I love the way Alan Cohen tells the Story of the Golden Buddha in the film “Finding Joe” so check out the video below. The story is based on actual events and the real Golden Buddha is 3 metres tall, weights 5.5 tonnes and is currently housed in a temple in Bangkok, Thailand. It was covered in plaster and stucco, almost completely forgotten for 300 years, housed under a tin roof at one point until an accident whilst moving it revealed it to be golden underneath.
In the film Alan Cohen recounts the story as follows:
Many years ago in Thailand there was a temple that was called the Temple of the Golden Buddha and in it was a huge statue ofa Golden Buddha.
And word came to this village where the monastery was that an army from a neighboring country was about to invade.
And they got the brilliant scheme to cover the Golden Buddha, which is quite large, with mud and concrete so that it looked basically like a stone Buddha and the army would perceive no value in it. Sure enough this army rolled in with [its] weapons. And as they passed by the monastery they saw nothing but a big Stone Buddha and they had no reason to plunder it.
Well years went by, because the Army continued to occupy, until there was a time in the monastery in the village when no one remembered that the Buddha was golden. Until one day a young monk was sitting on the Buddha meditating on his knee and as he got up a little piece of concrete happened to crack off and he saw something shiny.
He realized it was gold under there. And so he ran to his fellow monks and said “the Buddha is golden, the Buddha is golden!” and they all came out and they realized he was telling the truth and they took their picks and hammers and eventually they unearthed the Golden Buddha.
Now, what’s the metaphor here? The metaphor is that each of us is golden by nature. We were born golden, we were born high, we were born knowing, were born connected to our bliss, were born knowing truth, were born knowing everything every great spiritual master has ever said, we were one with the Christ, the Buddha, everyone. But then we went to school and they said you have to dress like this and this is what boys do and this what girls do, and this what black people do and this is what white people do, on and on and on. And so we developed a casing of stone over the Buddha to a point where at a young age, maybe four five six or seven, we believed that we were the stone Buddha not the golden one.
And then something comes along that cracks our casing. Maybe it’s an injury or divorce or financial setbacks or governmental change – something really scares us and bugs us and knocks off a piece of our armor
And only in that moment of the armor being knocked off do you get to look inside and see the gold. And let me tell your friend that the moment you see that gold, the armor and the concrete will never satisfy you. And at that point you truly answer the true hero’s adventure and all you want to do for the rest of your life is pick away the stone because the gold is so much more fun.
Alan Cohen in the film “Finding Joe” by Patrick Solomon
So … thinking about the cracks in your armor and casing. Life’s setbacks and challenges and failures have the potential to open up these cracks and we’re so quick to rush to try to fill them with other things, just to fill the void.
Take the time to appreciate the cracks in your life and really look deep – see that you are golden.