2010-01-25
Explanation
In the first panel of this comic, a person approaches a spiritual leader or lama in a mountainous setting, saying: "We need to spend more money on irrigation, not temples." The lama responds with classic Eastern philosophical wisdom: "Do not dwell upon your surroundings. Flow, my son. Be like the water." The person replies with an uncertain, "Uh... okay."
In the second panel, the person relays the lama'''s advice to a group of fellow villagers walking along a path, but with a grimly literal interpretation: "So, the lama wants us to be full of dysentery." The joke hinges on the contrast between the lama'''s lofty metaphorical advice and the harsh practical reality. The villagers need clean water infrastructure (irrigation), and when told to "be like the water" instead, the person reasonably concludes that in their context -- where the water is contaminated -- being "like the water" means being full of waterborne disease.
The comic satirizes the disconnect between abstract spiritual platitudes and concrete material needs. The lama'''s advice to "be like the water" might be profound in a philosophy seminar, but it is useless and even insulting when the actual problem is that the community'''s water supply is making people sick. The votey panel shows the lama forcing someone to drink the contaminated water while saying "There ya go!" with the victim making a choking sound, driving home the absurdity of applying spiritual metaphor to a public health crisis.