Most Westerners’ knowledge about the Buddha is pretty basic. To me, he’s always just been that fat guy smiling back at me when I’m waiting for the girl at the Chinese restaurant to charge my Visa.
Perhaps also because I am a Westerner, I had always assumed that the Buddha’s righteous waist line was representative of abundance. It never occurred to me that the prosperity gospel might be contradictory to the Buddha’s rejection of material pursuits. So what’s in that belly of Buddha’s?
Whether you’re interested in Buddhism or not, this is one nugget of Dharma that’s worth digesting.
The Buddha (I say “the” because “the Buddha,” like “the Messiah” is a title, not a name, which means “the Enlightened One”) with the big belly is known as “The Laughing Buddha.” His visage is based on that of a Chinese monk who was believed by his followers to be the Maitreya, or future Buddha, who others hold will be born in 30,000 years (give or take a few).
What’s this got to do with the guy’s glorious gut? Since there were not any cameras in 9th Century China, the Laughing Buddha’s image is mostly symbolic. The meaning of that midriff? Tolerance.
Check it. Have you ever followed up a Chinese meal with a milkshake from DQ? If so, you’ll know what different cultures can do to your stomach. But the Buddha, he gulps down all the hard-to-swallow stuff that the world throws at you … and still smiles. Biggy-sized benevolence.
The Chinese have a saying for this: 大肚能容容天下难容之事, or “A big stomach can accept all the things under heaven that are hard to accept.” In fact, they call close-minded people “small-stomached chicken guts” (小肚鸡肠)!
Now here’s what’s weird: Chinese picture the Buddha as being fat, but they’re skinny; Westerners portray the Messiah as being skinny, and we’re fat. What’s up with that?
One Comment
Cool article.
I believe tolerance is the virtue of all virtues. It’s not just about forgiving the wrong, but more about accepting the different. It’s not easy.
Another thing about this Buddha is that he is always laughing. Very often we find it hard to laugh in some situations: laugh at ourselves, laugh with our enemies… But he laughs all along.