So, we were looking for souvenirs for some relatives coming over from abroad and found these beautiful tabletop wooden designs from an IP (indigenous people) craftsman who happens to be an acquaintance of someone we know. These designs, made of different hardwood found in the area, seem to be the perfect gift for them. It is something local and made by a person with deep roots in the area. Wanting to give it a personal touch. I remembered having different mini Buddha statues that might fit into the natural sculptures. And, true enough, it matched well with the color and the placement.
The image above is a Buddha made out of sandal wood that we got from Myanmar, while the jade Buddha is from Manila. The image below features a mini-Buddha that we brought from Malaysia. So, what are your thoughts on this? Did adding the mini-Buddha statues work to improve the showpiece designs or the opposite?
I'm still wondering if I will put these permanently on the gifts because our visitors are Catholic. Then again, I remembered that one of the most popular, and profound, teachings of the Buddha was the "Four Noble Truths". Basically, that human existence is a suffering, suffering comes from ignorance and attachment, suffering can be overcome, and, lastly, that there is a path to overcome suffering. Doing a quick search, I thought that there must be similar teachings in the Christian tradition, and indeed there was: suffering (dukkha) = sin or falleness; cause of suffering (tanha) = root cause of suffering because of the separation of human from God due to sin; then there was transcending ignorance and attachment = reconciliation with God through redemption via Jesus Christ. Strictly speaking, these aren't exact parallelisms between the teachings of the two traditions, but one can make a case that the spirit of the teaching is the same, which is to save us from ourselves and transform our life to achieve our greatest potential: nirvana and liberation from samsara in Buddhism vs salvation and the restoration of humanity's relationship with God in Christianity. Of course, these are oversimplifications, but I personally believe that the connection is so strong between the two traditions that it would not be impossible to say that the Buddha and Jesus Christ would agree with each other had they been alive at the same time. Of course, I have my own biases and personal opinions and so that is my disclaimer lest someone think that I'm trying to disrespect one or the other religious tradition.
Anyways, my blog posts have been getting further and fewer in between these days. I'm a little frustrated that I couldn't churn out regular content for one reason or another but it is what it is. Our lives are shaped in a certain way both by the circumstances surrounding us, by how we react to and decide on things, and also the connections we have with people and events. Hopefully, my circumstances in the future will let me write to my heart's content. Hopefully, I am able to prioritize this over some other activities.
To end, I believe that it is far better to look for commonalities between different traditions rather than to find the differences. Peace is goal that seekers seek both within and outside of the self. May we all find peace in these troubled times.
All the best,
juanvegetarian 😎
*Btw, here is the Canva template I used for the first image post, in case you are interested.
*In the second image, I used this template here.
*Unless it is part of the template, I own the photos used in this blog post.