JOKES: Buddhists are funny! (video)

LA Buddhists Seth Auberon, Jordan Kramer, Frank Miles, Wisdom Quarterly (edited by Seven); Scandinavian Lutherans Garrison Keillor and Friends; Italian lapsed-Catholics Eddie Pepitone, Jimmy Dore; east/west coast atheists Sarah Silverman and David Feldma...

The Buddha Gautama's always smiling, just as the next Buddha Maitreya will be (Malovika)

Monk Budai (Hotei) aka "Happy Buddha"

We don't know for certain if Buddhists are the funniest, but Wisdom Quarterly aims to make it so. It's tough keeping up with the atheists and agnostics of all ethnicities and religious persuasions, who seem to make the best comedians. Here are some gags to give your friends the giggles.

1. Knock, knock.

Who's there?

A not a...

Anatta who?

*Crickets chirping*

 

2. This is not a pot belly; it's a fuel tank for a sex machine.

AUDIO: "Groundhog Dayne"

Tig has c*nc*r; go ahead, laugh (NewYorkTimes)

(ThisAmericanLife.org) Famous people are supposed to be somewhere else, invisible to us. Comedienne Tig Notaro tells a story about repeatedly running into Taylor Dayne, who was a pop star in the late 80s and early 90s. Tig hosts the podcast Professor Blastoff and has a comedy album called Good One. (16 mins.)

3. The last thing, the last thing I want to do is hurt you. It's on the list, but it's the last thing.

Whoop-whoop, let's hear it for me, MB in DC!

4. When Mitt Romney went up to concede the election to Barry Obama, Anne Romney got on stage with him. Then when Mitt finally conceded, Anne breathed a sigh of relief. She really wasn't looking forward to moving into a smaller house.

5. "VOTE! It's your right! (Offer not available in all states)."

6. Knock knock.

Who's there?

Lilac.

Lilac who?

Lie like a politician and see how far you get.

"Ellen" talks to Suri's mom Katie (Anne Hathaway) on SNL (and says hi to Nicki Minaj tots)
   

7. Did you hear about the Buddhist coroner who got fired? He was great at his job. They just couldn't get him to stop writing "Birth" as the cause of death for every single one of his cases.      
   

Our nerd friends are geniuses

8. The Dalai Lama went into a pizza parlour and said, uh, something-something. "Make me one with everything"? No, no, he walked up to a hotdog stand barefoot in New York and got overcharged. He's always walking and always barefoot. He asked, "Where's my change?!" Then the vendor said something funny, but what was it? Something like, "Change comes from within"? No, no, he was barefoot, reeking from all the garlic on his pizza. He cried out in pain on account of a toothache from all the junk food. So the vendor directed him to the nearest dentist. The dentist saw that a tooth had to be pulled and asked His Holiness if he wanted some Novocaine, while offering him a breath-freshening mint. The old lama, as weak as he was, said "no," explaining that he would "transcend dental medication." And that's why he's known throughout the world as the "super-calloused fragile mystic exhibiting halitosis."

 

"Life in Hell" creator Matt Groening

9. An American tourist walks into a creepy old clock shop in Germany. The repairman barks: So? Vut seems to vee zee problem!? It's this antique grandfather clock I just bought, the tourist explains; it doesn't go "tick-tock, tick-tock." It just goes "tick, tick, tick..." Mmm-Hmm! relishes the repairman. I sink vee can fix zis. Let mee jusst look inside. Ve haf vays of making you tock. 9. They found a big hole in the wall around the nudist camp. The police are looking into it.

• COMICS: Best of "Life in Hell" (L.A.)
• Why your romantic partner annoys you
• Vegan Fu on Tig Notaro's rise (nomfg.com)
• Meat-eating sponge discovered under sea 
• Schadenfreude: Selena dumps Justin Bieber

10. How do you find a vegan at a party? Don't worry, she'll find you.
  

The human Barbie doll (buzzfeed)

11. A ventriloquist was bombing on stage and desperately wondering what he could do to turn his act around. He suddenly remembered that when he was a stand-up, he could always get laughs telling Dumb Blond jokes. He started in on some standards, and before long he had the crowd roaring with laughter. Just as soon as he did, an angry blond in the back stood up and began to excoriate him: "Do you have any idea what it's like trying to live in this society with people like you perpetuating those kinds of stereotypes? The anguish I feel every time I apply for a job and they see that I'm blond and prejudge me..." The ventriloquist was dumbfounded, his jaw dropped, he turned beet red, as he struggled to apologize and explain. "Shut up!" the woman hurled. "I'm not talking to you! I'm talking to the little guy sitting on your lap."

