electricinca.com

The Buddhist monks from the Drepung Gomang Monastery had spent two days meticulously pouring sand into the intricate mandala design, but it took a small boy only a matter of seconds to undo their hard work.

In the words of Lama Chuck Stanford, of the Rime Buddhist Center in Kansas City "he did a little tap dance on it, completely destroying it."

The monks saw the destruction Wednesday.

"No problem," Geshe Lobsang Sumdup, leader of the group from the Drepung Gomang Monastery in southern India, said through a translator. "We didn't get despondent. We have three days more. So we will have to work harder."

I just love the monks attitude to this.

Labels: Buddhism

To commemorate the 10th Anniversary of Carl Sagan's death fans and bloggers are planning a worldwide blog-a-thon, plus the launch of a new site titled Celebrating Sagan.

My own contribution is to reprint this Sagan related urban legend.

Once upon a time, Carl Sagan met the pope (John Paul II) and asked him what he would do if somehow science convincingly and irrefutably disproved the foundations of Christianity. The Pope proceeded to lecture Sagan for about 15 minutes about why this was impossible.

Later, Carl met the Dali Lama and asked him the same question about Buddhism. His reply was that he would immediately tell everybody, because it would mean millions of Buddhists would be living their lives incorrectly.

Also I'd like to add a link to this site which posits that Sagan was the reincarnation of 18th century astronomer David Rittenhouse.

I wonder what Carl Sagan would have thought of that, as a renowned sceptic he would probably have laughed like I did.

Labels: Buddhism, cool