The Magical Budai

The fastest way to end sorrow

During our life we are probably going to face times of sorrow, pain, disappointments, longing and grief. When these times come we find ourselves suffering and struggling with those hard feelings and thoughts, trying desperately to avoid them, most of the time unsuccessfully. 

Legend has it that in ancient China a Buddhist monk named Budai who was also known as the "Laughing Buddha" traveled among the villages with a sack on his back. 

When Budai met a sad person, he would take away the sorrow and sadness from that person, put them in his sack and continue on his way to the next village.

At my clinic I have a magical statue of Budai the laughing Buddha. This magical statue can take away any sorrow, pain or suffering from you, and make it disappear.

All you have to do is to rub the Buddha's bald head three times and the pain goes away, disappearing into Buddha's sack.

Would you like to get rid of your pain? Will you rub Budai's head?

Sure you will, but wait a minute, it's important that first you’ll know how the magic works:

To make the pain go away, the magical Budai takes away the one thing that stands behind the pain, the value that causes it. 

For example: behind the pain and longing we feel following a breakup or loss, stands the value of love. That value or aspect of us – love – is the thing that makes us miss our loved ones, feel their lacking and sometimes even feel guilt or helplessness.

The magical statue of Bubai will simply erase the value of love for you, as if it did not exist at all and that will immediately stop your suffering.

Now that you know that in order to get rid of this painful feeling, you will also have to give up this meaning and aspect in your life; the value that stands behind it, will you still rub the bald head of the laughing Buddha?

Well if you decided not to rub Budai’s bald head, you’re not alone. Most people prefer to  hold on to their suffering but not to lose their values. Values are part of who we are,  it’s an important aspect of our meaning and self definition. 

As The great philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: “To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering” he also wrote that “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how”.

Values give us meaning, meaning gives us strength to bear difficulties and pain.