Chocolate Buddhas

chocolates

chocolate Buddha

There's a French chocolatier in town where you can buy all sorts of unusual and delightful creations: red chocolate lips filled with tangerine liqueur, truffles with Sichuan pepper and orange peel, and oblongs of dark chocolate infused with Earl Gray tea or encasing a compelling mix of caramel and  balsamic vinegar...to name just a very few. They are pricey little indulgences, but a worthwhile treat if one doesn't over-do it, and I find myself  heading to the place whenever I am in the neighborhood.

My unequivocal favorite is a round-bellied Buddha filled with salted caramel.

"He's everyone's favorite, hands down," the proprietor told me.

It has occurred to me that the Buddha is an odd shape in which to mold an edible treat. It reminds me of the chocolate Easter bunnies of my childhood, where you'd look at the cute little thing and then bite off its hollow head. But it isn't a bunny...it's a Buddha.

"You probably shouldn't make one of Mohammed," I say stupidly. "Or Jesus. Or anything like that."

"Never would have occurred to us," said the chocolatier's wife. "It's different with the Buddha. In all the time we've been making these, only one person ever expressed ambivalence. She was a devout Buddhist, and she said she kept looking at it, wondering if she should eat it, and then finally she decided instead to just place it on a little shrine she has in her house. It's been sitting there for two years now."

I shared this anecdote with my friend Margaret this morning in the course of a walk in the hills.

"What a waste," she said. "The most Buddhist thing would be to eat it and enjoy it."

It was a beautiful morning. There were patches of wildflowers in bloom on the ridge, and a wild pig traversed a distant field, with a string of little piglets following closely. White clouds moved across the sky, casting their shadows on the yellow hills. We were happy to be present.

"I don't have a lot of words for things," said Margaret, "but I think all that matters is to have  a pure, devoted heart. And eat the chocolate while you can."

I like the sound of that.