Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Laughing Buddha

Episode Date: December 12, 2018

Did you know that the friendly, smiling Buddha we all know from bars and restaurants isn't really Buddha? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey friends when you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba who got the idea to Airbnb the backyard guest house over childhood home now The extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it But you might have an Airbnb to find out what your place could be earning at air bnb.ca Hey and welcome to the podcast the short podcast it's just the dick I still look forward to those intros well, I'm sorry to let you down every time you'll never learn No, I think it's great. I enjoy them Well, okay. I'm glad one of us does

so We are talking today about Buddhism, which is an extraordinarily complex nuanced layered World religion one of the big seven at least and There's going to be a lot of stuff. We're not gonna talk about there's going to be terms that we don't necessarily bring into it The point is everybody it's not wrong. Okay? We're talking about a major religion on a short stuff episode. That's supposed to be 15 minutes or less

So just go into it giving us a break. Yeah, because this is not about Buddhism as a whole This is about because we've talked about it here in there. I believe we did one on nirvana. Yep, correct Yeah, so we know a little bit about it and karma, right? Yeah, we did that one too. We've danced around Buddhism Which is a B from what I understand But specifically this is about a a bit of a chatski. This is about the little happy Jolly chubby Usually shirtless laughing Buddha. He looks like Rick Ross that you see That you see and 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 Mm-hmm. If you're Chuck you might have seen one on his desk for many years. Oh, yeah, you do have that one Yeah, that's someone gave it to me years and years and years ago a little bank and 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 of in the very Buddhist way Yes, he counts as Buddha 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 THE Buddha Exactly and not just capitalized Chuck italicized as well So the Buddha his he was an actual man who lived in the 8th century in India and his name was Siddhartha 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 that he was still unsatisfied unfulfilled. He wanted to know what the meaning of life was

so he went on basically a vision quest and and figured it out and achieved nirvana and in doing so he became the the Buddha and I believe his name changed to What is his name? Oh shakyamuni So we went from Siddhartha Gautama the man 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 49 days under a bodhi tree and I imagine that was a wonderful peaceful experience Dude, I'll bet his legs had such pins and needles at the end of it

came out the other side Enlightened and this religion has since grown of course to the point where I mean they're they're approaching like 400 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 How many I just me just you 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 it. So Over the years Buddhism has really expanded to to the point where there's just not

Gautama Buddha is that the pronunciation used? Yeah Gautama is everything I saw. Yeah Gautama Buddha to where there are many many many Deities including a bunch of Bodhisattvas. Yeah Yeah, which by the way, I was like, oh, yeah 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 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 you ask? So if you're a practicing Buddha Buddhist who has really dedicated yourself to

Living the Buddhist life to following the Buddhist path. You are technically a bodhisattva But in certain traditions like the one that's practiced largely in Japan and Korea and China Mm-hmm a bodhisattva is actually somebody who's living walking the earth. Yeah, who is is so Buddhist that they could achieve nirvana They're actually putting off achieving nirvana so they can stay here on earth to make it a better place Wow, which makes them like mr. Rogers would have been a bodhisattva basically. Yeah, so There's there's bodhisattvas. There's the Buddha But then there's also some traditions that say

You well, you realize the Buddha's been born and reborn and reborn multiple times so this this the Gautama was just the most recent in a line of 28 so far apparently every time the world gets destroyed the Buddha is reborn 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 called avatars. Yes, 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 what? That's a great place for a little quick break and we're gonna come back and reveal Who the laughing Buddha is once and for all right after this Hey friends when you're staying at an Airbnb You might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba who got the idea to Airbnb the backyard guest house over childhood home Now the extra income helps pay her mortgage So yeah, you might not realize it, but you might have an Airbnb to find out what your place could be earning at air

bnb.ca host on the podcast Hey, dude the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor stars of the cult classic show Hey, dude bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces We're gonna use hey dude as our jumping off point But we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it It's a podcast packed with interviews co-stars friends and non-stop references to the best decade ever

Do you remember going to blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL instant messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy blowing on it and popping it back in as we Take you back to the 90s listen to hey, dude the 90s called on the iHeart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts All right, so you said that the laughing Buddha was one of these avatars a real human being who walked the earth And 10th citry 10th 10th. 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 there Chuck and they're looking sharp

10th century Chinese monk whose name was not Buddha, but Buddha. Okay, so that was his nickname his real name was Chizu Yeah, I think that was my attempt at it. So buddha is spelled B-U-D-A-I and he's this guy that you see he was potbellied He was happy and gregarious He would go around from village to village with sort of like Santa Claus with a big sack over a shoulder 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 Was generally like what you would imagine that that that character is except it was a real human

Right, so a weird way to say that right, but he because of this this sack of Like goodies that he would give his children and the poor and like you said, he was very Santa Claus like he started to become kind of associated as a A buddha that represented like abundance and plenty and contentment and fulfillment Kind of materially But not necessarily but in a very buddhist way And so the the laughing buddhas just became a very lovable well-liked figure like he was just the kind of buddha

Or buddhist avatar that anybody could get into that's right But the thing that really kind of cemented his Position in the pantheon of buddhist deities was that he basically was a self-proclaimed Incarnation of buddha. Yeah, he left a he wrote a poem on his 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. Yeah And shakyamuni is the teaching buddha. Well the next time the world destroys itself After it's reborn the incarnation of the buddha that I am

My treya 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? Have some stuff out of my goody sack. Yeah, and just call me future buddha, right? So they did so that that cemented buddha's position in the pantheon of deities But the reason why you see buddha 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 sort of makes sense

is and you know people have researched this but Uh It became this imagery of this particular future buddha Uh became very popular in art and sculpture and this started kind of cropping up in about the 15th century Right and then global trade starts starts expanding 16th and 17th century porcelain becomes a big thing ceramics becomes 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 uh 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 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 the buddha's belly for good luck That had nothing to do with them and I thought man

Just a bunch of dumb White westerners rubbing on this thing. It's probably sacrilegious But not to buddhas. They're like, you know what it's all good rub on that belly Uh, I don't blame you. It's highly rubbable calling call them laughing buddha. We don't care. Yeah, it's fine because you know why Because we're buddhas. Yep, and we're not worried about stuff like that. Yeah And then to button the whole thing up the reason why you see him and why you can rub his belly at a restaurant is because He became the patron saint of restaurant tours and bartenders because Of his association with contentment and fulfillment. Amazing. Isn't that cool? Yeah, I love it. And it's just I really can't

Uh stress enough how like what a charming Uh welcoming thing that is for buddhas to be like, you know what any any quality 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 Yeah, rub that belly Um, if you want to get in touch with us, you can go under our website stuff You should know calm you could check out our social links there and then you can also send us an email to stuff podcast at

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