12. A rich man married a young blond. "How are you ever going to keep her around?" his rich friends lamented. I'm not worried, he explained. I've got a circular driveway.   
  

Marilyn Monroe photos fetch $750,000

 

(eddiepepitone.com)

13. A fundamentalist Christian preacher and a Catholic priest sat next to each other on a plane. When the flight attendant asked what they'd like to drink, the priest asked for a glass of wine. The preacher asked for water mentioning that true Christians avoid alcohol. The priest argued, "But Jesus drank wine" [lightly fermented Nazarene fruit juice in place of water]. The fundamentalist shot back, "I know, and I would have thought a lot more of him if he hadn't."

14. The blond scientists unveiled their plan to get a rocket to the moon. The crowd roared with laughter. The moderator asked about what he saw as an obvious problem: How do you intend to avoid being burned up? "Oh, that won't be a problem," one of the blond scientists explained. "We plan to go at night." End of Part 1 in three-part Wisdom Quarterly series
     

WARNING: Rated R. Sarah Silverman has a plan to feed the world.

• VIDEO: Women to skydive in lingerie (ABC)
• Blue denim Levis as floppy sandals?
  
• VIDEO: Cockatoo found making and using tools 
• VIDEO: Baboon adopts kitten
• Drunk man arrested for "statutory" rape
• Consumer Reports tests and rates AA batteries
• FREEBIES (designyoutrust.com) 

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Why are American teeth crooked, decaying?

"How Are Teeth Damaged?" (Tooth Truth by Frank J. Jerome, D.D.S., pp. 199-200)

Famous Budai, the fat happy smiling Mahayana monk or "Buddha" (shutterstock.com)

 

Dr. Weston Price [westinaprice.org] was a highly respected research dentist who worked in the first 40 years of the 19th century. For several decades he was employed by the American Dental Association (ADA) as head of its research programs. [He produced volumes of valuable work for them.]

After leaving his post at the ADA, he traveled the world. Taking photographs of native people in Polynesia and other remote areas, he was able to show the influence of the Western (American) diet [or SAD: Standard American Diet] on children in the same families raised before sugar and white flour were introduced and those born after its introduction.
   

"I thought cavs and crooked teeth was normal!"

The children exposed to sugar and white flour had dental disease and their faces were narrower, causing bad bites with crowded, crooked teeth.

In some places, when the Western diet stopped being available, children born after the previous native diet was resumed were again healthy, just as the older children and the parents. Dr. Price's book about his observations of dietary influences on growth and decay, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, has become a classic in nutritional literature.

"Ah, no more vivisection on us!" (funnycats4u)

Dr. Francis Pottenger, M.D. did dietary experiments, using cats. When fed Western diets (human foods), the kittens grew with all the problems we exhibit including allergies and deformed dental arches. When these kittens became adults, he fed them their natural diet, and it took five generations before their kittens were completely healthy.. When the experiments were extended by feeding the cats the Western diet for three more generations, none of the kittens survived to breed. These experiments suggest that after long exposure to the Western diets, the facial deformities common in America -- the long, narrow faces with crowded, crooked teeth -- will become more common...

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Comedy: Elections vs. Reality (video)

Jimmy Dore, David Feldman; Seth, Xochitl, CC, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

War. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. Politics, on the other hand. What is that good for? Laughs! We would give up paying attention -- if it weren't so tragically FUNNY.

  

Everything will be all right. But while the ride is in motion, we sometimes forget ourselves. Then it can get hair-raising. Is Romney that much of an idiot, Obama that much of a liar, the secret movers and shakers (hidden behind the scenes manipulating the game) that "evil"?

  
HALLOWEEN JOKES

Seven, Wisdom Quarterly
A boy was devouring a sack of candy -- bar after bar -- when the old Zen master walked up to him hollering. 

  

"You stupid fool, you're going to die eating that much candy!"

"My grandfather lived to be 107," the boy explained and kept gobbling away.

 

The old master was surprised. "You mean he lived to be 107 by eating candy?"

  

"No," the boy answered, "by minding his own business."

---------
Q: Why did the cat fall out of the tree?
I don't know, why?
A: Because he was dead.

• Halloween riddles, duds, and puns (PsychologyToday.com) 
• Halloween costumes: Gangsta rappers, Geishas, how far?
• L.A.'s Day of the Dead (Hollywood Forever Cemetery)

COMEDY: KPFK podcast FREE on iTunes

   
Is there compassion and kindness (karuna and metta) in today's cutting comedy? There may not be for those public figures being skewered. But there sure is for the majority of us forced to endure mass media disinformation campaigns and pernicious half-truths and bald-faced untruths of politicians and newsy talking heads.

