Monday, August 24, 2009

Consuming Buddha

About a year ago, I spent four months in Southeast Asia. While living in Thailand, I learned a great deal about Buddhism and found it to be a fascinating and deeply edifying religion. As part of my study there, I read a biography of Siddhartha Gautama (more commonly known as The Buddha). In this biography, the author described the physical and spiritual journey of Gautama and laid out the basic principles and teachings of Buddhism. The first set of these principles is known as the Four Noble Truths: Life is suffering, Suffering comes from desire, In order to stop suffering we must give up desire, We give up desire by following The Way.

Of course, all of this was written in a different language so I need expound on the term "Desire". This word or concept could also be described as craving, longing, covetousness, or attachment to the physical world. I personally like the phrase "attachment to the physical world" because it provides room for righteous desire like the desire to help people (something that Gautama was a big advocate of). It also shows us that attachment to people, while not negative (as covetousness would imply) is a major source of suffering.

For the purposes of this blog, however, I would like to focus on the concept of attachment to physical things. I once had a wonderful conversation with a monk in Chiang Mai about this concept. He explained to me that everything we "own" serves a functional purpose. We have shoes to protect our feet, we have clothes to protect our body. So if the reason we have shoes is to protect our feet, why do we need more than one? MAYBE two? Why do we need different colors or styles or brands? They all do the same thing perfectly well: They protect our feet. If we have clothes to protect our bodies, why do we need a whole closet full of robes? We only need two: one for wearing, one for washing. We don't need all these different colors or styles. If we do have all these different colors and styles, then we like one robe more than all the rest. We become attached to it. Then what happens when it gets ripped or stained? We are sad, we suffer. Or worse, what happens when someone else rips it or stains it? We are not only sad, we are angry as well. Now we cause suffering as well as feel suffering. The bottom line: the ownership or consumption of material goods for any other purpose than to meet the needs of life leads to attachment and suffering.

Now for the purpose of this blog. I recently decided that I needed more bangles in my life to match all my cute bohemian summer dresses (I know, the exact OPPOSITE of Buddhist non-consumerism). So I went to The Icing and was pleased to see all sorts of boho chic jewelry for my consumption. I don't go shopping very often though and I am somewhat behind the fashion times. Thus I was completely shocked when I saw all these little Buddha's on bracelets, necklaces, rings, scarves... There was actually a big gold Buddha on a massive gold chain necklace. Here I was faced with the opportunity to literally consume Buddha! My friends who knew I lived in a Buddhist country immediately started pointing out Buddhist motifs and saying I should buy them but I just couldn't do it. It was just too funny. Here we were, doing exactly what Buddha told us NOT to do (participating in consumerist materialism) by LITERALLY consuming Buddha. The irony was absolutely brilliant, especially because no one understood the irony! (I had to explain to my friends exactly why I was laughing).

For the first time in my life, I could appreciate the irony and hilarity of western orientalism. I can only imagine the essence that once was Buddha sitting up in the cosmos of Nirvana saying "Are you serious?!" Only he wouldn't say that because he would no longer be attached to his doctrine or his image, and he certainly wouldn't be angry. He would probably just have a little smirk on his non-existent face, shake his non-existent head and think "They'll get it eventually".

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