This comic is truly profound. One of the main points the Lotus Sutra teaches is that anyone regardless of past deeds can attain enlightenment in this life time. You are also correct about demons being converted and serving as guardians, but not just for temples. Some demons take on protective duties for all Buddha's after spending time trying to make the Buddhist's life as painful as possible. So in a way that demon reincarnating the monk in the story would have served his purpose of acting as a protector, and the fact that afterwards begins to meditate afterwards falls right in line with everything I've ever heard about demons in Buddhist practice.

--Hiro Shimada
(a Buddhist)

I've gotten a few e-mails from other Buddhists and a Hindu on The Devil and The Monk, but I think that this is what I wanted to hear. That is, a Catholic-born Gnostic-convert living in America gave a good interpretation of Buddhist ideas, both philosophical and mythic/cultural.

For people who might take offense or misinterpretation of the word "myth", I'm using the definition I learned from my instructor in my old "Fairytales and Folklore" class.

Myth: a story that may or may not be true but is culturally important to a people (I'm paraphrasing of course, I took that class like-- 6 or 7 years ago. I'm not gonna dig up that syllabus I kept from college).

So, if I refer to a "Christian Myth", I am not an angry atheist, I'm just stating that this old tale, that God only knows is historically accurate, is important to the Christian people and culture.

P.S. Heather Joseph-Whitham was a great teacher. If I could find a link to that one book she wrote about Klingon Fan Culture, I'd post it up (although there has been a steady decline in the Klingon population that seems to coincide with the depletion of the Ozone Layer). She's also made appearances on Mythbusters as a Folklorist and Urban Legend specialist.

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