Tear down the statues: was Caesar as bad as Hitler? Should explorers like Captain Cook & Burke and Wills have their statues torn down?

Chapter 1
As he held out his hand to let dust, brightly lit by the morning sun, settle slowly upon it, he knew, in a metallic sort of way, that this was how the journey towards cleanliness began, and how it would it end. For every all the dust that settled on his hand, there would be mountains more floating in the air. Like the lives of sentient beings, countless sankaras, past karmas, that needed to be swept and vacuumed before they could open the doors to liberation.
“What would be the purpose in sweeping dirt from the forest floor?” the Zen Cleaning Robot often pondered to bemused owners around the world. In the forest the dust belonged to no woman nor man. In the suburban homes the dust was theirs. If only they could be as detached from the dirt of the forest floor as they were to that in their living rooms, to break the connection between the dust and the “I”, then the wheel of misery would cease, and happiness would abound.
But the robots' owners were always on the phone complaining about the rate at which their robots collected dust. Couldn't they see that there was greater purpose in cleaning the dust than gathering it and relocating it in green plastic waste receptacles to be driven and deposited along with the defecation of the small ones wrapped in hygienic, lemon-scented plastic, and the leftover rogan josh and naan in the takeaway containers from the local Bangladeshi restaurant?
“Learn that the dust comes and passes away” the robot would say, “if your bowl is empty, then clean it”, it would add, referring to the roll the dishwasher played in the search for Nirvana, “but at all times, be happy, the world is full of dust, dirt and grime. Full of tiny microscopic organisms, and different types of fungus waiting to devour your dead flesh. Your only weapon to defeat this enemy is smiling acceptance and laughter at the absurd nature of it all”.
“I was expecting it to clean my living room”, the owner would say to the company's customer service officer, “not just tell me to be in harmony with the dirt. I don't want to live in harmony with dirt, that's why I got a cleaner robot, so it could suck up the dirt and put the dirt in the rubbish bin, so on Thursday morning the garbage truck could come along and tip the dirt out and go bury it with the rest of the shit I throw out on a every day. Sorry for swearing but this thing is totally frustrating, and you are the forth person I've spoken to about this”. It was apparent to the Customer Service Officer by the way the customer repeated the word 'dirt' that the customer did not like dirt very much at all.
But the robot knew, in as much as a robot can know, with this robot knowing a great deal more than the average robot, that even if it was not in total control of its emotions, in the same way that humans usually aren't, that it could not be angry with the customer.
The customer was ignorant, lost in a samsaric sea of misery. If only he could pop his head out of that ocean, even for a moment, and experience the endless light that is the tranquility of the mind free from samsara, the peace of being one with the universe.
Enlightenment was a very long path, one needed to have the patience to capture millions of pieces of dust and watch millions more fall out of your grasp, and possibly even to watch the destruction of one universe and the creation of a new one. The human would take many lives to accept this. Even the Buddha took thousands of lives in various forms including, through the law of probabilities, oncChapter 1
As he held out his hand to let dust, brightly lit by the morning sun, settle slowly upon it, he knew, in a metallic sort of way, that this was how the journey towards cleanliness began, and how it would it end. For every all the dust that settled on his hand, there would be mountains more floating in the air. Like the lives of sentient beings, countless sankaras, past karmas, that needed to be swept and vacuumed before they could open the doors to liberation.
“What would be the purpose in sweeping dirt from the forest floor?” the Zen Cleaning Robot often pondered to bemused owners around the world. In the forest the dust belonged to no woman nor man. In the suburban homes the dust was theirs. If only they could be as detached from the dirt of the forest floor as they were to that in their living rooms, to break the connection between the dust and the “I”, then the wheel of misery would cease, and happiness would abound.
But the robots' owners were always on the phone complaining about the rate at which their robots collected dust. Couldn't they see that there was greater purpose in cleaning the dust than gathering it and relocating it in green plastic waste receptacles to be driven and deposited along with the defecation of the small ones wrapped in hygienic, lemon-scented plastic, and the leftover rogan josh and naan in the takeaway containers from the local Bangladeshi restaurant?
