Tuesday, September 23, 2008

What if you were the Buddha for one day?

If you are not a Buddhist this may not matter as much to you, but perhaps you can find a similar enough analogy that the exercise still works (for example, if you are Catholic I suppose "What if you were the Pope..." might be a halfway decent substitute). To clarify, the question isn't "Do you think you are a Buddha?" The question is not "Do you think you represent the spirit of the life and teachings of the Buddha?" The question is, what if somehow, someway, you woke up one day and realized that YOU were THE Buddha of this world for that day? You still would have the same debts, commitments, relationships, etc, you had the day before, but you would know that it was your turn on that day to "turn the wheel" of the Dharma by assuming that identity. That others had been selected before you to be THE Buddha on prior days when such was necessary. No pre-requisite that you have to pray all day or write a sutra to hold the role. How do you imagine you would react? How would you feel? About yourself? About the world around you? And we're not talking about giving an answer that sounds good or what you think someone ought to do or how someone ought to feel. What would THE Buddha of that day really be like?

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