wine, we would have all had to stone or self-flagellate ourselves."
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