Golden Buddha – Discover the Beauty Within

It is so easy to get caught up in the daily routine and hustle of life – wake up, hit the snooze button, running late, check phone, check texts – and that was just the first few moments of the day!  So in running through life that way, are you really awake?  Are you taking care of yourself and in sync with your innermost desires and passions?   Have you been too busy to bother thinking about this question??  And is it now such a buried concept stuck under layers of keeping up with life that you have no idea how to access YOU anymore?

 Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.  – Rumi

Here’s an incredible story that I first heard from Jack Canfield, author of the Chicken Soup for your Soul series and a vibrant speaker.  He recounts the history and lore around the Golden Buddha that is located in Bangkok, Thailand.  The official name of the statue is Phra Phuttha Maha Suwan Patimakon (say that 3 times fast) and it is located in the Wat Traimit temple.  Since I will be visiting SE Asia soon, including this temple, it seems like a good time to pass on the tale.

There was a massive clay Buddha statue housed under a simple tin roof in a little known temple in Bangkok.  In the 1950s, a new building was being constructed that could accommodate the enormity of this Buddha, so it was determined the statue would be moved to this new location.  It is during this move that things get interesting and while there are slightly different accounts as to what exactly took place in the transition, one thing is quite clear.  The Buddha statue fell at some point and when it hit the ground, bits of the plaster coating came off.

This exposed a glimmer of light that shone through the newly formed cracks in the statue.  Given that clay and plaster would not produce this effect, great care was taken to explore what was beneath the surface of the statue.  Ultimately, they realized the plaster was just a mask over  a 10 foot tall, 5.5 ton solid gold Buddha.  To provide this magnitude in more digestible terms, the gold in the statue is valued at approximately $250 million dollars in today’s currency.   The statue is so thoughtfully, well crafted that it can be disassembled into 9 pieces that smoothly fit together.

golden buddha
Photo Credit: Sophia Lucero

The path of the statue before this time is uncertain, although historians believe the Burmese army was about to invade Thailand, approximately 200 years prior.   The Siam monks who were in possession of the statue, likely covered it in an attempt to protect their precious treasure and make it look less valuable.  However, it seems all the monks were slaughtered during this time and therefore the true identity of the statue was kept secret…until the move.

See any parallels in our own lives?  We are all that shining brilliance of gold It is our true essence.  And yet we cover this up when many of life’s challenging experiences occur – fear, self-doubt, hurt and we build up barriers.

This site is dedicated to providing a tool set to chip away at the clay with:

  • Practical ways to begin exploring and removing barriers
  • Stories that remind you to wake up to your true, inner golden self
  • Ideas and opportunities to re-discover yourself

The Golden Buddha was “dis-covered”.  From Latin dis- (expressing reversal) + cooperire ‘cover completely’, this is simply to take the cover off something that was already there.   You are already there if you choose to be, like the Golden Buddha – discover the beauty within.

~ Health, Happiness and Prosperity ~