Expert: Justin Choo - 10/16/2006

Question
Hello My name is Sheila
I am from New Jersey
I'm 20 years old and I have a story.

When I was about 15 years old I decided to skip school. As I was having social problems. I stayed in my room and could not make any noise as I waited for my father to leave for work. Out of pure bordeom I was looking at a picture and saw a buddah. So I got in meditation pose and said to my self "hummm" as if I were meditating. About 5 seconds later I heard an extremley loud deep roaring laugh. It scared the heck out of me! Not until recently I was at a flea market and saw a statue of a buddah and the lady that was selling it said he was a "laughing buddah" So have you ever heard of this? any idea what this could mean? Thank so much!

Answer
Hi Sheila,

Thanks for sharing your story with me.

What happened during your experience only you yourself can interprete because no one was with you.  Of course, there will be those who will claim that they can interprete what you had experienced.  But be very careful; there are tons of con men around.

There is actually no such person as a laughing Buddha.  This so-called laughing Buddha is supposed to be the personification of the next future Buddha.  It was "created" by the Chinese long long ago:  and the Chinese are very clever depicting Buddha's teachings by way of personification.  

Actually the Buddha taught very simple things in life.  It is the people who misinterprete his teachings either through ignorance or through some ulterior motives.  The Buddha taught universal truths and inner peace, without the superstitions and mysticism.  In three short simple sentences, we can sum up the Buddha's teachings:
  Avoid doing evil
  Do good
  Purify your mind.

Smile from justinchoo :-)