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more Judeo-Japanese culture
the opposite of recontextualizing Chelm stories to be Zen parables is recontextualizing Zen parables as Chelm stories;
for instance, the learned man of Chelm who overhears two rabbis arguing about the objective existence of a big stone. One says "clearly, this is held in your mind," and the guy gets such a headache from having such a huge stone in his head that he has to lie down. When he wakes up from his nap, he doesn't have a headache and can't find the stone where it must have rolled out of his ears or mouth, so he concludes that life truly *is* a dream.
