Buddha in the Window

“Words have the power to both destroy and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change our world.”—Buddha

Front: Buddha I spotted when I was 13.

Right: Wooden Buddha that came with house.

I really can’t explain why, but I have always been attracted to Buddha figurines and Buddhist doctrine. They possess some inexplicable lure. Even when I was only 13 and had no idea what Buddhism was, I was drawn to buy a small incense burner of Buddha, which I still have to this day. The doctrine appeals to me because it is nonjudgmental (we’re all on the path to enlightenment, some people are ahead of us, some behind), teaches personal responsibility (aka karma) and suggests that it is incumbent upon us all to relieve the suffering of others if we can (the doctrine of compassion). I can’t say I’m a devout Buddhist. I’m actually quite a miserable one. But luckily, there is no requirement to be anything in Buddhism. The goal, in fact, is not to be. So that works for me.

Buddha with the laughing eyes.

It seems wherever I go, Buddha shows up and stares at me with puppy eyes. “Please take me home,” he seems to say. Always, when I least expect it. When we moved into our current house, we discovered a wooden Buddha half buried in mud in a shed in the back yard. I washed it off, rubbed it with teak oil and it looked like new. I have no idea how long it had been out there, but the elements did not appear to have damaged it.

“Buddha Shakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism…, was born as a prince in 624 BC in a place called Lumbini, which was originally in northern India but is now part of Nepal.” —http://www.meditateinlondon.org.uk 

This past Saturday, my husband, Steve, and I were wandering around lower Manhattan. Steve spied a store selling used CDs at very reasonable prices. Next door was an Asian antique and furniture store going “out of business.” Yes, I know. Going out of business is a regular business practice in New York, usually for the benefit of tourists, so one can rarely take it seriously. But everything in the store was “half-off,” so I decided to browse in the shop while my husband stalked CD bargains next door.

The antiques—or perhaps nicely crafted reproductions—were like works of art. There was a large round wooden curio shelf as tall as I am—which admittedly isn’t all that tall. I admired a carved wooden bed that had its own ceiling. I’m sure there is a special name for this type of bed, but I don’t know what it is. 

After about 15 minutes of wishing I could afford one of the exquisite pieces of furniture in the store, I walked out and turned to view their display window for the first time. There, sitting in the window, was a silver metal incense burner about the size of a basketball. The sides were surrounded in reliefs of Buddha figures and one happy Buddha sat on top. It had dog faces for handles and three clawed feet.

“In his early years (Buddha)… lived as a prince in the royal palace but when he was 29 years old he retired to the forest where he followed a life of meditation. After six years he attained enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree in Bodh Gaya, India.” —http://www.meditateinlondon.org.uk 

Just as I stood there ogling the piece, my husband emerged from the CD store, thrilled that he had found the sound track for the 1933 King Kong for only $6.99. I congratulated him and pointed to the Buddha incense burner.

“It’s probably too expensive,” I apologized, “But I’d like to go inside and ask about it anyway.”

Antique or reproduction? I may never know.

“Go ahead,” he replied. So we entered the store and I asked the man working there if we could see the incense burner and if he could tell me how much it was. He cheerfully retrieved it and showed us the price. The piece was remarkably heavy; even Steve was taken by surprise when I handed it to him to examine. It was priced at a bit more than I would normally pay for something, but at half-price was within a range that, if I felt like being self-indulgent, I could afford.

It has always been difficult for me to buy anything expensive for myself. I would gladly spend good money to buy something for a family member. But for some reason, spending big bucks on my own behalf has always made me feel a tad guilty.

My husband does not share that philosophy. He took one look at it and said, “Do you really want it? Would it make you happy to have that Buddha sitting on the shelf at home?”

I gazed at it longingly. “It is lovely,” I said. The man in the store told me it was an antique that had been used in Buddhist temples in China and was about 80 to 90 years old. Of course, there is a 50-50 chance that it is merely a well-crafted reproduction, but my reason for buying it wasn’t because of its possible monetary worth. I thought it was really beautiful—just as having a nice piece of artwork on the wall might give someone pleasure.

