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Buddhist Symbol at Home in the Catskills

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July 26, 1996, Section A, Page 28Buy Reprints
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To the Editor:

Suggestions by members of the nearby Zen monastery that the eyes of Buddha (photo, right) on the silo housing the Kaatskill Kaleidoscope that I have developed at Catskills Corners (news article, July 20) are offensive to Indian sensibilities are wide of the mark.

The symbol is virtually unknown in India but is ubiquitous in Tibet and the Himalayan states, appearing on walls of all kinds as a blessing of wisdom and compassion and a reminder of divine consciousness.

The Catskills have long been regarded as sacred mountains, and our use of the Buddha eyes seemed entirely apt for an attraction that was offering a visionary experience.

As a 33-year devotee of Tibetan Buddhism, I traveled to Dharamsala, India, in 1991 and received the Dalai Lama's permission to reproduce in a commercial setting not only the eyes-of-Buddha symbol that adorns the shrine, the Great Stupa of Gyantse, but also the entire stupa.

Tibetan and many other forms of Buddhism encourage practices of God consciousness throughout daily life, not just in designated holy places. My guru, the late Albert Rudolph, used to say that any spiritual discipline that didn't function for you at rush hour on the IRT probably wasn't going to work anywhere else.

So I have little problem with any practice that mixes the sacred and the mundane, whether it be creches in department store windows, hex signs on barns or bingo games in churches. Any application that, in the workaday world, returns the mind to a consciousness of God seems just fine to me. DEAN GITTER Shandaken, N.Y., July 24, 1996