![\"\"](\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_niPwTW3rBbU\/SUpIY9nDLyI\/AAAAAAAAB9k\/cAcVq04e9CE\/s400\/Linji\")
<\/a>I notice how today is the anniversary of Robert Ingersoll\u2019s<\/a> defeat and capture at the battle of Lexington. A young lawyer commissioned as a colonel in the Union army, he was imprisoned before being paroled on the promise of not fighting further in the war, a common process early in that conflict.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n
A brilliant lawyer Colonel Ingersoll would go on to become attorney general for the state of Illinois as well as a renowned litigator. He was also the foremost public speaker of his day in defense of Freethought<\/a>, himself holding a position variously described as agnostic and atheist.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I ran around the web looking to see if he made any comments on Buddhism<\/a>. Buddhism, after all, was just beginning to be understood at the time Ingersoll was taking the public stage. I found a startling quote, \u201cAnger blows out the lamp of the mind.\u201d Startling, not for its content, I agree with this sentiment deeply and in fact find a romance with anger a continuing problematic aspect of several causes I otherwise admire. But, the language is classic Buddhist<\/a>, and could easily be an aphorism straight from the lips of Gautama Siddhartha. So much so, that I cite it here with the caveat that I didn\u2019t see its source, and am somewhat suspicious as to its authenticity.\n
Mostly Ingersoll\u2019s Buddhist references appear to be passing and don\u2019t show any particular insight into the tradition one way or another.<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
But, as I was rummaging around using search terms \u201cRobert Ingersoll\u201d and \u201cBuddhism,\u201d I ran across an essay by Sam Harris published in Shambhala Sun<\/span> as Killing the Buddha<\/a>. As it touches upon what I consider a shadow within a hard rationalist analysis of religion, it turned the specifics of my reflection in that direction.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
In his essay Harris writes.\n
The ninth-century Buddhist master Lin Chi is supposed to have said, \u201cIf you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.\u201d Like much of Zen teaching, this seems too cute by half, but it makes a valuable point: to turn the Buddha into a religious fetish is to miss the essence of what he taught. In considering what Buddhism can offer the world in the twenty-first century, I propose that we take Lin Chi\u2019s admonishment rather seriously. As students of the Buddha, we should dispense with Buddhism. <\/span><\/p><\/div>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/33904114-1008442200995732324?l=monkeymindonline.blogspot.com\")
<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"