Here is a recent news article:
US Weekly editors decide they’ve had enough of Paris Hilton.
Paris Hilton gets out of jail on Tuesday and she won’t be on the cover of US Weekly on Friday? How, short of the Apocalypse, is this possible? “When it came down to it, the staff and I felt what I believe a lot of people in America are feeling. Which is just enormous Paris fatigue,” US Weekly Editor Janice Min said. As a result, Hilton not only won’t be on the cover, there won’t even be a mention of her in the magazine.
“I don’t think,” Min joked, “we even mention the city of Paris.” That was no easy task, she said, adding US Weekly editors had to comb carefully through every story and every fashion item to make sure there was not an offhand mention of the hotel heiress somewhere.

Common people devote most days of their life chasing fame and gain. Some people will go as far as they can to depart from the mainstream. In their rebellion against orthodoxy they don’t care whether their reputation is good or bad as long as they become well known. This is because most people think that when you are famous you can make a lot of money.

In the Mahayana path of Buddhism, Buddha is discussed as having three different kinds of body:
i. Dharmakaya: The absolute or spiritual body.
ii. Sambhogakaya: The body of bliss; or the functioning glorious body for a Buddha’s own use, or for the spiritual benefit of others.
iii. Nirmanakaya: The body of incarnation; a Buddha’s metamorphic body, which has power to assume any shape to propagate the Truth.
Besides Buddha’s three different kinds of body I think we all have two bodies: physical and spiritual. One day the physical body will die but the spiritual body can affect later generations for many, many years. Your reputation doesn’t just exist when you are alive but persists after you die.

To earn a good reputation you don’t need to be famous. For example, earning a reputation for being “loyal”. By being loyal to your-self, your job, your friends, your family… you don’t need worry whether or not you have a good or bad reputation either alive or dead.

People from every walk of life all have the potential to live on in our hearts i.e. Sakyamuni Buddha, Jesus, Confucius, Einstein, Beethoven, Picasso, Bruce Lee a teacher, a fireman…etc. When we read the story about them, listen to their music or appreciate their ideas…. their spirit is revealed to us. So, sometimes I’m curious about those notorious famous people: do they spend any time thinking about what kind of image they create in people’s hearts or do they just need to be famous?

–Danny