Hotei

[dukealien]

The poor man's well-fed body, the golden ball
in the beggar's bowl. The loving, accepting agonistic
buddha; the all-knowing Ignorance. Accept GOD and
kill GOD. Kill the Sun of GOD; the sun dies,
the golden ball beyond the sun that is the sun dies and
never dies and comes back after having never left.
The empty-context laughs the soulful laugh
of the retarded baby. That pure sense is so 
pure it isn't real. An illusion.—There are
no illusions where there are no things real. There
is no Path, there's a Walking Smile.
     Laughter is a Walking Smile, and so is a man
who walks. And sits. And lies.

Quite nice.  The smile, the laugh are monkey threat-expression which please because they're known, or found, to be empty of actual threat.  We laugh at the standup comedian because he exposes our ignorance or failure to anticipate the punch line, but he can't actually get at us.  So we bark like apes and show our teeth, but (usually) don't rush the stage and thrash him for his impudence.  Clowns... well, don't get me started on clowns.

You don't know Hotei lies; he's the Buddha of the Future, after all.  There's hope of a happy ending right up to the end, and after that who can say it wasn't happy after that?  Well, anyone can say it - cynicism and despair are valid poses.  But are they true?