(Photo Credit: Marcel Weiland. Bhumisparsha mudra Buddha statue.)
I live on a cul-de-sac situated on a hill. When you enter my street you’ll gain fifty feet or more in elevation by the time you’ve reached the turnaround. At the very top of the court sits a prominent two-story house with a staircase – about 20 steps – that leads from the curb up to the front door. Visually, this house is king of the court. It’s my neighbor’s house. The same neighbor that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. He passed recently and I talked about how he hardly had any visitors in the 2 years since I’ve lived on this street. A sad fact that only changed once he died. You can read that piece here. He and I never spoke. We would exchange a friendly wave when we saw each other, but that was about it.
I always admired a certain statue that he kept in his yard. It was about 18 inches tall, one of those Buddha statues that you sometimes see in a well-kept garden. It looked like it had been sitting in his yard for decades. He had placed it under a tree and there it sat for who knows how long, watching over the court. I’d appreciate it every time I drove by his house.
A few days ago a ‘For Sale’ sign showed up in his front yard. Just below the statue. The court is going to get a new king. Over the last few weeks, his family has been clearing everything out and getting the house ready to sell. I imagine they’ve completed the awful process of sorting through his things and divvying up the items that people wanted to keep.
His house has sat there empty for the last day or two. Empty except for that statue. It was still there, sitting under the same tree, right where he left it.
It seemed odd to me that nobody wanted to keep that statue. It felt like there was a story behind it. And even without a story, it’s just a cool statue. Yesterday I noticed a car in the driveway so I walked over, up the steps, passed the statue, and rang the doorbell. A woman answered and I introduced myself and expressed my condolences. It turns out she’s his daughter. She lives in Nevada, but she’ll be around for the next few days tying up loose ends.
I told her how I’ve been an admirer of the statue for the last two years and I asked her if she had any plans for it. To my surprise, she said no. They were going to sell it with the house. She understood my intention and before I uttered the words she told me I could have it. I tried to pay her for it but she refused. She said, “I think he would have wanted you to have it.” That’s a funny thing that people say after someone has died. Who knows what he would have wanted. Maybe he would have been happy for me to have it, and maybe he would have said “Get the fuck off my porch”. He was a Navy Vet after all, so my money is on the latter.
Either way, she said I could have it. So I picked it up and carried it out of his yard and down the street to my house.
I did some googling when I got the statue home and it turns out it depicts Buddha in the Bhumisparsha mudra, or “earth touching gesture”, a gesture and posture in Buddha statues that represents the moment when he attained enlightenment under the bodhi tree.
My neighbor’s placement of this statue under a tree in his yard was much more intentional than I had initially thought.
I’m not a Buddhist, or religious at all, but I do appreciate meaning. Sometimes I find that meaning in people, ideas, and even objects. This statue already means certain things to me. It represents family. And the importance of spending time with the people you love while they’re here. It represents my neighbor. And this period in my life these last two years. And it represents the kingly house at the top of the hill.
The statue doesn’t feel like it’s mine, more like I’m its steward. It felt like a torch passed from my neighbor to me yesterday when I took his statue to my house.
So I’ll hang on to it for a while. Perhaps for the rest of my life.
And maybe I’ll be lucky enough to have visitors in my last few years.
And maybe one of those visitors will want this statue.
MW 