My Buddha

Tripping over myself, I scrambled to keep up with the tour guide. I was huffing, sweat lining my neck in the humid weather of Kamakura, Japan. Winded by each taxing step up the incline, I scanned the area for a distraction, settling for the back of my tour guide’s head. She was tall and striking, with black flowing hair and a straight, commandeering posture. Her hair flipped across her shoulders as she turned to face our group, walking up the slope with large, graceful skips backwards. I took in her face; her high cheekbones accentuated her petite nose. Exhausted, my eyes skipped from her face to her flourishing hands as she directed the group’s attention to a massive copper green statue. The Buddha.

As she described Buddhism, arbitrary terms and foreign names seeped into one ear and out the other, until she stressed a rather peculiar tenant of the religion. Liberation from desire.

Catching my breath, I stopped and tossed my head back as I took in the magnificent Buddha, the Enlightened one, who had supposedly freed himself from attachment. To desire nothing – doesn’t that mean he desired something? Puzzled with this paradox, I pictured the ascetic lifestyle depicted in the legend. To not Control, to not Grasp, to not Cling, to not Need. A Willing Ascetism.

As you know, to have nothing and need nothing are profoundly different states; the Buddha plunged himself in the former before attaining the latter. Interesting.

I tore my eyes of the ginormous, yet intricate figure to take in the smaller, more humble buildings surrounding the statue.

Gift stores.

Capture spirituality while you can! You know you want it! Buy a mini-Buddha, get Enlightenment free!

I almost snorted. rude, I know. American, that I am. The way down the hill, I was grasping three scrolls in one hand, and balancing 2 mini-buddhas in the other.

Consumerism, attachment, and desire. The three musketeers.