Zeno Buddhism

Zeno meets Pareto on an isolated highway outside Tulsa. Then Buddha turns up.

Zeno says, "What if you were reincarnated as an amoeba? Amoebae breed by fission ... so they never die. There's a fair argument to be made that there is only one amoeba. Would coming back like that be a reward or a punishment for what you did in your past life?"

Buddha says, "Only amoebae are reincarnated as amoebae."

Pareto says "20% of the biomass of Earth are amoebae. The other 80% don't understand ZenoBuddhism."

So then Pareto and Zeno stone Buddha to death, Buddha smiles and sighs, "Little Angels ...", and they all head off to see the Wizard. -- PeterMerel

PhlIp's famous adaptation:

I suddenly realized what bothers me about this. The order of the lines in the third frame is flipped - at least if you read with the traditional left-right comics precedence.

Deconstruction below

Click the WhyClublet link at the bottom of this page to see PhlIp's comix version. Left out some salient text, though ...

In the comix version, how come Buddha gotta halo?

He neither fissioned nor reincarnated nor sparkled away like a Jedi, nor took a number and sat down. And halos are used in nearly all old religious art, not just JudeoChristian?.

(Mandalas, though both easy to draw and render into a computer, represent a flame-of-life thing, and aren't associated with the freshly dead.)

Um, subtext says Buddha is amoeba.

Further Deconstruction:

We have a "forum of elder philosophers" (the kind of which Wikis are wannabes). They joke amongst each other over mortal human's ridiculous penchant to place numerism and temporal determinacy over karmic and eternal non-deterministic metaphysics.

But to prove their point, they perform an experiment to see if Buddha will reincarnate as an amoeba. He does not, but he does channel KrazyKat.

Then, in an ultimate gesture to mortal human's dreadfully opaque ability to seek validation in anything but themselves, they dance off to seek "The Wizard", an archetypical leader-figure from an old children's story. One who assumed his leadership position simply by being a voluble showman & quack.

The Emerald City is a smoky refinery because this is Tulsa we're talking about here. Oklahoma is a land outside of Buddha Zeno & Pareto's experience, so it is Oz to them.

Reconstruction:

Arriving at the Emerald City, our happy trio donned the green glasses like everyone else.

More of PhlIp slacking off of his (easy) day job appears on GreenCheese:

EvolutionaryPsychology? PhilosophyBrethrenThree? HatTrick

TragedyOfTheCommons in action. How elegant! -- RonJeffries

Why does Buddha look like RobertFripp? -- MichaelFeathers

As PhlIp has never seen Fripp, this could be some karmic thing... -- PhlIp

Wham! http://www.disciplineglobalmobile.com/bio/fripp.shtml -- MichaelFeathers

Really, I thought he looked more like Ron Jeffries, will a full head shave! -- BryanDollery

CategoryEasternThought

H'yeah, right! -- Buddha