The Thousand Faces of the Smiling Buddha

The idea is born in the confluence of three streams of thought flowing more or less simultaneously in the stagnant queue at the Indian Consulate in Columbo, Sri Lanka.

The Buddha Stream

I'm marveling at how little I actually know of this country that, at least geographically, is fated to be a mere adjunct to India - a disjointed full stop off the tapered exclamation mark formed by the Indian sub-continent. For many of the foreigners here, Sri Lanka is significant only in that it represents the most convenient midpoint on a visa run back to India. If you're in the northern part of India you go to Nepal; in the south you fly to Sri Lanka. Even the titular hero of the Hindu epic Ramayana deigned to visit the island just long enough to slay the ten-headed Ravana and grab Sita, before booking the first available swan-powered aerial car back to Bharat.

In my earliest memories of Sri Lanka, it is still Ceylon, and, for me, one of the top three islands of exotic intrigue, along with Madagascar and the Galapagos. Certainly it played a role in inspiring a seven-year-old's wanderlust as I studied the Rand McNally Mercator Projection Map of the World fastened to the wall alongside my bed. The intervening years had added bits of incongruous trivia to my sparse knowledge of Sri Lanka: Tamil Tigers somewhere the north, Arthur C. Clarke in Colombo, and a majority Buddhist population.

It's this last bit of trivia that sparks a distant memory of a lamp spotted amongst the ancient waffle irons and gewgaws I had coveted in one of the few remaining antique shops off of Gilbert Street in Iowa City. Entitled "The Thousand Faces of the Buddha," it had, evidently, exactly that number of hand-painted buddhas on its lacquered base. This memory, in turn, precipitates my wondering about the significance of the pot-bellied, mirthful Buddha so popular in Chinese depictions of the sage. How did that all get started?

The Service Stream

What kind of service project can I initiate in the few short days I will be on the island nation? Being on the lean side of my planned stay in South Asia, I'm given over to an increasingly reflective mood regarding the unfolding of events over the past year. Nipun comes to mind as one of the prime forces impelling me to return to the beloved region. I decide that whatever project I ultimately undertake, I will, in appropriately Buddhist fashion, dedicate any merit accrued to his side of the karmic ledger.

One idea for a service project that arises almost immediately is to act as a tour guide for a tour guide – a number of whom are staking out the consulate doors with the intention of ensnaring hapless foreigners. My thinking is that I could enlist one of them to take me to the poorest of the poor areas on the island, and then, through osmosis rather than proselytization, link the guide up with the spirit of service by administering to various families and individuals in need. We could visit a hospital, orphanage, and school in this whirlwind tour of goodwill. It would be an on-the-road, buddy film with an ulterior 'do-unto-others' motive. The idea, while a good start I reckon, borders on the presumptive. Nothing would be more humiliating than to have the notoriously imperious Nipun pooh-pooh my endeavor as deficient in personal sacrifice or lacking mythic import.

The Flat Liners Stream

As I scan the hundreds of people crowded in front of the eight service windows at the consulate I get the overwhelming impression of a conference of zombies. Dull, worn out, irritable expressions dominate. Nobody likes waiting, and many here have been waiting for hours in lines that seem frozen in place. A few Europeans fold themselves into meditative postures, while orange-robed Buddhist monks gather in conspiratorial twos and threes to discuss the best way to extract the stone-faced bureaucrats from their fish bowl of bullet-proof glass. This, I muse, is why people, or at least the vast majority of South Asians, are so fond of musicals. The melodic interludes offer the hope of escape from the crushing monotony of daily existence. When the music starts people are pulled from a milieu of the mundane into a spontaneous community of song and dance. But there is no song here, no dance, no Alpine hills to tumble down while locked in an embrace with a buxom sari-clad lover.

So these are the three thoughts (along with the omnipresent, "where, when, and what am I going to eat next") being juggled: Buddha, service, flat liners. Buddha, service, flat liners. Then, whoop, there it is. The three streams of consciousness cascade together, and like an expectant salmon leaping from the resultant froth, the "Thousand Faces of the Smiling Buddha" service project cuts a wet arch into the grizzly maw of my noetic body. My mission is clear. I will endeavor to make one thousand people smile in the seven days I have remaining in Sri Lanka. No, scratch endeavor. Let it be writ: I will make one thousand people smile during my stay. And my time starts now.