Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast, the Short Podcast. It's
Speaker 1: just there. I still look forward to those intros. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to let you down every time. You'll never
Speaker 1: learn what you know. I think it's great and enjoy them. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm glad one of us does so. Um. We are
Speaker 1: talking today about Buddhism, which is an extraordinarily complex, nuanced,
Speaker 1: layered world religion, one of the Big seven at least. Um.
Speaker 1: And there's going to be a lot of stuff we're
Speaker 1: not going to talk about. There's going to be terms
Speaker 1: that we don't necessarily bring into it. The point is, everybody,
Speaker 1: it's not wrong. Okay, we're talking about a major religion
Speaker 1: on a short stuff episode that's supposed to be fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes or less. So just go into it. Giving us
Speaker 1: a break. Yeah, because this is not about Buddhism as
Speaker 1: a whole. Uh. This is about because we've we've talked
Speaker 1: about it here and there. I believe we did one
Speaker 1: on Nirvana yep, correct, Um, so we know a little
Speaker 1: bit about it in Karma, right, Yeah, we did that
Speaker 1: one too. We danced around Buddhism, which is a bee
Speaker 1: from what I understand. But specifically, this is about a
Speaker 1: bit of a chotchkey. This is about the little, happy, jolly, chubby,
Speaker 1: usually shirtless, laughing Buddha. He looks like Rick Ross that
Speaker 1: you see kind of does that you see? And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, if you go to Chinatown and go to
Speaker 1: a little tourist trap shop there, you might see these.
Speaker 1: You might see him at a Asian restaurant by the
Speaker 1: cash register if your chuck. You might have seen one
Speaker 1: on his desk for many years. Oh yeah, you do
Speaker 1: have that one. Yeah, that someone gave it to me
Speaker 1: years and years and years ago, a little bank and uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, he's just got a happy little face.
Speaker 1: So I liked it. He definitely does. And he's just smiling.
Speaker 1: You can't even see his eyeballs, he's smiling so much.
Speaker 1: And everybody knows that that's the laughing Buddha. But here's
Speaker 1: the thing that's not Buddha. Nope, not technically Buddha in
Speaker 1: in the very Buddhist way. Yes, he counts as Buddha
Speaker 1: in some way, shape or form, and we'll kind of
Speaker 1: explain that. But when you're talking about Buddha, when most
Speaker 1: people who are not Buddhists point to that and say, oh,
Speaker 1: that's Buddha. You're wrong. That's not Buddha that you're thinking.
Speaker 1: There is one Buddha who is the Buddha, the teaching
Speaker 1: Buddha for our era that we live in right now.
Speaker 1: Capital t e Buddha exactly and not just capitalized, Chuck
Speaker 1: italicized as well. So the Buddha his He was an
Speaker 1: actual man who lived in the eighth century in India,
Speaker 1: and his name was Siddartha Gautama, and he became a
Speaker 1: He was actually born a wealthy prince, had a great wife,
Speaker 1: had a kid, was just living the life, but found
Speaker 1: that he was still unsatisfied, unfulfilled. He needed to know
Speaker 1: what the meaning of life was. So he went on
Speaker 1: basically a vision quest and figured it out and achieved nirvana,
Speaker 1: and in doing so he became the the Buddha. And
Speaker 1: I believe his name changed to um what is his
Speaker 1: name O? Shakyamuni. So we went from Siddartha Gautama, the man,
Speaker 1: the prince, to Shakyamuni Buddha, the teaching Buddha of our age,
Speaker 1: the Buddha. That's right. Buddha means awakened one. And like
Speaker 1: you said, during this vision quest, he meditated for forty
Speaker 1: nine days under a Bodhi tree, and I imagine that
Speaker 1: was a wonderful, peaceful experience. Dude. I'll bet his legs
Speaker 1: had such pins and needles. At the end of it,
Speaker 1: came out the other side, uh, enlightened. And this religion
Speaker 1: has since grown, of course, to the point where I mean,
Speaker 1: they're they're approaching like four hundred million followers at this
Speaker 1: point right somewhere there, which is pretty respectable. Yes, very much.