“In the Hinayana teachings Buddha explains how to attain liberation from suffering for oneself alone, and in the Mahayana teachings he explains how to attain full enlightenment, or Buddhahood, for the sake of others. Both traditions flourished in Asia, at first in India and then gradually in other surrounding countries, including Tibet. Now they are also beginning to flourish in the West.” —http://www.meditateinlondon.org.uk 

Buddha with laptop (right of center) was a gift from a co-worker.

The last thing I expected to do in New York that day was to purchase an expensive “antique” Buddha incense burner, but sometimes the unexpected is what makes life so much fun. After some encouragement from Steve, I purchased it. The man in the store told me if I rubbed the Buddha’s tummy and made a wish, it might come true.

He now presides over a small cadre of Buddhas that sit on a shelf in my bedroom, where they cheerfully greet me every morning and evening. Not a bad way to begin and end each day.

“Look within, thou art the Buddha.”—Buddha

Reading Between the Leaves

My earliest memory of tea was when I was a young child and my mother brought a steaming cup with toast when I was sick. While being sick was not a pleasant memory, being fussed over by my mother certainly was. Tea was an adult drink that I was usually barred from having. It contained caffeine and my mother was afraid it would stunt my growth. Considering that I never topped 5-foot-3 in height, it would seem that refraining from tea was not enough to overcome my genetics.

Tea is my favorite drink, making me not so much fun at parties.

Legend has it that tea was first discovered in 2737 B.C.E., when tea leaves blew into a cup of hot water about to be drunk by the second emperor of China, Shen Nung. Fortunately for him, there were no hemlock plants growing nearby. By 400 A.D., demand for tea grew, as a medicinal drink. Toward that end, many tea drinkers added, among other things, onions to their teas. By 593 A.D., Buddhism and tea journeyed together from China to Japan. Japanese priests studying in China spirited away tea seeds and leaves. By the Sung Dynasty, 960 to 1280 A.D., Chinese tea drinking really caught on, with elegant teahouses and teacups carefully crafted from porcelain and pottery. By 1422, the Japanese tea ceremony was born.

A bit slower on the uptake, Europeans learned about tea in 1589 when a Venetian author credited the lengthy lives of Asians to their tea drinking. Knowing a good product when they saw it, in 1610 the Dutch East India Company marketed tea as an exotic medicinal drink. Due to its high cost, only the aristocracy could afford it.

In 1618, Chinese ambassadors presented the Russian Czar Alexis with many chests of tea, but lacking vision, he refused them as useless. In 1635, tea became all the rage at the Dutch court, but a German physician warned about the dangers of drinking tea. It's not clear what they might have been. By 1650, tea parties became quite trendy among women across the social classes. Husbands cried family ruin, and religious reformers called for a ban. After all, the ladies were having fun, so it had to be wrong. Unconcerned, the Dutch spread their leafy decadence to the New World when they settled in New Amsterdam, which later became New York.

It wasn’t long before the first tea was sold as a health beverage in London, England at Garway's Coffee House. A great debate ensued in 1661, when a Dutch doctor praised its curative powers while French and German doctors cautioned about its harmful side. Let’s keep in mind that these were the same medical professionals who recommended leaches and blood letting.

In 1662, when Charles II of England took a tea-drinking bride (Catherine Braganza of Portugal), tea became so chic that alcohol consumption declined. In the 1700s, the controversy over tea continued in England and Scotland where opponents claimed it was overpriced, harmful to one’s health, and might even lead to moral decay. Consequently, tea drinking thrived in British coffeehouses.

By 1735, Russia came to its senses and in order to fill the country’s tea demand, traders and 300 camels traveled 11,000 miles to and from China, which took 16 months. Russian tea-drinking customs emerged, which entailed using tea concentrate, adding hot water, topping it with a lemon, and drinking it through a lump of sugar held between the teeth. That can’t have been good for dental hygiene.

By 1765, tea was the most popular beverage in the American colonies. So naturally, two years later, the British Parliament enacted the Townshend Revenue Act, imposing duty on tea and other goods imported into the British American colonies. This disturbed the colonists, and after a town meeting held in Boston to protest the Townshend Revenue Act, Americans boycotted British imports and began smuggling in Dutch teas. Take that, King George III! In 1770, Parliament rescinded the Townshend Revenue Act, eliminating all import taxes except those on—you guessed it—teas. Now the colonists were really mad, and in 1773, disguised as Native Indians, responded by dumping British tea into Boston Harbor. Such “tea parties” were repeated in Philadelphia, New York, Maine, North Carolina, and Maryland through 1774. King George and the British Parliament decided to get even by enacting the Boston Port Bill, which said that Boston Harbor would be closed until the East India Company was reimbursed for every last penny of its tossed tea. Okay, enough, the colonists replied. You’re not the boss of me. And in 1775, after several British attempts to end the taxation protests, the colonists kicked off the American Revolution. All because of tea.

