I know a number of religious fundamentalists. But, no, they’re not Christian. Not even Muslim. And, nope, not Zoroastrian, either.

They’re Buddhist. And among the reasons for their holier-than-thou-ness is they think Buddhism is “smarter” than other religions. They think Buddhists are more about critical inquiry than unfounded belief, not prone to superstition or magical thinking. And the intellectual icing on the arrogant cake is the notion that modern day Quantum Physics supports 2500-year old Buddhist beliefs.

Of course these are American Budddists, most of whom have never visited Buddhist countries, where people routinely pray to “Lord Buddha” in order to improve their chances of winning the lottery, or make donations to the local temple be assured of a better rebirth.

Well, this news story might hammer a nail into the “Buddhists are smarter than other religion’s followers” coffin:

ROCHESTER, Minn. (AP) _ The Cambodian Buddhist community in Rochester is abuzz over what they believe is a miracle: a wasp nest in the shape of a seated Buddha built in the eaves of their temple.

The nest was spotted last week. Elder members of the community say they have never seen an apparition of the Buddha in their lifetimes.

Seventy-year-old Voeun Sor of Rochester says the hive shows the Buddha is trying to tell everybody to seek peace in their lives.

Robert Jeanne is an entomology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He says the Buddha-shaped hive could actually be four different nests formed over a couple of years. He says if someone wants to read miracles into that, that’s their privilege.

Moeun Ngop is a 76-year-old monk. He has a more mystical take. He says the insects are trying to communicate Buddha’s message.

I can only respond with an ancient Buddhist expression: Oy, vey!

Now the followers of Siddhartha Gautama have joined the “Virgin Mary is in my French Toast” and the “Jesus is in the wood grain of my bathroom door” Christians.

Ignoring that for a second, let’s take a gander at the rest of the impressive reasoning going on here.

“The hive shows the Buddha is trying to tell everyone to seek peace…” Uhhh… hello? This is a WASP’S NEST! If it was a chorus line of butterflies dancing in the shape of the Buddha, sure. But WASPS?! Not the first insect that comes to mind when I free associate about “peace” (which, by the way, is praying mantis).

“The insects are trying to communicate the Buddha’s message…” Not very well, I’d say. If I was trying to communicate the Buddha’s message, I’d try, oh, WORDS, not an image that looks all puffy, like the Buddha after he’s been stung by a a few thousand wasps.

And, to get technical, how are we to explain that the wasps learned the Buddha’s message in the first place? Buddhist teaching says that one reason being born as a human is so precious is because this is the only form of life that gives you the opportunity to hear the Buddha’s message.

Alright, alright… perhaps I’m being a bit too hard on the 76-year old guy. He’s a monk. He doesn’t get out much. And, having had my share of wasp nest encounters, I understand the confusion. Just listen for a minute and you can hear the little stingers engaging in a veritable non-stop spiritual practice, repeating over and over the mantra, “Hmmmmmmmmmmmm…..”

If the Buddha were alive today, the odds are just as good that he’d be an Internet Marketer as the leader of a new religious sect.

Why?

Because the guy knew how to sell.

Let me talk about the Internet Marketing world before we return full-circle to the robed former Prince of the Sakya clan (that’s Siddhartha Gautuma — the Buddha — for those who are keeping score).

This morning, as background noise while I’m doing some last minute corporate accounting, I was listening to a well known Internet marketer’s lecture on how easy it is to make money online. I won’t mention his name because I don’t want to single him out, since what he does is the same as almost every other person selling “how to make money online.”

The guy spends 30 minutes getting people psyched that they can get whatever they want (apparently everyone wants to travel, have a bigger place to live, and work in their underwear… which, in an odd way, is one way to describe what it’s like to be homeless… but I digress).

Then he launches into his personal story of woe and misery. How he grew up poor, had no arms and legs, received alien implants that sucked out his brain, can’t say the number “5″ and, in myriad other ways, shouldn’t have become successful.

