BUDDHA ON THE L
In Frank Shay’s bookshop we found A Buddhist Catechism, by Subhadra Bhikshu. We have never known much about the Buddha—so little, in fact, that we thought that was his name. (His name was Prince Siddhartha Gotama.) But we have always felt that he was a kinsprit.
We opened the book at random and the first thing we saw was:
95. Did not the Buddha give us any information concerning the first beginning and ultimate destiny of the Universe?
No;
96. Did he know nothing about it?
He knew, but he taught us nothing.
There was a subtlety about that that pleased us greatly. It reminded us of a Chinese mandarin of our acquaintance who says that the universe was Dictated but not Signed. Immediately we forked out $1.25 to Frank Shay and took the book. Frank was so pleased to sell a book (business is said to be at a very meagre pulse in Greenwich Village in midsummer) that he at once responded by buying our lunch. We retorted generously enough by buying a copy of Anatole France’s L’Ile des Pingouins, which we have been hearing about for ten years or so. We were interested to note that our copy is the “Cent Quatre-Vingt-Sixième Edition.” Considering the book was published only fourteen years ago, that seems good progress.
Coming back downtown on the L we went at Buddha hard and with great satisfaction. We learned that Buddha is not a name but means a state of mind, or Enlightenment. We learned the answers to the following questions: