The Seer

A new monk arrives at the old Italian monastery for his celibate life of shared poverty and prayer, and is assigned to help the other monks in copying the old texts by hand.

He notices, however, that they are copying from copies, not the original manuscripts. So, the new monk goes to the head monk to ask him about this, pointing out that if there were an error in the first copy, that error would be continued in all of the subsequent copies.

The head monk says, “We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son.”

So, he goes down into the cellar with one of the copies to check it against the original.

Hours go by and nobody sees him. So, one of the monks goes downstairs to look for him. Hearing sobbing coming from the back of the cellar, he finds the old monk leaning over one of the original books crying, and muttering between tears: “There’s an R! There’s an R!”

He asks the old monk what’s wrong, and in a choked voice came the reply, “The original word isn’t “celibate” but “celebrate.”

Sometimes spiritual seekers seem like alcoholics,
And gurus like bartenders,
And sanghas like nightclubs,
And “God”… the Ultimate Hottie.

Alas… when satsang ends,
And the “high” wears off after a few days,
And She stops returning your calls,
The Ultimate Hottie seems the Ultimate Tease.

Beside yourself with Grief and Longing,
You drink your way into oblivion,
And awaken, dawn after dawn,
In the arms of Maya.

Until one morning, turning to gaze,
Once more at the face of despair,
You find, instead, your long lost Beloved,
Your Heart’s Desire.

It was Her all along,
Wearing Maya’s makeup.
You were simply too drunk,
On the bartender’s “words”.

~ Chuck Surface

Republicans: Trillions Could Be Cut from Budget if We Eliminate Empathy

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) –“ Speaking on behalf of congressional Republicans, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said today that trillions could be cut from the Federal budget if

Congress can agree to eliminate empathy.

“The current budget is bursting at the seams with pet projects that reek of empathy,” Rep. Cantor said. “As a nation, we can no longer afford to spend money on people’s basic survival needs like a bunch of drunken sailors.”

Rep. Cantor noted that “the word ‘empathy’ comes from the Greek word ‘pathos,’ meaning ‘pathetic’ — and that’s exactly what helping people is: PATHETIC!”

“We in the West should get out of the habit of using Greek words,” he added. “Look where it’s gotten the Greeks — straight into bankruptcy.”

“Once congressional Republicans eliminate such empathy-laden budget items as lunches for poor children, medicine for the indigent and oxygen for seniors,” Rep. Cantor said, “We can move from cutting empathy to cutting humanity.”

“With humanity removed from the budget,” he said, “That’s where the real savings come in.”

“By eliminating the food, medicine and oxygen necessary to sustain human life, we will reduce the single biggest drain on the national economy: people.”

Ending on an optimistic note, Rep. Cantor said that by eliminating people, “by the middle of this century our nation will be successfully transformed into one big unmanned Predator drone.”

~ Andy Borowitz, In The Borowitz Report www.borowitzreport.com

When a wealthy American visiting a small English town lost a valuable dog, he asked to have a notice printed in the local evening newspaper offering a thousand pounds reward for its return.

Evening came, but no paper appeared, the American waited for some time, then he went to the newspaper office.

There, he found no-one but the night-watchman.

“Isn’t the newspaper coming out tonight?” he asked.

“I doubt it, sir,” the night-watchman said, “the whole staff is out looking for a lost dog.”

Lady opening door to TV repair man:

“I’m glad you’ve both come. I keep getting double images on my TV screen.”

In Japan, it’s rumored, they’ve replaced the impersonal and unhelpful computer Error Messages with Haiku poetry.

Haiku poetry has strict construction rules. Each poem has three lines and 17 syllables: five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, five in the third.

Haikus are used to communicate a timeless message often achieving a wistful, yearning and powerful insight through extreme brevity — the essence of Zen.

1. A crash reduces
   Your expensive computer
   To a simple stone.

2. The Web site you seek
   Cannot be located but
   Countless more exist.

3. A thousand flower petals
   Writher in the wind —
   Disk C: not found.

4. Three things are certain:
   Death, taxes, and lost data.
   Guess which has occurred?

5. With searching comes loss
   And the presence of absence:
   Your novel not found.

6. Yesterday it worked
   Today it is not working
   Windows is like that.

7. Login incorrect.
   Only perfect spellers may
   Enter this system.

8. Having been erased,
   The document you’re seeking
   Must now be retyped.

9. Program aborting:
   Close all that you have opened.
   You ask far too much.

10. . Chaos reigns within.
    Reflect, repent, and reboot.
    Order shall return.

Two distinguished English gentlemen were driving to an appointment in a part of the country unknown to them.

After a while they realised that they were lost and decided to stop and ask the way.

As fate would have it, the first human being they saw was not very helpful. He had never heard of their destination nor of places they mentioned that might be adjacent to it.

Finally and unwisely, the man driving said in exasperation: “Well, thank you very much, but I can’t say you seem to know much.”

The yokel said: “Ah, but maybe I knows more than thee; thee be lost, but I knows where I be.”

~ Rex Niven

A man bought a new hunting dog and, as soon as the season opened, he took it out on a trial hunt. It wasn’t long before he shot a duck that fell into the lake.

Immediately, the new dog ran over the water, picked up the duck and brought it back to his master.

The man was flabbergasted.

He shot another duck. Once again, while he rubbed his eyes in disbelief, the dog ran over the water and retrieved the duck.

Hardly daring to believe what he’d seen, he invited his neighbour for a shoot the following day.

Once again, each time he or his neighbour hit a bird, the dog would run over the water and bring the bird in.

The man said nothing. Neither did his neighbour.

Finally, unable to contain himself any longer, he blurted out, “Did you notice anything strange about that dog?”

The neighbour rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Yes.” He finally said, “Come to think of it, I did! The son of a gun can’t swim!”

Two men on vacation near Auckland in New Zealand took a week’s hire on a small boat with powerful twin outboard engines.

After running up and down the Waitemata Harbour for a few days, they decided they knew enough about it to take it into open water, which they did.

About two kilometres off Auckland in the Pacific Ocean, the motors died. Before they knew it they had drifted and were blown out of sight of land.

After a bit of tinkering they got the outboards going again, but now they didn’t know which way to go.

Then a ship came by and they hailed it. They asked a seaman who was leaning on the rail, “Which way to Auckland harbour?”

The seaman shouted down, “Just a minute and I’ll go up to the bridge and get you an exact satellite position and bearing.”

They shouted back “Never mind getting technical. Just point!”

A man, obsessed with the idea that he was dead, was being treated by a psychiatrist. The doctor used all the known techniques at his command but to no avail.

Finally, he tried appealing to the patient’s logic. “Do dead men feel pain?” asked the doctor. “No, of course not,” answered the patient.

“All right,” said the doctor, “now let us try an experiment.”

He took a sharp needle and pricked the man’s hand.

The patient jumped up with a yell.

“There! What do you say now?” asked the psychiatrist.

“Well, isn’t that amazing!” answered the patient. “Dead people do feel pain.”