The story of 'Laughing Buddha'

Have your ever seen a picture or statue of Buddha laughing?

Where is he? why he is laughing? Here is the story of laughing Buddha. 

Lao Tzu's a contemporary of Buddha. When Buddhism was spreading in India, Taoism was spreading in China. But Buddha and Lao Tzu(Founder of Taoism) where opposite ends of a pole in sense of both physique and philosophy.

Laughing Buddha

 Buddha was a serious thinker, he laughs very rarely (Very very rarely!), whereas Lao Tzu was easy going and mischievous person and was always with laughing face and making pranks. People even doubted whether he was a philosopher at all because of his practical jokes. Buddha had athletic physique, and his face was like a brave army general in his statues. This is because those statues were carved after Alexander's invasion on India. People here loved Alexander which made them to carve statues having his impact. You can see this in his statues in India. Also he was against harming animals, so he hardly traveled in animals. But Lao Tzu had a beautiful 'pot belly' and a round face, and he always traveled in a buffalo. Hope you would have understood how opposite they were in there appearance and physique.

Not only in their appearance but also in their ideas they were different. Buddha in his deathbed said to his disciples, “Every living thing should pass, strive on diligently”, whereas Lao Tzu in his book Tao-Te-Ching wrote, “It is because you do not strive, that no one under heaven can strive with you”. What an irony?

When Buddhism started spreading outside India, its first stop on North-East was China. People there were not much happy with easy going philosophy of Taoism. When Buddhism entered there, Chinese found it extremely strict. So the two philosophical rivers, Buddhism and Taoism mingled and gave birth to a beautiful stream called Zen.

 Zen philosophy is neither strict like Buddhism nor easy going like Taoism. It is proportionate mix of the two and thus Zen dawned and so the famous 'Laughing Buddha' statues, in which you can see Buddha laughing heartily. They are mostly in China. They have mix of charm and mischievousness of Lao Tzu and luster of Buddha and they dint miss the beautiful ‘pot belly’ of Lao Tzu. They were designed in this way to denote the mix of Buddhism and Taoism. Thus Zen and Laughing Buddha were born.

P.S: To know more about Lao Tzu and his work-Tao-Te-Ching