Dharma Name Generator

[Limp Budgie of Mellowness (Franca)]

Inspired by my good friend, Turning Falcon of Passionate Intensity, I've developed a dharma name generator. Check it out!

[Sister Logchain of the Short Path]

This is very very good stuff and I do hope unrestrained silliness burgeons and spreads from the Limp Budgie of Mellowness epicentre. Franca you merit the equivalent of canonisation, if Ken McLeod is up for that kind of thing.

I have always found western Buddhists to be, er, terribly nice but terribly buttoned-up, and not people to enjoy a bit of old-fashioned bawdiness.

Being a nurse, I'm part of a community of women who have a well-deserved reputation for close-to-the-knuckle jokes, usually highly-spiced with sexual innuendo. Not everyone indulges, of course, but those who don't indulge usually have the good grace to indulge those who do, if that makes sense. I'm no good at telling jokes (I laugh too much in the process) but I love laughing when I hear them, the absurder they are the better I enjoy them.

Why are Western Buddhists so po-faced, does anyone know? Is it to do with the concept of right speech? Do Tibetan Buddhists tell "dirty" jokes? I think we should be told.

Sister Logchain

[Chou Dog of Dis-illusioned Allegory]

Um, I don't know if Tibetan Buddhists tell dirty jokes, but you might want to glance at 'Tales of Uncle Tompa--the legendary rascal of Tibet' by Rinjing Dorje, published in the USA in 1997 by Station Hill Arts. Available through both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk at a very reasonable price. Should come in an asbestos-lined plain brown envelope. A wonderful antidote to po-faced-ness.
Thanks for the DNG, O Limp Budgie of Mellowness.
Chou Dog of Disillusioned Allegory (is that cool or what??) (Margaret Gouin, aka Sister Gatling Gun of Love and Mercy)

[Chou Dog of Dis-illusioned Allegory]

There's been a fair bit written about how Westerners see the Mystic East, including Tibet, and it's interesting to track the changes. When Tibet was first being opened to Western travellers and diplomats in the late 19th-early 20th century, the general consensus among Westerners who had learned about 'Buddhism' through the Pali texts brought back by Rhys Davies, was that Tibetan Buddhism wasn't even Buddhism, but a degenerate form they called 'Lamaism'--superstitious, totally debased and devoid of any spiritual quality whatsoever. It was treated with complete contempt in both the popular and the academic press. Then somehow Tibet became the secret Land of Snows populated entirely by mystical monks ('Lost Horizon' and so on) and simple ordinary folk whose only interest in life is to become enlightened. Peter Bishop has written some good stuff about this transition ('The Sacred Myth of Shangri-la'; see also Dodin and Rather, 'Imagining Tibet' if you really want to get into it).
I also know Western Zen practitioners who are so serene they would make a blancmange look jittery. To them, being serene (complete with little half-smile and endless bowing to each other) is what Zen is all about. That and the cool black robes.
But if someone is attracted into the Dharma by the aesthetics, surely that can't be a bad thing. 84,000 Dharma gates and all that.
The Western Buddhists I know (Tibetan and Chan mostly) all like a good laugh. But maybe I just don't get to know the ones that don't. I've certainly seen a few that might qualify as 'po-faced'--but there's also a really good chance that they're far better practitioners than I am.

[Sister Logchain of the Short Path]

I've noticed a small but obstinate reluctance to give up my old name since assuming Sister Logchain of the Short Path, and I've been adding it (Peter) in brackets. I've noticed what seems to be a similar tendency in others. What's been happening for you?

[Limp Budgie of Mellowness (Franca)]

What's been happening? Lots! I want to show off and get credit for my clever remarks as myself, not as a joke name. I want to make it clear that the name thing is ironic, and that I am not a flake. Thanks for busting me on that one. Also just not wanting to confuse people too much... name changes pervade your entire network identity, including home page and past postings.

That's what's been going on for me. Moi. Franca. The Important One with the Big Clever Brain.

[Leslie Ellestad]

You are clever...I'm enjoying that.

[Sister Logchain of the Short Path]

And you're important, I'm realising that.

[Limp Budgie of Mellowness (Franca)]

Oh great, encourage my vices! Argh.

[Sonia Osorio (Hybrid Vehicle of Busyness)]

Speaking of vices, am feeling more partial to this new name now: Hybrid Vehicle of Busyness.

[Chou Dog of Dis-illusioned Allegory]

But what about the days when I feel less like a Chou Dog of Dis-illusioned Allegory (I've added the hyphen, I think it's ever so classy) and more like the Fluffy Bunnykins of Confused Mumblings?
p.s. I was keeping my originally given name (Margaret) in brackets to assist others in remembering who shelters behind the imposing syllables bestowed on me by The Important One with the Big Clever Brain. But then I thought, well there's a picture, isn't there?