Hotei, The Laughing Buddha

The enlightened mystic most associated with laughter is Hotei; he is often known as the laughing buddha. Hotei was a large man with a big belly who travelled from village to village in sixteenth-century Japan. He had no desire to call himself a Zen Master or to gather disciples. Instead he walked the streets carrying a sack full of candy, fruit and doughnuts, which he gave to all the children who gathered around him.

At first people would gather around him because they thought he was mad to laugh so much. But Hotei's laugher was so contagious that soon they all found themselves doubled over with laughter and they forgot all their judgments. Even when they would ask spiritual questions about enlightenment, Hotei would just laugh. Soon they forgot their questions, the laughter was so infectious.

It is said that Hotei even laughed in his sleep, that his whole body would shake as the laughter rumbled up from his belly. Hotei was very stout and strong because he laughed so much. Laughter was so natural to him that anything and everything helped him to laugh. This was his way of teaching enlightenment. And people could experience, as they shared the laughter with him, that they were in the presence of a master, that something of tremendous significance was transpiring. So he came to be known as the laughing buddha. He was a different type of master than the Buddha, but a buddha nonetheless. He offered another way, through laughter. He was his own message, his very life was his teaching.

And Hotei didn't laugh at jokes or at others. He laughed at himself. He laughed in celebration of existence, out of joy of life. And he was tremendously compassionate. He wanted to share his gift with as many people as possible. He wanted to see people's faces light up with laughter, see their beings become radiantly happy at the sheer joy of being alive.

He had no philosophy, no scriptures, no dogmas, theories, ideologies, concepts to preach. His teaching was existential. He wanted everyone to experience the joy laughter brings. It is not something that can be talked about. It must be experienced. This is meditation. Hotei was doing a tremendous service to humanity. He was not a philosopher. He was a very simple being, silent, happy, alive, living moment-to-moment.

The beauty of using laughter as a meditation is, it's not something that we have to go out in search of. Each of us is born full of laughter; it's just that in most of us it has been repressed. So all we have to do is allow it to arise again and cascade out of us.

Excerpted from Chapter Two The Laughing Buddha: Enjoying Your Way to Enlightenment Lunchtime Enlightenment: Meditations to Transform Your Life NOW-at Work, at Home, at Play

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