| RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TERRIBLE MEDITATION JOKES OF THE WEEK Why do green beans meditate? To find inner peas! I recently took up meditation….. It beats sitting around doing nothing. A humble monk sits at the peak of a hill that overlooks where the grassy Earth meets a river, and the river flows with the breeze, and the breeze explores a mountain range, and the mountains neighbor the sky, and the sky conceals the entire universe, hiding the unknown in plain sight. Softly, the monk exhales "Ooooomm". He repeats this until a noise, very quietly, breaks his chant. "moo." The monk stops for a moment, and without changing his position, dismisses it. "Ooooooommm." He begins again. Slightly longer this time, he's interrupted again, "moooo." The monk turns to find a cow looking up at him from the bottom of the hill. "Kind cow," the monk says, "please do not interrupt my meditation." The cow stares blankly back at the monk. The monk sighs and continues. "Oooooommmm-" Even louder, "Mmmooooooooo." "Dear cow, I must reach enlightenment. Please, refrain from making your cow noises or find another hill." The monk continues again, "Oooooooommmm-" "MMMmmoooooooooooO!" The cow exclaims. The monk stands up angrily, "Cow! Why must you interrupt my chanting?" The cow replies, "Because you're saying it backwards!" Tired of the modern world, a businessman visited a monastery to seek a simpler life Entering the monastery, he saw monks in simple robes practicing their meditations and tending to the grounds. "Ahh," he thought, "here is a life free from distraction!" But walking into the study halls, he discovered monks staring into laptops. In the wings, he saw monks typing on iPads. Shaken by this intrusion of the outside world into monastic life, he sought out the abbot. The abbot looked up from his phone, greeted the man and asked if he had a question. "Abbot, I came here expecting a place free from distraction, and yet I see distraction all around. Tell me, is it now acceptable for monks to spend their time answering emails?" "Of course," said the abbot, "provided there are no attachments." Interesting fact about Mahatma Gandhi. If you've ever seen the film about Gandhi, you know that he was famous for walking everywhere. But what they don't show in the film is that he was able to do this because he'd built up enormous callouses on his feet. And even though his body was very frail, his Hindu faith and devotion to meditation kept him strong. Another thing they don't show in the film is that Gandhi had very bad breath, and no matter what he did, he was unable to find a cure. In short, he was a super-calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis. Lee decides that he wants to find his place in the intricacy of the universe, and leaves his family to become a Buddhist monk. He treks for days into the mountains, before finding a monastery, hundreds of miles from civilization. He enters the monastery, and bowing before the lama, requests to become a monk. The lama accepts, but on one condition; he must only speak two words every five years. Still determined as ever, Lee accepts, and begins his career as a Buddhist monk. That night, Lee is shown to his bed, nothing more than a wooden plank built into the wall. It takes hours for him to get to sleep, and he wakes up in the morning feeling sore all over, and in no fit state to meditate. He hopes that he will get used to it, but over the next weeks, he still wakes up feeling sore every morning. Lee endures this pain for five years, before he bows before the lama, and says "More blankets" The lama nods, and that night, Lee returns to see a mattress and duvet on his bunk, and sleeps soundly from then on. With the problem of bedding out of the way, Lee realizes that he never has a proper meal, and always feels hungry, which is constantly on his mind during meditation. Again, he endures hunger for five long years, before he bows before the lama and says "More food" The lama accepts, and Lee has regular filling meals from then on. With all of his needs satisfied, Lee begins to feel like he is not really cut out to be a monk. He misses his family and friends more than anything, and longs to live an ordinary life again. But not wanting to dishonour his agreement, he waits five more years, before he bows before the lama, and says "I quit" The lama frowns for a second, the says "Good. You've done nothing but complain since you got here" A new monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to help the other monks in copying the old texts by hand. He notices, however, that they are copying copies, and not the original books. So, the new monk goes to the head monk to ask him about this. He points out that if there was an error in the first copy, that error would be continued in all of the other 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 later, nobody has seen him. So, one of the monks goes downstairs to look for him. He hears sobbing coming from the back of the cellar and finds the old monk leaning over one of the original books crying. He asks what's wrong. "The word is celebrate!" says the old monk.
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