Speaker 1: So for sure, it's got more than mine does. Uh
Speaker 1: how many it's just me, just you. I usually keep
Speaker 1: it secret. You need still, like, give me a pamphlet
Speaker 1: and I'll take a look at it. She's thinking about it.
Speaker 1: I'm working on her. So Uh. Over the years, Buddhism
Speaker 1: has really expanded, uh, to to the point where there's
Speaker 1: just not uh Gautama Buddha. Is that the pronunciation you used? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Gautama's everything I saw, Yeah, Gautama Buddha to where there
Speaker 1: are many, many, many deities, including a bunch of Bodhisattva's Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which by the way, I was like, oh yes, steely
Speaker 1: Dan and ended up listening to every major dude because
Speaker 1: I saw that word in print. Oh man, let me
Speaker 1: some steely dan. It's good stuff. So these are it's
Speaker 1: it's sort of a term for these individuals who work
Speaker 1: for enlightenment for everyone. Yeah. I was like, okay, so
Speaker 1: but what is it really? And it depends on who us. So,
Speaker 1: if you're a practicing Buddha Buddhist who has really dedicated
Speaker 1: yourself to living the Buddhist life, to following the Buddhist path,
Speaker 1: you are technically a bodhisatva. But in certain traditions, like
Speaker 1: the one that's practiced largely in Japan and Korea and China,
Speaker 1: bodhisatva is actually somebody who's living walking the earth who
Speaker 1: is so Buddhist that they could achieve nirvana. They're actually
Speaker 1: putting off achieving nirvana so they can stay here on
Speaker 1: earth to make it a better place, which makes them
Speaker 1: like Mr. Rogers would have been a bodhisatva basically. So
Speaker 1: there's there's bodhisatva's there's the Buddha. But then there's also
Speaker 1: some traditions that say, um, well, you realize the Buddha
Speaker 1: has been born and reborn and reborn multiple times. So
Speaker 1: this this um the um Gautama was just the us
Speaker 1: recent in a line of twenty eight so far. Apparently
Speaker 1: every time the world gets destroyed, the Buddha is reborn,
Speaker 1: um and right now, in this incarnation of the world,
Speaker 1: Gautama was the became the the teaching Buddha of our age.
Speaker 1: And then those those reincarnated versions of the Buddha are
Speaker 1: called avatars. So you've got all of them being revered
Speaker 1: as deities as well. So it's kind of understandable how
Speaker 1: you could say, well that that guy technically qualifies as
Speaker 1: the Laughing Buddha, but he's actually another individual, another historical
Speaker 1: figure from what we understand. That's right, And you know,
Speaker 1: that's a great place for a little quick break, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna come back and reveal who the Laughing Buddha
Speaker 1: is once and for all, right after this. M alright,
Speaker 1: So you said that the laughing Buddha was one of
Speaker 1: these avatars, a real human being who walked the earth. Uh.
Speaker 1: And tenth century I like tith like you just said.
Speaker 1: It's weirdly sounded like when I didn't have teeth up front.
Speaker 1: It did, but they're all they're chucking, they're looking sharp. Uh.
Speaker 1: Tenth century Chinese monk whose name was not Buddha but
Speaker 1: Buddha I. Okay, so that was his nickname. His real
Speaker 1: name was Zoo. Yeah, I think that was my attempted it.
Speaker 1: So Buddha I spelled b U d a I. And
Speaker 1: he's he's this guy that you see. He was pot bellied.
Speaker 1: He was happy and gregarious. Uh. He would go around
Speaker 1: from village to village with sort of like Santa Claus
Speaker 1: with a big sack over his shoulder. Uh. And in fact,
Speaker 1: his very name means cloth, sack and Chinese. And he
Speaker 1: was a very beloved figure. He helped the poor children
Speaker 1: loved him. He would give out sweet treats and rice
Speaker 1: and uh was generally like what you would imagine that
Speaker 1: that that character is, except it was a real human right.
Speaker 1: So it's a weird way to say that, right. But
Speaker 1: he because of this this sack um of like goodies
Speaker 1: that he would give the children and the poor. Uh.
Speaker 1: And like you said, he was very Santa Claus like.