“Learn that the dust comes and passes away” the robot would say, “if your bowl is empty, then clean it”, it would add, referring to the roll the dishwasher played in the search for Nirvana, “but at all times, be happy, the world is full of dust, dirt and grime. Full of tiny microscopic organisms, and different types of fungus waiting to devour your dead flesh. Your only weapon to defeat this enemy is smiling acceptance and laughter at the absurd nature of it all”.
“I was expecting it to clean my living room”, the owner would say to the company's customer service officer, “not just tell me to be in harmony with the dirt. I don't want to live in harmony with dirt, that's why I got a cleaner robot, so it could suck up the dirt and put the dirt in the rubbish bin, so on Thursday morning the garbage truck could come along and tip the dirt out and go bury it with the rest of the shit I throw out on a every day. Sorry for swearing but this thing is totally frustrating, and you are the forth person I've spoken to about this”. It was apparent to the Customer Service Officer by the way the customer repeated the word 'dirt' that the customer did not like dirt very much at all.
But the robot knew, in as much as a robot can know, with this robot knowing a great deal more than the average robot, that even if it was not in total control of its emotions, in the same way that humans usually aren't, that it could not be angry with the customer.
The customer was ignorant, lost in a samsaric sea of misery. If only he could pop his head out of that ocean, even for a moment, and experience the endless light that is the tranquility of the mind free from samsara, the peace of being one with the universe.
Enlightenment was a very long path, one needed to have the patience to capture millions of pieces of dust and watch millions more fall out of your grasp, and possibly even to watch the destruction of one universe and the creation of a new one. The human would take many lives to accept this. Even the Buddha took thousands of lives in various forms including, through the law of probabilities, once being a donkey with one leg shorter than the other three, a rabid monkey, and a large breasted princess in ancient Mesopotamia, until he spent some time as a prince in present day Nepal, initially thinking himself to be rather special living in blissful ignorance of sickness and ageing, including iodine deficiencies that led to big bulbous growths on people's necks. That was until he sneaked out of the palace grounds, away from the call of the peacocks, to see old hags bent over at ninety degree angles, poor people with bad teeth, scratching their lice-ridden heads and bulbous neck growths resulting from iodine deficiencies, and dead people with their lower jaws hanging open waiting to get wrapped up and thrown on funeral pyres. It was only after seeing these things that Gotoma realised he was actually nothing special in a way that opened up the fabric of his existence, and all existence.
The Zen Cleaning Robot knew that the human may go online and buy one of those 'proper' vacuum cleaners that he had seen on television. One that could hold up a bowling ball, but which knew nothing of the nature of rebirth and suffering.
It did not matter.
Nothing really mattered.
Stay, go, live, die, clean or remain in box. If the human bought a vacuum, he would have a clean home. For a time. If that was what he desired. But would he really be liberated from the dust? Would he find nirvanic peace? Would he stumble across the boundless and infinite joy that freedom from the material world brings?
And thus the Zen Cleaning Robot spent his days, in quiet contemplation.
e being a donkey with one leg shorter than the other three, a rabid monkey, and a large breasted princess in ancient Mesopotamia, until he spent some time as a prince in present day Nepal, initially thinking himself to be rather special living in blissful ignorance of sickness and ageing, including iodine deficiencies that led to big bulbous growths on people's necks. That was until he sneaked out of the palace grounds, away from the call of the peacocks, to see old hags bent over at ninety degree angles, poor people with bad teeth, scratching their lice-ridden heads and bulbous neck growths resulting from iodine deficiencies, and dead people with their lower jaws hanging open waiting to get wrapped up and thrown on funeral pyres. It was only after seeing these things that Gotoma realised he was actually nothing special in a way that opened up the fabric of his existence, and all existence.
The Zen Cleaning Robot knew that the human may go online and buy one of those 'proper' vacuum cleaners that he had seen on television. One that could hold up a bowling ball, but which knew nothing of the nature of rebirth and suffering.
It did not matter.
Nothing really mattered.
Stay, go, live, die, clean or remain in box. If the human bought a vacuum, he would have a clean home. For a time. If that was what he desired. But would he really be liberated from the dust? Would he find nirvanic peace? Would he stumble across the boundless and infinite joy that freedom from the material world brings?
And thus the Zen Cleaning Robot spent his days, in quiet contemplation.