  

Thank Comedy Central, Stephen Colbert, Sarah "Great Schlep" Silverman, Jon Stewart, Laura Kightlinger, Lisa Lampanelli, Seth MacFarlane, Southpark creators Matt and Trey, and the good ol' boys with the Red State Update!

  

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How much happiness makes up for sadness?

Eric Barker (BusinessInsider.com, Oct. 7, 2012); Wisdom Quarterly

Are Buddhist monastics the happiest of all? (Tricycle.com/Youaretrulyloved.com)

     

Smile! It's healthy (baconbabble.com).

Psychologist Barbara Frederickson is an expert on flourishing and has been an advocate of finding ways to bring more positive emotions into our lives. 

 

In her research she discovered a critical 3 to 1 ratio, indicating that we need to have three positive emotions for every negative one in order to thrive.

And Frederickson has found out that if we really want to prosper, we shouldn’t try to eliminate negative emotions. Rather, we should work on keeping the ratio at three positive for every one negative. 

  

Happiness is natural (dreamingdog.multiply.com)

Most of us, she has found, have two positive experiences for every negative. This gets us by, but it is effectively languishing. 

How many people are at 3 to 1? Around 20%.

  

Frederickson and Losada pinpointed such “flourishing” mental health in 45 people from a survey of 188 university students.

  

Forty-five out of 188 (23%) may seem very few, but several surveys have shown that only about 20% of Americans are flourishing in this sense.

  

Sound familiar?

Is that our spidey-sense tingling? It should be for regular readers: We’ve seen similar patterns with ratios and happiness before. While 3 to 1 keeps you happy, 5 to 1 keeps relationships smooth.

• Via The Ape in the Corner Office: How to Make Friends, Win Fights, and Work Smarter by Understanding Human Nature:

Sensuality is NOT the way to actual happiness.

It turned out that the 15 high-performance teams averaged 5.6 positive interactions for every negative one. The 19 low-performance teams racked up a positive/negative ratio of just 0.363. That is, they had about three negative interactions for every positive one…

 

What’s even scarier is that Losada’s 5:1 ratio also appears to be essential when you get home and try to muster the energy for a successful marriage... More

Heaven or Enlightenment?
Buddhist lore, Seven Dharmachari, Wisdom Quarterly

Meditation superhero (msnbc.msn.com)

There were once two Buddhist monks meditating, having vowed to reach enlightenment. They became stream enterers, the first stage along the path to awakening and the final end of all suffering -- arhatship. One joyfully proceeded, but the other stopped. The first asked, "Why have you stopped, friend?"
  
The second answered, "I have suffered greatly over many lives. And I wish, so as a way of making up for all that suffering, to first be reborn in heavenly realms. Then and only then will I seek to accomplish the goal."
 
The first shrank back, "Friend, do not speak in such way! The Blessed One, the noble ones, they never spoke in such a way."
  
"My mind is made up," the second stubbornly declared.

The first continued to meditate, and in no long time he reached the goal for which youths of good family leave home for the homeless life of a spiritual seeker. He did what was to be done, abandoning rebirth and suffering once and for all.
  
The second carried on for years and eventually died in old age. He was immediately reborn in India as the illegitimate child of a woman who, to conceal her infidelity had been concealing her pregnancy. When she gave birth, she immediately went out onto a dirt road along a path frequented by herds of cattle.
 

Predisposed (alibaba.com)

And just as a large herd was coming headed by a chief bull, she tossed the newborn onto the road. The powerful bull, mysteriously moved by the child's merit, stopped over him protecting him from harm as the cows went around.
   
The second monk had been reborn fully conscious, aware of his grave and dangerous mistake in the previous life, having chosen vain happiness as some sort of compensation for previous suffering -- both of which have their basis in illusion and misunderstanding.
 
He lamented not heeding the first monk's advice. And by a supernormal feat of concentration, he tossed the dirt that was caked to his body from contact of dust and afterbirth, crossed his legs, and levitated midair thanking the bull.
  
He developed the absorptions, emerged purified in heart/mind, and took up the insight practice of reviewing the 12 links of Dependent Origination. He penetrated the ultimate Truth and was thereby liberated from all suffering; he became one of the noble ones (fully enlightened individuals, arhats).

• The Importance of Stream-Entry (Vince Horn)
• Ven. Thanissaro's Stream-Entry Study Guide
• How common is Stream-Entry? 

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