On the English side of the pond, in 1826, English Quaker John Horniman introduced the first retail tea in sealed, lead-lined packages. Not the healthiest of packaging. Still, tea drinking marched on. In 1840, Anna the Duchess of Bedford, introduced afternoon tea, which became a lasting English tradition. In 1904, Englishman Richard Blechynden created iced tea during a heat wave at the St. Louis World’s Fair. And in 1908, New York tea importer Thomas Sullivan inadvertently invented tea bags when he sent tea to clients in small silk bags, and they mistakenly steeped the bags whole. Doh!

Courtesy of
 Facebook.com/TeaAppreciationSociety

Flash forward to the 1960s. While many people partook of binge drinking or experimented with drugs, I and my friends were a bit tamer in our tastes. During our junior high years, my friend, Debi, and I had tea-drinking marathons. Nothing fancy, just black tea served with milk and sugar—cups and cups of it. We were two teenagers, teeming with hormones and caffeine, just carrying on an age-old tradition.

Today, tea is a ritual in my home. My husband and I drink tea as an entrée to sharing the events of the day. As we cradle our mugs, we contemplate with gratitude how the right to do so was hard-fought by our forefathers and their visionary counterparts across the Atlantic. For centuries, European doctors and community leaders cautioned a naïve populace against the impending harm of this amber liquid, from its insidious if not vague health dangers to its inevitable outcome of  moral decay and ruin. Knowing that a quiet cup of tea brewed in the privacy of our kitchen represents a steady and irreversible descent into depravity, only makes the act of drinking it all the more satisfying.

Holy Confusion

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Defensive Disclaimer: I respect all religious and humanist beliefs. This essay is not meant to offend anyone in any way. I’m just thinking….

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I am confused about God. This, most likely, is because one of my parents was Jewish and the other was Christian. Consequently, I am not sure which one of them is destined to enjoy the luxurious amenities of Heaven and which will be plunged into the fiery armpits of Hell. Worse yet, there is also the possibility that the only true religion is neither one of theirs, in which case Mom and Dad might end up turning on a spit together in the Dark Domain for all eternity. Not a pretty picture.

What I don’t understand is why God doesn’t just tell us all—irrefutably—which religion is THE RIGHT ONE. It would clear up a great deal of confusion and solve a lot of long-standing feuds worldwide. Sure, it might put some people out of work, but they could always go over to the God-endorsed group and find something to do. Better than investing a lifetime in the wrong belief system.

Think about it. What if the one religion that got it all right belonged to an obscure tribe living along the Amazon? Wouldn’t that be a mess for everyone? We might have to replace Darwinism and Intelligent Design in our high schools with stories about the Santo Daime Queen of the Forest and the importance of hallucinogenic ritual tea.

For my part, I must admit that I am somewhat drawn to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. First, unlike most things these days, this religion was made in America...by a guy named Bob… in Kansas. In addition, I’ve always been fond of pasta and pirates and this religion includes both.

Buddhism sounds kind of cool, too. If you see someone suffering, try to help. Whatever you do in life—good or bad—will come back to you in the form of karmic payback. You can’t possibly get everything right in one lifetime, so you have to reincarnate until you work out all the kinks. Fairly simple. I get this religion. No one suffers for Buddhism. They just sit under fig trees and think a lot.

This confusion about God has been on my mind for some time. I’ve had discussions with friends of various faiths and philosophies who seem satisfied that they are following a true path to eternal life, enlightenment, oblivion or a nice plate of noodle-y goodness. Is it possible that they could ALL be right? Maybe everyone gets what they expect, like an afterlife menu? I’m not sure.

Then I worry…. Wait. Does God believe in religion? What if God is an atheist, showing an omnipotent lack of self-confidence? Where would that leave us?