cdf6dede   
   XPost: alt.buddha.short.fat.guy   
   From: punditster@gmail.com   
      
   On 7/2/2025 5:52 PM, David Dalton wrote:   
   > If the Buddha did have seven years of ascetic years from   
   > age 28 to age 35 living on one grain of rice per day, why   
   > is he depicted as having a big belly?   
   >   
   Maybe the historical Buddha, India's first yogi, was skinny when he   
   practiced yoga and became enlightened, but later he got fatter and put   
   on some weight, but probably not that much, since he was a known   
   wanderer who walked about every day until age eighty.   
      
   Depicting the Buddha as heavy is just artistic editing.   
      
   The real question is: What was the realization of his enlightenment?   
      
   Apparently, he realized that the ascetic life did not bring him   
   enlightenment, so he decided to eat some food and take it easy.   
      
   So, he sat in the shade of a tree and began to meditate.   
      
   In a flash of insight, he realized that there are no chance events and   
   no events are spontaneously self-generated.   
      
   And why?   
      
   Causation. Everything happens for a reason.   
      
   He was the first person to realize the law of cause and effect. Things   
   happen for a reason, not by chance or by a supernatural entity or   
   personification of nature. This became his central philosophy.   
      
   This sounds so simple today but back then, 563 BCE, this was a big thing!   
      
   So, events happen due to causation, the natural law of action and   
   reaction, where relative conditioned reflexes depend on prior events.   
      
   There are NO exceptions to the law of causation, which is the Causal Nexus.   
      
   According to Buddha, this law applies with equal force in the realm of   
   the mind and in physical nature.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)