Big Buddha

 

“Silence is golden in the spiritual realm,” I reminded myself and my readers a couple of posts back and so my little pilgrimage to the Big Buddha on Lantau Island seemed the perfect way to end my marvelous time here in Hong Kong. But not before finally using my swim suit I had brought with me—on the last day. Even though just three minutes into doing laps, the hotel lifeguard said he needed to leave and I couldn’t swim anymore! Oh well! At least my suit got wet.

 

Then off on the shuttle bus to the cable car taking folks up to the Po Lin Monastery where Big Buddha sits looking over the city. Not a San Francisco-style cable car, more like the ski-lift gondolas. I expected a short trip, but it was in fact 25 minutes soaring far above the island. Out into a touristed little village and then the walk to the stairs that led to Buddha. 

The sun was out and hot I was way overdressed in my plane-traveling clothes—jeans and jackets and shoes. So after ascending the steps to the indeed-impressive Buddha (I wondered if it’s bigger than the Buddha in Kamakura, Japan I once visited— it is), I descended and walked over to the monastery. I found some much-needed shade and sat down, eager and ready to take a few deep breaths and enjoy the silence and serenity of a Buddhist monastery. The incense was burning, the birds were singing, the architecture and the various paintings and sculptures of Buddha in his many forms all seemed gathered for this needed moment of tranquility. 

 

And that’s when the chain saws started up. Loud and relentless. First one to my left and then one to my right. I wonder what Buddha would have said. “Hey, guys, can you tone it down a bit? I’m trying to achieve awakening for the liberation of all sentient beings and this noise is really distracting!!” Or would he have just accepted it as sonic energy not to be judged? I’ll never know. But it sure was bugging me.

 

So I walked back to that touristed area and treated myself to an affogato, far out of the range of the chainsaws. But now I had to listen to banal pop music blaring from the speakers and then the guy one table over was talking loudly on his cell phone. Silence may be golden, but the world seems like a conspiracy to overpower it with constant noise and distraction. No wonder we’re so anxious and stressed and confused!

 

Still, it was a lovely day and now it’s ye old airport waiting for my gate number to appear. I posted my appreciations and thanks on Facebook and then talked about coming home like this:

 

I turn home with mixed feelings of coming back to the country I love as if visiting a relative in advanced dementia who I don’t recognize and doesn’t recognize me.  Still he’s my Uncle Sam and I need to help take care of him. See you out on the streets!

 

Hoping that Big Buddha’s compassionate looking over the world to alleviate suffering and awaken compassion will reach as far as the U.S.A.!