The Ottawa Citizen has the story from which this great sentence comes. Go, Blackout!

Look, I’m all for having a larf, but as one friend said to me:  “Very sad that someone actually paid money to do that.” And as I said back, “What if — just what IF — the dude is sincere? Not that I think that horrible Nike ad helps that argument…”

Coach Phil “The Zen Master” Jackson seems to think they might be. Via the Lakers Blog of the Orange County Register:

HOUSTON — The Lakers’ 33-point deficit after three quarters in Oklahoma City probably won’t be remembered too long, but it was still being discussed a day later.

Reflecting on that defeat, Phil Jackson said Saturday the Lakers simply “weren’t ready to come out on the floor.” [...] Jackson told reporters a story about the Buddha and four kinds of horses with varying motivation. He suggested the Lakers might need to lose to evolve into a more self-motivated group.

Yep, that’s right — that’s the same story from which this site gets its name. More on that here.

The tattoo in question, via farm4.static.flickr.com

Sports site TSN reports that:

“English welterweight Dan (The Outlaw) Hardy’s stomach tattoo was airbrushed out of the UFC 111 fight poster because it is ‘anti-Chinese government stuff,’ according to UFC president Dana White.

‘”I’m trying to get into China,” he told fans at a question-and-answer session Tuesday. ‘I don’t need anti-Chinese government stuff on my fighters.’

“Hardy, however, says the tattoo — the fighter’s favourite — is a Tibetan Buddhist prayer written in Sanskrit.

‘”It’s basically just like a prayer for focus,’ Hardy said. ‘It keeps me walking the path that I should be walking without veering off and distracting myself.’

“Apprised of that explanation, White said: ‘That’s not what I heard.’

[...] “‘I heard that it was anti-Chinese government, so I ripped that thing off it. I’m not going to put him on a poster with anti-Chinese government writing on it when we’re trying to get into China. . . . I don’t know what this stuff means, so I’ve got to be safe.’

But, as the MMA site Bloody Elbow (nice name, that) points out:

“The tattoo is the well known Buddhist mantra “Om mani padme hum” which has no political significance in relation to China.”

Well, not quite no political significance.  While the tattoo isn’t an overt anti-China statement, China sure is sensitive to hearing about Tibetan Buddhism. Some, like Robert Thurman, would even go so far as to say that the Chinese government is trying ‘re trying to, um, airbrush it away.

“It’s Buddhist, it’s for protection and strength and I certainly need that,” he said, adding that he began wearing the bracelet before he went into rehabilitation and that he intends to wear it forever.

“I have a lot of work to do, and I intend to dedicate myself to doing it. Part of following this path, for me, is Buddhism, which my mother taught me at a young age. People probably don’t realize it, but I was raised a Buddhist, and I actively practiced my faith from childhood until I drifted away from it in recent years. Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security. It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously, I lost track of what I was taught. As I move forward, I will continue to receive help, because I’ve learned that that’s how people really do change.”

Update: Tida Woods, the golfer’s mom, had this to say about her son’s rededication to Buddhist practice:  “Buddhism teaches you to go deep inside your soul and look through from himself, and correct the bad thing to be a good thing. When he realized, he said okay, and went back to practice Buddhism and that will make him a much better person.”

For my ongoing coverage of the media-circus surrounding Woods’ Buddhism (versus Brit Hume’s suggestions that he convert to Christianity), click here.

Update: CNN has posted a new piece (featured on its homepage as of Friday evening): Tiger Woods’ apology brings new attention to Buddhism

Here’s the video:

Note the question at the 50-second mark to learn which faith O’Reilly thinks is the one being denigrated here.

Pat Buchanan, on the other hand, has more or less conceded that Buddhism was in fact being denigrated, but seems to think that that’s okay because “there are not a lot of Buddhists watching FOX.” (TPM has a nice wrap-up.)

But one new item is too notable to, um, not note. Check it out, along with video, at Shambhala SunSpace.

Via Ananova:

Photographs of a monk skateboarding inside a historic temple have caused controversy in China. [...]

“Monks should seek quietness and riding a skateboard is such a contradictory thing to Buddhist life,” said [internet commenter].

However, a spokesman for the temple said that the outside world did not understand the life of a contemporary monk.

“People get their impressions from TV or movies, where monks are praying all day long, without any motivation or desire,” he said.

“But these days monks also enjoy sports like badminton, table tennis and skateboarding in the spare time, as well as praying.

“They even use the internet and mobile phones to promote Buddhism. This is not contradictory to Buddhism but actually is part of the Buddhist spirit.”

Right on.

And, just as nice: a percentage of the film’s profits will be donated to organizations that share Jaimal’s desire and passion to care for the earth. Well done, all around!