child
Explanation
The Joke
A Buddhist monk or guru tells someone, "To become enlightened, you must become as a child." In the following panels, the guru is seen dealing with an actual child, who is biting, crying, and demanding sweets. The guru becomes increasingly frazzled, saying things like "Sorry, I didn't mean to -- please don't cry, I shouldn't have -- please don't cry." In the final panel, the guru is spotted at an ice cream stand and confesses, "Dammit, I was supposed to get some work done this afternoon."
The Humor
The comic takes the common spiritual platitude "become as a child" -- meant to evoke innocence, wonder, and present-moment awareness -- and confronts it with the reality of what children are actually like. Children are not serene embodiments of mindful presence; they bite, cry, throw tantrums, demand sweets, and generally exhaust the adults around them.
The guru's rapid descent from dispensing wisdom to buying ice cream and abandoning his afternoon plans is the core of the joke: if you truly "become as a child," you do not achieve enlightenment -- you just become demanding, emotional, and unproductive. This is a recurring SMBC technique: taking a poetic or philosophical statement literally and showing how absurd the literal interpretation is. It also works as a parenting joke, since anyone who has spent time with actual children will immediately recognize the chaos depicted and the way kids can completely derail an adult's plans within minutes.