Some Zen Jokes

The Joy of Self-Reference

“Drawing Hands,” M. C. Escher

These jokes share a common feature revealed by the first of them. This collection will grow over time — it begins with only three — as memory or inspiration come. Please suggest some in comments. If they fit the mold, I will add them to the body of the text, with attribution, of course.

— — — — — — — — -

I went to a wedding reception the other day. So many people. There were lines for everything — a reception line, a buffet line, even a conga line. But when I went to get some punch…¹

I know only two things:
1. Don’t tell all you know.²

Four unemployed joke writers walk into a bar…

Three Euclidean geometers and Nikolai Lobachevsky walk into a bar…³

A priest, a minister, and a rabbi walk into a bar. The bartender says, “What is this, some kind of joke?” [Suggested by Voice of Reason. (For some reason, the @ sign tagger doesn’t work.)⁴

The more suicidal people there are, the fewer suicidal people there are. [From the movie “The Friend”]

“With a curvaceous figure that Venus would have envied, a tanned, unblemished oval face framed with lustrous think brown hair, deep azure-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes, perfect teeth that vied for competition, and a small…