Short Stuff: Laughing Buddha

Did you know that the friendly, smiling Buddha we all know from bars and restaurants isn't really Buddha?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast, the Short Podcast. It's
just there. I still look forward to those intros. Well,
I'm sorry to let you down every time. You'll never
learn what you know. I think it's great and enjoy them. Well, okay,
I'm glad one of us does so. Um. We are

(00:26):
talking today about Buddhism, which is an extraordinarily complex, nuanced,
layered world religion, one of the Big seven at least. Um.
And there's going to be a lot of stuff we're
not going to talk about. There's going to be terms
that we don't necessarily bring into it. The point is, everybody,

(00:47):
it's not wrong. Okay, we're talking about a major religion
on a short stuff episode that's supposed to be fifteen
minutes or less. So just go into it. Giving us
a break. Yeah, because this is not about Buddhism as
a whole. Uh. This is about because we've we've talked
about it here and there. I believe we did one
on Nirvana yep, correct, Um, so we know a little

(01:08):
bit about it in Karma, right, Yeah, we did that
one too. We danced around Buddhism, which is a bee
from what I understand. But specifically, this is about a
bit of a chotchkey. This is about the little, happy, jolly, chubby,
usually shirtless, laughing Buddha. He looks like Rick Ross that

(01:28):
you see kind of does that you see? And uh,
you know, if you go to Chinatown and go to
a little tourist trap shop there, you might see these.
You might see him at a Asian restaurant by the
cash register if your chuck. You might have seen one
on his desk for many years. Oh yeah, you do
have that one. Yeah, that someone gave it to me

(01:49):
years and years and years ago, a little bank and uh,
I don't know, he's just got a happy little face.
So I liked it. He definitely does. And he's just smiling.
You can't even see his eyeballs, he's smiling so much.
And everybody knows that that's the laughing Buddha. But here's
the thing that's not Buddha. Nope, not technically Buddha in
in the very Buddhist way. Yes, he counts as Buddha

(02:12):
in some way, shape or form, and we'll kind of
explain that. But when you're talking about Buddha, when most
people who are not Buddhists point to that and say, oh,
that's Buddha. You're wrong. That's not Buddha that you're thinking.
There is one Buddha who is the Buddha, the teaching
Buddha for our era that we live in right now.
Capital t e Buddha exactly and not just capitalized, Chuck

(02:36):
italicized as well. So the Buddha his He was an
actual man who lived in the eighth century in India,
and his name was Siddartha Gautama, and he became a
He was actually born a wealthy prince, had a great wife,
had a kid, was just living the life, but found

(02:57):
that he was still unsatisfied, unfulfilled. He needed to know
what the meaning of life was. So he went on
basically a vision quest and figured it out and achieved nirvana,
and in doing so he became the the Buddha. And
I believe his name changed to um what is his
name O? Shakyamuni. So we went from Siddartha Gautama, the man,

(03:22):
the prince, to Shakyamuni Buddha, the teaching Buddha of our age,
the Buddha. That's right. Buddha means awakened one. And like
you said, during this vision quest, he meditated for forty
nine days under a Bodhi tree, and I imagine that
was a wonderful, peaceful experience. Dude. I'll bet his legs

(03:43):
had such pins and needles. At the end of it,
came out the other side, uh, enlightened. And this religion
has since grown, of course, to the point where I mean,
they're they're approaching like four hundred million followers at this
point right somewhere there, which is pretty respectable. Yes, very much.
So for sure, it's got more than mine does. Uh

(04:06):
how many it's just me, just you. I usually keep
it secret. You need still, like, give me a pamphlet
and I'll take a look at it. She's thinking about it.
I'm working on her. So Uh. Over the years, Buddhism
has really expanded, uh, to to the point where there's
just not uh Gautama Buddha. Is that the pronunciation you used? Yeah,

(04:29):
Gautama's everything I saw, Yeah, Gautama Buddha to where there
are many, many, many deities, including a bunch of Bodhisattva's Yeah. Yeah,
which by the way, I was like, oh yes, steely
Dan and ended up listening to every major dude because
I saw that word in print. Oh man, let me
some steely dan. It's good stuff. So these are it's

(04:51):
it's sort of a term for these individuals who work
for enlightenment for everyone. Yeah. I was like, okay, so
but what is it really? And it depends on who us. So,
if you're a practicing Buddha Buddhist who has really dedicated
yourself to living the Buddhist life, to following the Buddhist path,

(05:12):
you are technically a bodhisatva. But in certain traditions, like
the one that's practiced largely in Japan and Korea and China,
bodhisatva is actually somebody who's living walking the earth who
is so Buddhist that they could achieve nirvana. They're actually
putting off achieving nirvana so they can stay here on

(05:34):
earth to make it a better place, which makes them
like Mr. Rogers would have been a bodhisatva basically. So
there's there's bodhisatva's there's the Buddha. But then there's also
some traditions that say, um, well, you realize the Buddha
has been born and reborn and reborn multiple times. So

