Big Lots Rocks

I love Big Lots. It’s like a flea market, but better somehow. I don’t ever go there in search of a specific something, but when I do go, I often find something cool. This morning I found a terracotta Buddha Hotei.

The Big Lots Hotei (before)

With a little paint and some elbow grease, he now looks like this:

The Big Lots Hotei (after)

I can’t help but smile myself when I see that fat little guy.

UPDATE: Thanks to my friend, Kat, who is a practicing Buddhist, I’ve learned a little more about the happy guy shown above. While he is an enlightened one (a buddha), he is not the Buddha (as in Siddhartha or Gautama Buddha). See the comments for Kat’s insight, or follow this link to a wikipedia article about Hotei (aka the Happy Buddha or the Laughing Buddha).

3 Responses to “Big Lots Rocks”

  1. Comments are still slightly borked for the time being. I can now get all the comment text, but any paragraph formatting is lost. Please comment as normal, and I'll keep working to get things straightened out.
  1. He is the Chinese monk, Hotei, often called the "Happy or Laughing Buddha." He is a boddhisattva - an enlightened being (not Buddha, himself). I have a few in our house. He makes me smile, too. He is the embodiment of kindness and generosity. Just a little FYI :D I love what you did -the bronze looks awesome.
  2. Thanks for the info, Kat. I've since painted him two more times... the first color was very red (more copper than bronze). Then I decided on gold, but that was too bright. So I found some aged bronze paint up at Michael's. I'm really happy with him.
  3. [...] if the product name isn’t very accurate (This is likely a representation of Hotei, and not [...]

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