Thu 13 Aug, 2009
Hey y’all, an excerpt of BROKEN has been posted in Killing the Buddha, a great blog I just heard about this summer. You can find it here.
I’ve lifted this explanation of the blog from its own manifesto: Killing the Buddha is a religion magazine for people made anxious by churches, people embarrassed to be caught in the “spirituality” section of a bookstore, people both hostile and drawn to talk of God. It is for people who somehow want to be religious, who want to know what it means to know the divine, but for good reasons are not and do not. If the religious have come to own religious discourse it is because they alone have had places where religious language could be spoken and understood. Now there is a forum for the supposedly non-religious to think and talk about what religion is, is not and might be. Killing the Buddha is it.
The idea of “killing the Buddha” comes from a famous Zen line, the context of which is easy to imagine: After years on his cushion, a monk has what he believes is a breakthrough: a glimpse of nirvana, the Buddhamind, the big pay-off. Reporting the experience to his master, however, he is informed that what has happened is par for the course, nothing special, maybe even damaging to his pursuit. And then the master gives the student dismaying advice: If you meet the Buddha, he says, kill him.
Why kill the Buddha? Because the Buddha you meet is not the true Buddha, but an expression of your longing. If this Buddha is not killed he will only stand in your way.
jim king says:
hi, lisa. just read your nytimes / ‘happy days’ piece. i look forward to reading your book. ‘congratulations’ seems like both the right and the inadequate, off-target thing to say…
‘killing the buddha’ here reminds me of a novel i’ve liked very much; maybe you would too? mark salzman’s “The Soloist.” the main character is, among other conflicts, placed on the jury in a murder trial of a zen student who took his master’s admonition at face value when instructed to ‘kill the buddha.’ seeking perfection, he kills his teacher… several plot threads involve a search and longing for perfection. with predictable and less predictable results– as you can well imagine, having lived the writing of _your_ book.
best wishes.