Friday, March 12, 2010

Another Zen Koan from the Girl

This one, while we were watching some episodes of Pink Panther for Friday night movie night. It was a cartoon short in which Pink Panther is being plagued by a magic white bunny in some sort of magic house:

Girl: Is that bunny real? Or is it fake?

Me: (Thinking: She knows the Pink Panther is fake. He's a cartoon. What is she asking me? She must me asking me if the magic bunny is real in the fiction of the cartoon.)

Me:

Me:

Me: It's as real as Pink Panther is.


(Granted, it doesn't have the spiritual weight and difficulty of her recent God questions, but you can see how the question would spin me into all kind of thoughts about the virtual, the fictional, and the real--thoughts that are difficult to pin down in response to a simple question from a 4.75 year old.)

3 comments:

TKW said...

Dang! That girl is already thinking too deeply. What will you do in future years?

This Ro(a)mantic Life said...

The levels, the levels, GEW! Is the bunny real in the fiction of the cartoon -- I would not have been so quick with an understanding of those frames of reference. Very impressed over here.

Anonymous said...

Such a good answer! I might just use it for all such queries now...in the classroom and at home. :)