On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 12:40 PM, SS <[email protected]> wrote: > On Wed, 2013-04-03 at 00:31 +0200, Tomasz Rola wrote: > > ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** > > ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** > > ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** > > For me, Deepa and other non techies, the meaning of the above 3 lines > are told in soap opera format in the link below, which I can understand > > http://justpasha.org/folk/rm.html > > Close Shiv, but there's a subtlety that is what makes the joke even funnier. The difference is that between "rm -rf" (your link) and "rm -rif" (Tomasz' quote.) When you add "-i" to "rm" it normally asks you to confirm each deletion with "Yes" or "No." However when you do both "-i" AND "-f" it no longer asks, it just does it. Some people, being cautious, habitually add "-i" to "rm" (and particularly "rm -r") in a misguided attempt to make sure they don't accidentally delete something important, but eventually end up automatically saying "yes" every time they do an "rm."
In Buddhism, "does <x> have Buddha nature" is canonically answered "yes" for all values of living things <x>. However one of the most famous Zen koans is "Joshu's Dog" - aka "Does a dog have buddha nature?" It's the very first koan in the seminal Zen work "The Gateless Barrier." Joshu's answer is "mu." Which means literally "nothing" or "nothingness" but figuratively can mean approximately "your question is poorly formed" or "your question contains an implicit assumption that is false" or even "your question does not make sense." So why does Joshu say "mu?" Popularly the formulation "does <x> have buddha nature" has been used to form pseudo-zen koans with clever (rather than profound) answers. This is one of those cases, but a bit more profound than most. -- Charles
