Metta

Spring is upon us in the Southern Hemisphere. What better way to start a new season than with some good humour?
What follows is Buddhist and Zen humour saved from various sites on the internet.
Enjoy!

What is a three-letter word for "I"?
(You)

Q. How many Buddhists does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Three -- one to change it, one to not-change it and one to both change and not-change it.

Q. Why did the Buddhist refuse to fill in the job application?
A. Because Form is Emptiness and Empti… Continue

According to Buddhism for a man to be perfect there are two qualities that he should develop equally: compassion on one side, and wisdom on the other. Here compassion represents love, charity, kindness, tolerance and such noble qualities on the emotional side, or qualities of the heart, while wisdom would stand for the intellectual side or the qualities of the mind. If one develops only the emotional neglecting the intellectual, one may become a good-hearted fool; while to develop only the intel… Continue

Preamble
The principle that there is no distinction between doctrine and practice constitutes the basis of all Buddhist thought, no matter how much it may be lost in sectarian Buddhist ideas.
The Buddhist spiritual experience will reveal itself neither to the scholar nor to the conversationalist, but only to the man or woman who makes the central conceptions of Buddhist thought the basis of their mental activity, the subject of their deepest meditation, and the foundation of all their act… Continue

More than 600 years before the British had their Magna Carta and more than a thousand years before the US Constitution a Japanese Prince (a Buddhist practitioner) drafted a constitution.

Prince Shôtoku's Seventeen-Article Constitution C.E. 604, Summer, 4th Month, 3rd day. The Prince Imperial Shôtoku in person prepared laws for the first time. There were seventeen clauses, as follows:

1. Harmony should be valued and quarrels should be avoided. Everyone has his biases, and few men… Continue

"Every place is hallowed ground,
Every day is a good day,
Every act is worship,
Waking or sleeping,
Dead or alive."
(source unknown)

"Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: It transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural and spritual; and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity". -Albert Einstein

I"f the… Continue