Mark Twain's Excellent Dharma Adventure?
Sometimes Dharma might appear to be only in the eye of the beholder. That was the first official Horse reaction when we received the clip to the left, from the bizarro clay-animation masterpiece "The Adventures of Mark Twain" from reader Dan Carew.
So we asked Dan to explain why he sent it. Dang if he didn't do a good job in what seems to be a pretty off-the-cuff little email. As he says:
Hrmm.. I suppose, well, the last line, for example: "Life itself is only a vision. A dream. Nothing exists save empty space and you - and you are but a thought." That's probably the most obvious one. That's Buddhism 101 right there, depending on who you talk to. Then you have a line like "I can do no wrong, for I don't know what it is." which well, at first seemed totally out there to me.. but then I thought, well, what if you look at Satan as just some kind of agenda-less distributor of consequence? I mean, your own ignorance echoing back on you doesn't do it because it wants to wrong you, does it? Your karma doesn't hold some kind of malicious agenda (Or virtuous one), right? Does that make any sense? hahahaha.. And even before that you have parts just illustrating dangers of materialistic desires - squabbling over the cow (The hand of Wrath will fall from the sky! And then you'll have an earthquake at the funeral!! Raarr!), kids gorging on the fruit, just oblivious to the world around them (See, Satan totally slipped out right there, "Where'd he go?" lol)... . what am I missing?
Watch the video and see if you do or don't agree. Either way: it's a trip, for sure.
So we asked Dan to explain why he sent it. Dang if he didn't do a good job in what seems to be a pretty off-the-cuff little email. As he says:
Hrmm.. I suppose, well, the last line, for example: "Life itself is only a vision. A dream. Nothing exists save empty space and you - and you are but a thought." That's probably the most obvious one. That's Buddhism 101 right there, depending on who you talk to. Then you have a line like "I can do no wrong, for I don't know what it is." which well, at first seemed totally out there to me.. but then I thought, well, what if you look at Satan as just some kind of agenda-less distributor of consequence? I mean, your own ignorance echoing back on you doesn't do it because it wants to wrong you, does it? Your karma doesn't hold some kind of malicious agenda (Or virtuous one), right? Does that make any sense? hahahaha.. And even before that you have parts just illustrating dangers of materialistic desires - squabbling over the cow (The hand of Wrath will fall from the sky! And then you'll have an earthquake at the funeral!! Raarr!), kids gorging on the fruit, just oblivious to the world around them (See, Satan totally slipped out right there, "Where'd he go?" lol)... . what am I missing?
Watch the video and see if you do or don't agree. Either way: it's a trip, for sure.