Speaker 1: He started to become kind of associated as a Buddha
Speaker 1: that represented like abundance and plenty and contentment and fulfillment
Speaker 1: um kind of materially but not necessarily, but in a
Speaker 1: very Buddhist way. And so the laughing Buddhai just became
Speaker 1: a very lovable, well liked figure, like he was just
Speaker 1: the kind of Buddha or Buddhist avatar that anybody could
Speaker 1: get into. But the thing that really kind of cemented
Speaker 1: his position in the pantheon of Buddhist deities was that
Speaker 1: he basically was a self proclaimed incarnation of Buddha. He left,
Speaker 1: he wrote a polem on is deathbed in which he
Speaker 1: said basically like, hey, guys, just want to let you
Speaker 1: know the truth. I'm actually the incarnation of the next
Speaker 1: teaching Buddha. Remember we live in a certain era right now,
Speaker 1: and Shakyamuni is the teaching Buddha. Well, the next time
Speaker 1: the world destroys itself, after it's reborn, the incarnation of
Speaker 1: the Buddha that I am, my trea is going to
Speaker 1: come back, and then that Buddha will be the teaching
Speaker 1: Buddha for the next era. I was just coming by
Speaker 1: to say what up y'all, Um, have some stuff out
Speaker 1: of my goody sack and and just call me future Buddha, right,
Speaker 1: So they did. So that that cemented buddhis position in
Speaker 1: the pantheon of deities. But the reason why you see
Speaker 1: um Buddhai next to a cash register. Is because over
Speaker 1: time he became associated with restaurants and bartenders. Yeah, which
Speaker 1: is really, uh, really interesting and the only thing that
Speaker 1: sort of makes sense is and you know, people have
Speaker 1: researched this, but uh, it became this imagery of this
Speaker 1: particular future Buddha became very popular in art and sculpture,
Speaker 1: and this started kind of cropping up in about the
Speaker 1: fifteenth century. And then global trade starts starts expanding sixteenth
Speaker 1: and seventeenth century. Porcelain becomes a big thing, Ceramics becomes
Speaker 1: a big thing, and somehow and all this trade and moving,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of spreading, spreading the word West, that
Speaker 1: the image of this guy, this little happy Buddha, future
Speaker 1: Buddha that is that everyone knows and loves just sort
Speaker 1: of got picked up into the West and it became
Speaker 1: sort of like a souvenir. Yeah, like a spoon if
Speaker 1: you're going to St. Louis, if you go to like
Speaker 1: like Beijing, you get a laughing Buddha instead. That's right.
Speaker 1: But that's how likable this guy was. Yeah, And to me,
Speaker 1: the most likable thing about Buddhism period is you know,
Speaker 1: if you rub on the Buddhai's belly for good luck
Speaker 1: that had nothing to do with them, And I thought, man,
Speaker 1: just a bunch of dumb white Westerners rubbing on this thing.
Speaker 1: It's probably sacrilegious, but not to Buddhists. They're like, you
Speaker 1: know what, it's all good, rub on that belly. I
Speaker 1: don't blame you. It's highly rubbable, calling calum laughing Buddha.
Speaker 1: We don't care. Yeah, it's fine because you know why,
Speaker 1: because we're Buddhists. Yeah, and we're not worried about stuff
Speaker 1: like that. And then to button the whole thing up.
Speaker 1: The reason why you see him and why you can
Speaker 1: rub his belly at a restaurants because he became the
Speaker 1: patron saint of restaurant tours and bartenders because of his
Speaker 1: association with contentment and fulfillment and that cool. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love it. And it's just I really can't stress enough
Speaker 1: how like what a charming welcoming the thing that is
Speaker 1: for Buddhist to be Like, you know what, any inequality
Speaker 1: that represents Buddha nature is great. It's all good with us.
Speaker 1: I think that's pretty cool, very very cool. Well, that's it,
Speaker 1: that's the laughing Buddha. Now you can point that out
Speaker 1: to everybody the next time you go to a Chinese restaurant,
Speaker 1: and they will love you for it. Um. If you
Speaker 1: want to get in touch with us, you can go
Speaker 1: onto our website, stuff you Should Know dot com. You
Speaker 1: can check out our social links there and then you
Speaker 1: can also send us an email to stuff podcast at
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com