What to Get a Buddhist: Objets d'Buddhist

1. BOOKS: Awakening the Buddha; Plain Mindfulness; Wherever You Go; Daily Dalai Lama; a Pocket Buddha.
2. TAPES: The Art of Thich Nhat Hahn; Beginner's Mind via Peter Coyote; Rumi's Timeless Tape Recordings.
3. OBJETS D'BUDDHIST: From silent t-shirts to bargain zafus & a few other things.
4. GIFTS of SERVICE & AID: Don't give them an object, but give the bee's knees to someone in their name.
5. NO COMMENT: Third Eye Enhancers and other items that show that in the name of the spirit, people try anything.

In this age of earth-depleting, atmosphere-fouling, water-poisoning, mountain-leveling consumerism, we here at Hundred Mountain---all one of us---generally support and encourage the "Buy Less Stuff" Movement. (Fight the good fight and add a "Buy Less Stuff" banner to your home page.) Having said that, now and then you need an offbeat or interesting object to lift your spirits or proclaim your interests to the world. Here are a few, culled from around the Internet and also from that reprehensible cataract of Christmas catalogs---20 a week in our mailbox!---that is the physical manifestation of our craving for distraction. Not to mention a good source for a cool t-shirt for the right person on your gift list.

Northern Sun is a good source for in-your-face, proselytizing, funny or inspiring t-shirts, buttons, posters and more. A couple of representative t-shirt slogans from the current catalog include: "Creative People Must Be Stopped!", "Well-behaved Women Rarely Make History" and "God WAS my copilot... But We Crashed in the Mountains and I Had to Eat Him."

They also have some good Buddhist-oriented t-shirts. They've got one that reprints on the front the by now worn-out joke "What did the Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor?" and with the response printed on the shirt's back. (By the way, see what the vendor said back to the monk.) But two other t-shirts are great: "Inquire Within" (shown above), depicting a serene Buddha. And a black t-shirt with white and gold letters that say: "MEDITATION: You Have the Right to Remain Silent." (Item 1744 for $16). NOTE: The company has a website at www.northernsun.com but it features only a portion of their paper catalog's content and I couldn't find the Buddhist shirts on the site.

"Zen Unbound" editor Tom Armstrong flagged Hundred Mountain's attention to this logic and intuition game. The Amazon.com page describing the game says it's for ages 6 on up. But I imagine some folks even farther on up---like in their 40s and beyond---might like to play or ornament their space with the 14 game blocks, which are decorated with symbols for, among other things: heaven, earth, sun, rain, lion, lamb and yin-yang.

Here is part of the game description:

"This symbol-matching game engages both intuition and logic and can be played in many variations---some simple enough for beginners, others challenging enough for Zen masters ... Match symbols to build your Zen cube. Zen Blocks can be played alone or in a team. Team players build cooperatively and 'link their fates.' Win as a team or lose as a team! Zen Blocks come with a felt play pad, and the Zen cube is 3.5 inches tall, wide, and deep."

I am either cheap or a purist when it comes to meditation and what is underneath my "bumper" (as my 5-year-old's kindergarten teacher calls that region of the sitting anatomy). I use whatever's at hand--- thick throw pillows stacked three apiece and even those corduroy back pillows with arms used for reading while sitting upright in bed (just flop 'em forward onto the floor, et viola---instant zafu).

But if you're looking to buy yourself or someone else a good, solid piece of meditationware, you could do no better than to turn to the DharmaCrafts catalog. And instead of shelling out $40 for a zafu---which appears to be the going rate for a garden issue zafu in most similar catalogs---DharmaCraft also offers "Slightly Irregular Zafus." Here is the catalog description:

"Sometimes we have zafus that do not quite meet our high quality standards. Defects may include crooked pleats, fabric irregularities, machine skips (repaired) or overstuffing. Even though we've found the defect, you probably won't be able to!"

There is something very Zen-spirited about the notion of sitting upon a Slightly Irregular Zafu (take note, Buddhist alternative rockers---this would make a great band name. "Please welcome to the stage, the Slightly Irregular Zafus!") NOTE: The catalog cautions that you call to check availability before ordering.

PAGE 6: A few more Objets...


	WHAT TO GET A BUDDHIST, Continued: 1 \| 2 \| 3 \| 4 \| 5 \| 6 \| 7 \| 8 \|