Chocolate Buddha and Other Musings

Another place that Dash and Ilya swung by in Melbourne city in Oct 09 is this restaurant at Federation Square - curiously named Chocolate Buddha. Food was good but the vegetarian options were not as broad as Vegie Bar nor many of the independent cafes.

The name of the place did cause Dash to wonder whether the melted Buddha is still an enlightened dollop of chocolate, or whether the chocolate form of the Buddha meant to reflect the impermanent and sweet (?!) state of human existence.

In Chocolate Buddha, Dash was very much tempted to get an order of Buddha's Tears, which is the name for one of the restaurant's tea offerings. But the name did cause Dash to wonder why Buddha would have cried. Were they sweet tears of happiness, bittersweet tears of empathy, sympathy (perhaps at the pitiful and painful struggles of humankind) or bitter tears of sadness?! What were they shed for, or who were they shed for?!

On a similar philosophical discussion topic, at Jeremy's birthday dinner last Friday, there was a deep discussion about the responsibility of having attained enlightenment - Does one who have attained enlightenment have a duty to help others understand, or do they just continue to sit by the river or under the bodhi tree? That is, can they stay disengaged from the affairs of humankind and yet be engaged with their sufferings?

Great. Just great.

Already, enlightenment is not an easy process and route. And at the seeming end of the road, there is another major ethical and moral issue to act upon or not act upon. Here, to paraphrase T. S. Eliot's famous line, "After such knowledge, what follows?" And at this juncture, Dash needs to take a nap to sleep on the issue >: I