It's 5 O'clock Somewhere

I had a fantastic Buddhism class today. We learned about the 84 mahasiddhas (the great accomplished ones) according the Vajrayana Buddhism. These guys (and gals) are models of tantric practitioners, and they all have fantastical stories about their practice, teachings, and lives.

My favorite from today was a man named Virupa. His name means "the ugly one" and he was a monk by day, and a tantric practitioner extraordinaire by night. At some point he got tired of his tantric practices, and threw his rosary in the toilet. Some female wisdom deity approached him holding his rosary, and handed it back to him saying that he must continue his practices.
The pigeons at the monastery started to disappear, because a certain tantric practitioner was eating them all. Eventually, the other monks got fed up with Virupa's pigeon eating ways and kicked him out of the monastery. At this point, Virupa, using his awesome tantric powers, brought all these pigeons back to life, and they flew off all around him. He then turned around and left. The monks tried to call him back, begged him to return and be part of the monastery, but he said no, proceeding to float off on a lotus.
After floating away on a lotus, he went to a bar, where he began consuming obscene amounts of alcohol (probably a little more than is acceptable by tantric renunciation standards). After a while, the barmaid inquires as to when Virupa plans on paying his tab. Virupa, in true dramatic fashion, grabs his dagger and sticks it into the earth and says, "I will pay the bar tab when the sun reaches its zenith, and the dagger's shadow is in such and such place". Barmaid says awesome, and gets back to work.
Little does the barmaid know, that because of his awesome tantric abilities and control over the universe, Virupa has actually fixed the sun in the sky by sticking his dagger into the earth. For three days, Virupa drinks and drinks and drinks, and still the sun doesn't move. After a while the King begins to worry about the lack of sun movement, and so he goes to Virupa and asks him to release the sun. Virupa replies, "If you pay my bar tab, I will release the sun."
And so he does. And that is the story of when Virupa held the sun hostage.

I thought you guys should know.

-Mer and Paul who is a Ghost.