“If You See the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him” — A Norse Pagan Reflection on the Ego of Religious Authority

Among Zen Buddhists, there is a well-known and often misunderstood saying: “If you see the Buddha on the road, kill him.” It is not a call to violence, but a deeply symbolic spiritual teaching—a challenge against attachment to external symbols, titles, and authorities that block one’s inner path to truth. This same insight echoes through all religions, including Norse Paganism.

At its heart, the Zen saying warns that if you think you’ve found the final, unquestionable embodiment of truth outside yourself—whether in a person, doctrine, tradition, or figure—you have actually strayed from the path. In Norse Pagan terms, this is like believing that one particular gothi (priest), rune master, or book holds all the answers from the gods and must never be questioned. But the gods of the North are not shackled to mortal forms or rigid dogmas. Odin does not demand blind obedience—he hung himself on Yggdrasil not to establish hierarchy, but to gain wisdom through suffering and inner vision.

In fact, the gods themselves in Norse lore are seekers. Odin seeks runes. Thor seeks justice. Freyja seeks love, beauty, and secret powers. They do not sit on a throne telling mortals exactly what to believe—they invite us to seek, risk, question, and grow. When we put a person, title, or tradition on a pedestal and say, “This is the only truth,” we stop listening to the gods and spirits speaking within and around us. That is the “Buddha on the road”—the misleading projection of enlightenment that we are told to kill.

To “kill the Buddha on the road” in Norse Pagan terms means to slay the illusion that your gods, your truth, or your spiritual power can be handed to you by someone else. It means casting down the false idea that divine truth comes from memorizing lore, quoting old sources, or following an unbending reconstructionist path. It’s not the lore that is wrong—many of our ancestors’ texts and poems hold deep wisdom—but the moment we treat them as fixed vessels of truth instead of living mystery, we betray the gods.

And this is true of all religions. Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Wicca—all contain beauty and profound teachings. But when any of them tell followers to obey without reflection, to follow a leader without question, to doubt their own inner knowing, they are placing a “Buddha on the road.” They replace the living divine with a rigid proxy of authority.

The true gods, spirits, and ancestors do not demand obedience to dogma—they invite relationship. They whisper through dreams, omens, intuition, synchronicity, and inner stirrings of the soul. They do not ask you to believe—they ask you to experience. To be changed.

So when a guru, priest, gothi, or spiritual influencer claims to have all the answers—when they tell you your experiences are invalid, or that questioning them is heresy—see them for what they are: a Buddha on the road. Bow, if you must—but then walk past. Or better yet, slay the illusion they represent.

For the gods are not found in rules. They are found in mystery. And mystery cannot be handed down—it must be lived.Thus, in Norse Paganism and in all sacred paths, the deepest truth is this: You are the road. You are the seeker. The gods walk beside you, not above you. Trust in that—and let no false Buddha block your way.