Whom would you select and what question would you ask?

Shakyamuni Buddha: How can I be more compassionate?

William Wallace : Would you be happy if Mel Gibson played you in a movie let him watch the film was you happy with how he portrayed you and did you like the fact he said FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOM ?
Oh
And did you really paint your face ?

Jesus of Nazareth : Do you like the fact people class GOD as your dad and not Joseph or whoever he really is ?

Mary : Did you get out of it what you really wanted by saying it was a virgin birth

Jesus. I’d ask how I could become more like Him.

I would go and talk with Darwin. I would ask him to talk about the trials and troubles he faced intrinsically in reconciling his views on religion with his discoveries of evolution.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (I apologize if I misspelled his name): How, as a member of the clergy, do you come to a determination that it’s time to kill someone in order to prevent further violence?

Hitler: Why?

I’d ask @timothykinney “Which part of ‘just sit’ don’t you understand?”

@shak i didn’t get you. were you referring to @timothykinney‘s reply above? but he wanted to know “hot to be more compassionate”...

Yeah, sorry I’m a little snappy; it’s been a bad millinium. But it does get a little old having disciple after disciple asking “How can I be more this?”, “How can I be more that?”.

“Just sit” I tell ‘em.
“But how…”
“Just sit”
“Yeah, but how…”

C’mon people, just have faith in the process. You don’t have to understand it.

@NaturalMineralWater You would have die , its simple :)
Grow your hair and facial hair maybe !?

Charles Darwin, and I’d ask him about his experiments with earthworms and what he thought he would achieve by having his son play music for them. Then perhaps we’d discuss gardening and life in general and then sit down to a nice glass of wine on the patio.

Vlad III the Impaler. I’ve always wondered what inspired his ways of torture, and what moved him to torture so many.

Hitler,

When you were watching all those jews die, what was your thoughts, and were you planning world domination, or all jews to die.

Hi, @shakyamuni. Didn’t know you were on here. Gassho.

@Jeruba Yeah, well, sometimes you just feel like being effable, if you know what I mean. Gassho back atcha

@pats04fan the funny thing is, Hitler didn’t watch much of anything that he was responsible for. He would ride through conquered countries in his car, or his train, after his military laid waste to everything. He instigated the death camps, but there is no record of him ever visiting them. He was consumed by hate and a wish for vengeance, he would have felt no remorse. although, several of his military leaders did, and some even wrote about how sick it made them feel to watch such horrors.

Joseph Campbell – If you had to pick one story to share with the whole world, which one would you choose and why?

Michael Jackson : Did you gain anything by lying about interfering with those kids ?
Do you think it helped by doing the pay off ?
Cause from what i saw it was partly the cause of your down fall

God: So, which religion is right?

@shak: You have the essence of sitting meditation down, but sitting meditation itself is dead without compassion. The development of compassion can benefit greatly from other practices.

Gassho.

@timothykinney Limitless compassion is already your birthright; you have no need for more of it. Practice is never a matter of acquisition, but of giving up. The only thing obscuring your—no, our—radiant compassion is all those layers of Tim. Wear those away patiently, relentlessly (you know how to do this) and you’ll find compassion where the Tim used to be.

If I was born I would kill both of us. If I found compassion where I used to be it would be delusion in enlightenment. We are using different words for the same reality.

Compassion is always delusive in the ultimate sense. I vow to liberate all sentient beings, even though there are no sentient beings to liberate, and no “I” to do the liberating. This is the great paradox of the Mahayana. Delusion and enlightenment only appear at odds when viewed from delusion. Viewed from enlightenment, they are not two.

The delusion-less path is that of the pratyekabuddha, who enters nirvana without preaching the Dharma-treasure, knowing full-well that there is no one to hear it. Without delusion, there would be no bodhisattvas, no Mahayana.