JOKES II: The Buddhist Comic! (video)

Editors, Wisdom Quarterly; R. Shultz; Ven. Yuttadhammo; G. Keillor; J. Rogan; S. MacFarlane...

Buddhist stand up? Oh no! Dying on stage with an American sense of humor and timing

  
Seven Minutes and 10 Seconds of Suffering
Ron Schultz, the Buddhist Comic

Bryan Krasner as Budai (sacredfools.com)

Thank you, thank you. Great to be here with you tonight at the Christian Comedy Club.

I am the Buddhist Comic. Thank you, thank you.

You know, I can feel the emptiness of the room. Can't you?

There's not a great difference between the Christians and the Buddhists -- unless, of course, you take into account that the Buddhists don't believe in an eternal God. I suppose that's a pretty big difference.

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Anyway, I want to assure you all that being a Buddhist comic, you're not going to be hearing a bunch of "make me one with everything" jokes, or vacuums with too many attachments, or schizophrenic Buddhists who want to be two with everything. He-he. There won't even be any, "How many Zen Buddhists does it take to screw in a light bulb?" [koans/jokes]. Tree in golden forest.
 

Well, okay, let let me give you an example of what you are going to hear. Okay, so there are these two colleagues. They go into a bar. And one says to the other, "I hear you're a Buddhist?" 

MoonDoxy, Fat Happy Hotei

And the Buddhist says, "Yeah, you want to make something out of it?" Thank you, no, no, really, yes.

Okay, well, let me explain this a little. You see, the Buddhist thinks there's no such thing as independent self-arising. They don't think that anything comes into being by itself. Everything is what they call dependent arising. Everything is compounded, made of something else.

So, of course, this gets me thinking. And I decide to ask my guru a question that keeps coming up for me. So I go to him and I say, "Rinpoche," which is what I call him, "Rinpoche, isn't masturbation an example of 'self-arising'?" And he smiles, and he says, "No, no, it's just clinging to self." Ha-ha. Thanks, thanks a lot.
  

"Won't be needing this" (Mr Will Coles)

You know, I started thinking maybe I'm thinking too much about this whole thing. So, so one day I'm looking through the paper, and I discover this group, Thinkers Anonymous. I think it's perfect, right? So I go to my first meeting, and it's my turn, and I say, "Hi, my name's Ron, and I haven't had a thought in... Oh, wait a minute, I just had a thought. Wait a minute, I just had another thought!

You know, thinking about thinking, one of my favorite Buddhist jokes is actually about one of the greatest Western philosophers, Rene Descartes. So you see, Rene Descartes goes into his favorite bar.
  
And the bartender says, "Oh, Mssr. Descartes, Mssr. Descartes! How nice to see you! Will it be the usual?"

And Rene Descartes says, "I think not" and disappears. Thank you, ha ha. This must be what the sound of one hand clapping sounds like. Ha ha ha.

I tell you, these Buddhists are a funny lot, aren't they? I mean, the first enlightened thing the Buddha says is, "Everything is suffering." Pretty funny stuff, huh? And then one someone asks him, "You mean, EVERYTHING is suffering?" And the Buddha says, "Isn't it?"

Heh.  Hey, thanks, no. Anyone enlightened yet!?
 

ASK A MONK: Is humor or finding things humorous allowed in Buddhism?
  

Hey, hey, speaking of that, How many Buddhists does it take to screw in an enlightenment-bulb? Hey what's enlightenment anyway! HEY. Come on, I'm dying here.

I'm just kidding. Actually, I'm not kidding. There's something you don't get from your other ways of being, huh? The Buddhists love talking about dying. "Impermanence," they call it. Now, if that ain't funny, I don't know what is.

So what's the good news here? Actually, that's it. No matter what, we're dying. Some of us a little sooner than others. Yeah.

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Well, um, I guess the good news is here we always got karma, huh? Good ol' cause-condition-and-effect karma. You know, it's because of our karma that we're all here together today. How lucky is that? Just us chickens.

Hey, did you hear about the one about the Buddhist chicken? Ha ha ha. Nah, I'm just kidding there. There aren't any Buddhist chickens. Well, I guess my time is up.

You get it? That's an impermanence joke. Anyway, before I'm done here, I want to leave you with a paraphrase of that great semi-Buddhist comic Steven Wright: "I don't want a p*nis. Where would I put it?" Hey, hey, hey, thanks. You've been real.

Ladies and gentleman, "the Buddhist Comic"!

Audio: the Buddhist Comic
Listen to audio of the only known performance of the Buddhist Comic

It's not funny because it's true
Comedian-philosopher Joe Rogan off of DMT and into a reality that's stranger than fiction: "The American War Machine" a.k.a. our Military-Industrial Complex

THE JOKE SHOW
Garrison Keillor, Prairie Home Companion (APM/PublicRadio.org)
An old woman gets on a plane in New York and flies to Tibet. She gets off the plane, climbs a mountain to the monastery. She bangs on the door. No answer. She bangs some more. Finally the door opens and a monk says to her, "What do you want?"

"I'm here to see the lama," the woman insists. "He's busy! He's meditating right now," the monk says abruptly as begins to close the door. The woman wedges her foot in the door saying, "I'll wait." The monk, seeing no easy alternative, opens the door and welcomes the woman in: "Take a seat; have some brown rice."

