Buddha Bling

My favorite thing that I brought back from Burma was what I call my “Disco Buddha.”

OK, this is going to take a little explaining. First let me say that one of the most distinctive things about the Burmese style of Buddha statues was that many, many, many of them have a “halo” of flashing, multi-colored LED lights radiating from his head! This is because tradition holds that when the Buddha was enlightened, he emanated great rays of light.

You can see a bit of it here, around the Buddha’s head in one of the alcoves on the top of Mandalay Hill.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can see more of it here, in this photo of our group taken in one of the pavilions at the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon.

 

 

 

 

 

And at the monastery, which didn’t have any Buddhas at all in the meditation hall, there was a Bodhi tree in the garden with Buddha statues in little shrines all around it. During the day, it looked quite sedate, but at night….wowzah…it was lit up like Las Vegas!

Here’s the tree in the daytime.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here is one of the shrines, also during the day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here it is at night!!!!

So when I was walking down the steps from the Shwedagon Pagoda one evening and saw a little glass Buddha that lit up with flashing colors (which came from LED lights in the cheap plastic platform he was sitting on), I just had to have him.

Here he is. It doesn’t come across very well in photos, but he changes colors constantly…and somewhat erratically…from blue to orange to pink to a deeper blue to yellow to a combination of white-and-blue to purple to bright red, etc etc etc.

 

 

And here he is at night, in his golden-orange incarnation.

I know it’s crazy, but I just love turning him on and listening to Pa Auk Sayadaw chanting the Pali blessing chants in the Burmese style I heard the monks chanting, early in the morning, at the monastery, which you can listen to here.

It makes me feel like I’m back “home” in Burma! (But in a comfortable bed.)