Buddha Hunting

I just read in the Globe that Buddha statuettes are on the "out" list in home decorating. We don't have a Buddha here at the house (yet) but we have studied him, and the boys seem to favor his stories over many of the ones we have read on different philosophies. We go irregularly to Little Buddhas class at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center. When there, we always go on a "Buddha hunt" (the boys named it that), where we run around the grounds finding all the Buddhas we can spot. I'd say that, given his rather impressive staying power, despite what the Globe's resident Decorating Expert says, Buddha never goes out of style.

At the last Buddha class, we sang the usual song about Buddha. The children are asked to raise their hands and say a thing that the Buddha wasn't bothered by when he was meditating under the tree. The standard answer by most kids on most days is "mosquitoes". So the chorus goes ... "He wasn't bothered by mosquitoes, he wasn't bothered by mosquitoes. He let mosquitoes, just roll on by." And repeat many times.

At this point in the class, my oldest raised his hand. The leader of Little Buddhas said, "And what do you think Buddha wasn't bothered by?" And J said something to the effect of: "You know? When the Earth gets pulled into the sun by the sun's increasing gravity when the sun is dying? And the Earth explodes and everyone dies? Yeah ... Buddha wasn't bothered by that." The leader looked perplexed. I tried to summarize into something that would fit the beat of the song, "Um ... I think he's referring to 'Cosmic Calamaties'." It would make a great chorus - "He wasn't bothered by cosmic calamaties ... he wasn't bothered by cosmic calamaties ... he let those cosmic calamaties, just roll on by." But after some discussion, we shortened it to gravity. It fit better, and it sort of summed the idea up. And it gave me a great image of Buddha sort of floating off, uninhibited by gravity, and still meditating with that sweet little smile.