The woman waits and waits for hours then finally the heavy inner chamber doors begin to open. Incense smoke swirls out. And there in the splendor of his magnificent saffron robes and bald head stands the lama. And the woman shouts, "Sheldon! Enough! It's time to come home!" MORE:



God's Money

A rabbi, a minister, and a priest... The three church leaders were talking about tithing and the division of donations in their religions. One explained that in his tradition, he gathered all that had been given. Then he drew a small circle and tossed the money in the air. "Whatever falls in the circle is God's, the rest is mine." Another explained that he did the same thing, except he drew a big circle, kept whatever landed in it, and the rest was for God. They turned to ask the third what he did. And he explained that he didn't draw any circles. He just threw the money up in the air so God could take his share. Whatever fell to the ground, that was his money. 

-Anonymous

"When I was little, I prayed every night for a bike. Then when I grew up, I learned that God does not work that way. So I stole a bike for my own kid and asked God to forgive me."

- Marvin Purser, Hollywood, Florida

A millionaire renounces trade, turns over all his money to the church, and enters the monastery. The rules are strict. No luxuries, no commodities, and he is only allowed to speak a single word every seven years. After seven years, he is brought into the abbot's office and asked what his word is. "Hungry" he mumbles. The abbot gives him a bowl of soup and sends him back to his cell. Seven years later, he is asked again. He says "cold." The abbot gives him a blanket and sends him back. Seven years after that he comes in on his own and breaks the rule by saying two words, "I quit!" The abbot looks at him and says, "I'm not surprised. You've done nothing but complain since you got here."

"I was into 'extreme couponing' back when it was just called 'holding up the line.'"

- Lisa Ann Walter

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Science: Laughter Really is Good Medicine

(SkypeLaughterChain.com) A contagious language we all understand that brings us closer.

Scientists Hint at Why Laughter Feels So Good
Text by James Gorman (New York Times, Sept. 13, 2011)

Laughter is regularly promoted as a source of health and well being, but it has been hard to pin down exactly why laughing until it hurts feels so good. The answer, reports Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary psychologist at Oxford, is not the intellectual pleasure of cerebral humor, but the physical act of laughing.... ha, ha, ha... endorphins... “Laughter is very weird stuff, actually”... laughter contributes to group bonding and may have been important in the evolution of highly social humans. Social laughter, Dr. Dunbar suggests, relaxed and contagious, is “grooming at a distance,” an activity that fosters closeness in a group the way one-on-one grooming, patting and delousing promote and maintain bonds between individual primates of all sorts. More

Rebirth Fable: The Laughing Weeping Goat

Matakabhatta Jataka: Goat that Laughed & Wept
Buddhist Publication Society (Jataka 18)

One day, while the Buddha was staying in Jetavana, some Buddhist ascetics (bhikkhus) asked him if there was any benefit in sacrificing goats, sheep, and other animals as offerings for departed relatives.

"No, bhikkhus," replied the Buddha. "No good ever comes from taking life, not even when it is for the purpose of providing a Feast for the Dead." He then told this story of the past.

STORY OF THE PAST

Long, long ago, when Brahmadatta was reigning in Baranasi, a brahmin decided to offer a Feast for the Dead and bought a goat to sacrifice. "My boys," he said to his students, "take this goat down to the river, bathe it, brush it, hang a garland around its neck, give it some grain to eat, and bring it back."

"Yes, sir," they replied and led the goat to the river.

While they were grooming it, the goat started to laugh with a sound like a pot smashing. Then, just as strangely, it started to weep loudly.

The young students were amazed at this behavior. "Why did you suddenly laugh," they asked the goat, "and why do you now cry so loudly?"

"Repeat your question when we get back to your teacher," the goat answered.

The students hurriedly took the goat back to their master and told him what had happened at the river. Hearing the story, the master himself asked the goat why it had laughed and why it had wept.

"In times past, brahmin," the goat began, "I was a brahmin who taught the Vedas like you. I, too, sacrificed a goat as an offering for a Feast for the Dead. Because of killing that single goat, I have had my head cut off 499 times. [Note: In the sutras "500" means "a lot."]

"I laughed aloud when I realized that this is my last birth as an animal to be sacrificed. Today I will be freed from my misery. On the other hand, I cried when I realized that because of killing me, you, too, may be doomed to lose your head 500 times. It was out of pity for you that I cried."

"Well, goat," said the brahmin, "in that case, I am not going to kill you."

"Brahmin!" exclaimed the goat. "Whether or not you kill me, I cannot escape death today."

"Don't worry," the brahmin assured the goat. "I will guard you."

"You don't understand," the goat told him. "Your protection is weak. The force of my [unskilful karma] is very strong."

The brahmin untied the goat and said to his students, "Don't allow anyone to harm this goat." They obediently followed the animal to protect it.

After the goat was freed, it began to graze. It stretched out its neck to reach the leaves on a bush growing near the top of a large rock. At that very instant a lightning bolt hit the rock, breaking off a sharp piece of stone which flew through the air and neatly cut off the goat's head.

A crowd of people gathered around the dead goat and began to talk excitedly about the amazing accident.

A tree deva* had observed everything from the goat's purchase to its dramatic death, and drawing a lesson from the incident, admonished the crowd: "If people only knew that the penalty would be rebirth into sorrow, they would cease from taking life. A horrible doom awaits one who slays."

With this explanation of the law of karma the deva instilled in his listeners the fear of perdition (hell). The people were so frightened that they completely gave up the practice of animal sacrifices. The deva further instructed the people in the Precepts and urged them to do good.

Eventually, that deva passed away to fare according to his deserts. For several generations after that, people remained faithful to the Precepts and spent their lives in charity and meritorious works, so that many were reborn in the heavens.

The Buddha ended his lesson by identifying the birth saying, "In those days I was that deva."

NOTE
*Devas are celestial beings, ranging from the high deities to earthbound tree-spirits.