A post on Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish has become the journalistic version of the Buddhist mantra “O mani padme hum.”

The mantra roughly means ” Hail the Jewel in the Lotus.” More broadly, it points our attention to the fact that purty flowers have roots in slimy mud — that is, crappy things can lead to positive results if we work at it.

So, on May 3 Sullivan linked to a pretty misinformed Slate article by John Horgan on “Why I Ditched Buddhism.”

That post led to an “inbox deluge” in which Buddhists taught Sullivan, and his many readers, about the diversity and complexity in Buddhist philosophy that was largely missing from Horgan’s simplistic take. I, too, learned a great deal.

In the end, Sullivan said: “I’m more with these readers than the piece, which I ran, as I often do, not because I agreed with it but because it was a stimulating read. I have a reverence for Buddhism, went through a serious phase of studying it a decade or so ago, and continue to find its insights spiritually valuable.”