When I was a child, I had often gone to a pagoda near our house. My younger sister and I found amusement in looking at the great belly of the Buddha seated there. He was laughing with his mouth wide open. How many times I had poked my finger in his mouth and withdrawn it just in time for my sister to say, “He bites!”

Now I returned to that pagoda as a suffering creature who was indebted to God. I was hoping to find something higher, mightier, and more sacred; something that I had perhaps ignored during my youth. Here believers bowed before the image of Buddha, and priests and priestesses recited incomprehensible prayers in a monotonous tone. I felt completely disappointed. But I returned to talk with a priestess, who spoke about Buddhism and the restrained life at the pagoda. I did not feel encouraged. The books she gave me to read had a Hindu flavor that I did not understand at all.

[Picture on page 17]

I had often gone to a pagoda in Vietnam where believers bowed before the happy Buddha, similar to this one