(05:56):
this this um the um Gautama was just the us
recent in a line of twenty eight so far. Apparently
every time the world gets destroyed, the Buddha is reborn,
um and right now, in this incarnation of the world,
Gautama was the became the the teaching Buddha of our age.
And then those those reincarnated versions of the Buddha are

(06:20):
called avatars. So you've got all of them being revered
as deities as well. So it's kind of understandable how
you could say, well that that guy technically qualifies as
the Laughing Buddha, but he's actually another individual, another historical
figure from what we understand. That's right, And you know,
that's a great place for a little quick break, and
we're gonna come back and reveal who the Laughing Buddha

(06:42):
is once and for all, right after this. M alright,
So you said that the laughing Buddha was one of

(07:04):
these avatars, a real human being who walked the earth. Uh.
And tenth century I like tith like you just said.
It's weirdly sounded like when I didn't have teeth up front.
It did, but they're all they're chucking, they're looking sharp. Uh.
Tenth century Chinese monk whose name was not Buddha but

(07:26):
Buddha I. Okay, so that was his nickname. His real
name was Zoo. Yeah, I think that was my attempted it.
So Buddha I spelled b U d a I. And
he's he's this guy that you see. He was pot bellied.
He was happy and gregarious. Uh. He would go around
from village to village with sort of like Santa Claus

(07:47):
with a big sack over his shoulder. Uh. And in fact,
his very name means cloth, sack and Chinese. And he
was a very beloved figure. He helped the poor children
loved him. He would give out sweet treats and rice
and uh was generally like what you would imagine that
that that character is, except it was a real human right.

(08:09):
So it's a weird way to say that, right. But
he because of this this sack um of like goodies
that he would give the children and the poor. Uh.
And like you said, he was very Santa Claus like.
He started to become kind of associated as a Buddha
that represented like abundance and plenty and contentment and fulfillment

(08:31):
um kind of materially but not necessarily, but in a
very Buddhist way. And so the laughing Buddhai just became
a very lovable, well liked figure, like he was just
the kind of Buddha or Buddhist avatar that anybody could
get into. But the thing that really kind of cemented
his position in the pantheon of Buddhist deities was that

(08:53):
he basically was a self proclaimed incarnation of Buddha. He left,
he wrote a polem on is deathbed in which he
said basically like, hey, guys, just want to let you
know the truth. I'm actually the incarnation of the next
teaching Buddha. Remember we live in a certain era right now,
and Shakyamuni is the teaching Buddha. Well, the next time

(09:16):
the world destroys itself, after it's reborn, the incarnation of
the Buddha that I am, my trea is going to
come back, and then that Buddha will be the teaching
Buddha for the next era. I was just coming by
to say what up y'all, Um, have some stuff out
of my goody sack and and just call me future Buddha, right,

(09:38):
So they did. So that that cemented buddhis position in
the pantheon of deities. But the reason why you see
um Buddhai next to a cash register. Is because over
time he became associated with restaurants and bartenders. Yeah, which
is really, uh, really interesting and the only thing that

(09:58):
sort of makes sense is and you know, people have
researched this, but uh, it became this imagery of this
particular future Buddha became very popular in art and sculpture,
and this started kind of cropping up in about the
fifteenth century. And then global trade starts starts expanding sixteenth
and seventeenth century. Porcelain becomes a big thing, Ceramics becomes

(10:22):
a big thing, and somehow and all this trade and moving,
you know, kind of spreading, spreading the word West, that
the image of this guy, this little happy Buddha, future
Buddha that is that everyone knows and loves just sort
of got picked up into the West and it became
sort of like a souvenir. Yeah, like a spoon if

(10:44):
you're going to St. Louis, if you go to like
like Beijing, you get a laughing Buddha instead. That's right.
But that's how likable this guy was. Yeah, And to me,
the most likable thing about Buddhism period is you know,
if you rub on the Buddhai's belly for good luck
that had nothing to do with them, And I thought, man,

(11:05):
just a bunch of dumb white Westerners rubbing on this thing.
It's probably sacrilegious, but not to Buddhists. They're like, you
know what, it's all good, rub on that belly. I
don't blame you. It's highly rubbable, calling calum laughing Buddha.
We don't care. Yeah, it's fine because you know why,
because we're Buddhists. Yeah, and we're not worried about stuff

(11:26):
like that. And then to button the whole thing up.
The reason why you see him and why you can
rub his belly at a restaurants because he became the
patron saint of restaurant tours and bartenders because of his
association with contentment and fulfillment and that cool. Yeah, I
love it. And it's just I really can't stress enough

(11:48):
how like what a charming welcoming the thing that is
for Buddhist to be Like, you know what, any inequality
that represents Buddha nature is great. It's all good with us.
I think that's pretty cool, very very cool. Well, that's it,
that's the laughing Buddha. Now you can point that out
to everybody the next time you go to a Chinese restaurant,
and they will love you for it. Um. If you

(12:11):
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