Then, of course, he discovered the Internet (cue the Hallelujah chorus) and thought it was the coolest thing ever.

He found a group of people who were willing to pay for information he had…

And the next thing you know, he’s making money online, hand over fist over knees over toes.

See, it’s that simple!

Oh, are you wondering what information he had?

Well, this is the part that makes me want to toss my computer out the  window… but since my office is in the basement and the window is a window-well, that would be more like rearranging my desk than getting the glass-and-plastic-shattering effect I’d like when I hear him GLOSS OVER this one, TEENY-WEENY factoid:

He discovered, after staring at stock and commodity charts all day, that he had a knack for making accurate predictions about the future prices in the market.

Let’s pause here, shall we. Let me see if I get this straight.

How rare do you think it is that someone can predict the movement of the market? Granted, he was doing this at a time where if you just said, “I think it’s going up!” you would probably make money. But, suffice it to say, it turns out that this guy with no training or education just happened to have a knack for doing something that people would pay a ton of money for.

He was a rare and unusual person with an even rarer and unusual-er skill. Out of the millions of people who TRY to do what he did, he was the ONE IN A MILLION (or better) who could do it.

But, again, he practically dismisses with a wipe of his hand the VALUE OF THIS STATISTICALLY UNLIKELY thing.

According to him, he didn’t make money because he could do something almost nobody else could do. He didn’t make money because it was a skill that could help other people make money (Want to make a million? Tell people that you can teach them how to make a million… for only $99.99).

No, according to him, it’s just the magic of the Internet and a few skills… hell, if he can do it, so can you! (that’s what he says, anyway).

I mean, sure, if you take out the rare, unusual, unreproduceable, unteachable, improbable, and unlikely part, then it SEEMS like something usual, reproduceable, teachable, probably and likely… and something you could do.

But add that back in and, well, it’s just a nice lecture from a mildly delusional-but-entertaining guy.

And that’s the problem with people teaching Internet Marketing. They typically leave out, or overlook, or simply don’t recognize the critical component of their personal story, the factor that actually led to their success (if there even IS a factor other than luck or good timing).

And, worse, most of the people listening to their pitch don’t recognize that missing factor and, therefore, spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to learn some “technique” that never reproduces the results attained by the teacher.

(Can you feel the circle about to close?)

Buddha had a great sales pitch.

Perhaps one of the best ever.

“Life is inherently unsatisfactory… but I have a way for you to get something even BETTER than what you ever imagined… in fact, if you imagine it, that ain’t it… and, unlike other religions that say you’ll get the bonus prize after you’re dead, with my religion you can get it all while you’re alive!”

While the Buddha couldn’t say, “I was poor and uneducated and walked uphill to school, both ways…” he did say, “If I can do it, so can you!”

And, like our Internet marketers, who get a long line of customers when they say, “I’ll teach you how for only $2995…” the Buddha says, “I’ll show you how by sitting on your butt for decades…”

But here’s the kicker… the very texts of Buddhism talk about how rare and unusual the Buddha is. How it was the thousands of past-lives that led inevitably to his awakening.

And, like the Internet marketers who can only point to a tiny fraction of their students who seem to have proven that the technique works (until you look more closely and see that they ALSO had rare and unusual skills), out of the millions of meditators who’ve spent time on a cushion, we’ve got only an itsy-bitsy handful who ostensibly got to the end of the Buddhist path… and, when asked, usually say that their “achievement” was not something predictable, or causal, or reproducible.

And, like the Internet marketers, they then go off to teach others based on, “If I can do it, so can you!,” overlooking that even they aren’t really sure how they did it, and ignoring that the lack of results by the students.

Of course the students perpetuate the rolling of the wheel by believing that they haven’t reached the goal (Buddhist or marketing) because they need to practice more, find a different practice, fix some fictional problem that’s keeping them from their goal, get over their “resistance to meditation” or “fear of success,” feng shui their bathroom, detox their liver, set goals, take another workshop, find another teacher…

Silly humans.