There was nothing pompous about the Master. Wild, hilarious laughter prevailed each time he spoke, to the dismay of those who were solemn about their spirituality, and themselves.
Said one disillusioned visitor, “The man’s a clown!”
“No, no,” said a disciple. “You’ve missed the point: a clown gets you to laugh at him, a Master gets you to laugh at yourself.”
Source | Anthony de Mello, One Minute Nonsense,
(Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, 1992) Chapter 35
Image: A postage stamp of Macau (2009) features Rushana Buddha in Fengxian Temple (Tang Dynasty), the largest among the Longmen Grottoes. The Longmen Grottoes or Longmen Caves are some of the finest examples of Chinese Buddhist art. Housing tens of thousands of statues of Sakyamuni Buddha and his disciples, they are located in Henan province, China. The images, many once painted, were carved as outside rock reliefs and inside artificial caves excavated from the limestone cliffs. The grottoes and niches of Longmen contain the largest and most impressive collection of Chinese art of the late Northern Wei and Tang Dynasties (316-907). These works, entirely devoted to the Buddhist religion, represent the high point of Chinese stone carving. In 2000 the site was inscribed upon the UNESCO World Heritage List as “an outstanding manifestation of human artistic creativity.” Courtesy https://www.buddhiststamp.com/