Jung Young Moon - Vaseline Buddha

In the end, I spent several days with the cat that kept me at a distance, doing almost nothing, and returned home after getting several mosquito bites. The person who returned from his trip gave me a little wooden carving of a reclining Buddha as a gift, because I told him that I went to an antique shop in Nepal once, and saw a little wooden horse there and liked it so much that I wanted to buy it, but gave up because it was actually too big, and bought a sitting Buddha statue that was next to the horse, after which I began collecting Buddha statues. It was true that I bought a sitting Buddha statue in Nepal, but I was joking when I said that I was collecting Buddha statues. The reclining Buddha looked shoddy even at a glance and looked shoddier the more you looked at it, and made you question the sincerity of the giver, so thinking about him, I thought that it would’ve been better for him to not give me anything at all, but shortly put a stop to the thought. But I kept thinking about him, who was a good person but had a very stupid side to him, which is what made it difficult for me to deal with him, and so I thought that I shouldn’t deal with him anymore. But I was wrong. He was a good person, and not stupid. So I thought that perhaps he had a reason for giving me such a shoddy gift. When I did, the reclining Buddha looked like some kind of a riddle.

Before I left Nepal I went to an antique shop and bought a somewhat shoddy wooden carving of a sitting Buddha on whose lap sat a woman, her legs spread out, which looked blasphemous and sensuous at the same time. I wrapped toilet paper around its upper body and put it under the bed at first and then under the desk, and I continue to put it here and there, not having found the right spot for it yet.

But now I had two statues of Buddha, and could start a collection of Buddha statues. It also occurred to me that perhaps I could, with great difficulty, carve the solid statue and make a statue of a cat or Maria. I could turn it into a cat or Maria that came out of Buddha, or into something that wasn’t anything at all.

The man, who was darkly tanned, told me, who hadn’t asked him anything about his trip, about the time he explored the jungle one afternoon. You couldn’t really say that he explored, for what he did was follow a relatively well maintained forest path with a guide showing the way. He said that he fell behind, suddenly tired of being led as a group by a tour guide like children on a school excursion, and entered the jungle, imagining that while following the path into the jungle, he might arrive at a community of natives who lived almost in the nude, and be invited to the home of a kind native and have roasted iguana or lizard for dinner, and then about midway through crossing an old rope bridge that looked quite dangerous, he suddenly ran into a huge coiled up snake that looked splendid and beautiful — the rope bridge was so narrow that you couldn’t pass through unless the other party stepped aside — and without realizing what he was doing, he took out the fan he had and opened it up, and when the snake, quite startled for some reason — considering that snakes don’t have good eyesight, it was more likely that the snake was startled by the sound of the fan that suddenly opened up, than by the sight of the fan that suddenly opened up — fell into the water under the bridge — the bridge wasn’t high, and the snake didn’t seem in danger of losing its life, having fallen on water, and although the snake got quite a scare, it was fine — he felt almost happy that he was there, he said.

Afterwards I for some reason wrapped bandage all over the reclining Buddha, whose giver seemed to have posed a riddle for me, and which itself seemed like a riddle, because I thought about wrapping a scarf around the reclining Buddha’s neck while picturing the black girl I saw in a subway station in Coney Island, unwrapping the scarf around her neck, but then thought that bandage might be better than a scarf. But it suddenly occurred to me that I forgot to rub Vaseline on the reclining Buddha, because I once thought about the pleasant feeling that comes when pronouncing the word Vaseline, a compound word of the words water and oil, the name of a petroleum extract used as a healing ointment for the injured during the first and second world wars, and used for too many purposes at one time, while picturing a pantomime with no action or sound, in which a Buddha with Vaseline rubbed all over the body, a Vaseline Buddha, you could call it, quietly sits in a little room whose floor, ceiling, and four walls are covered in Vaseline, a room gushing Vaseline and gradually becoming filled with it. And I thought that I could give the title Vaseline Buddha —the name was something that could be given to something indefinable, something unnamable, and also meant untitled — to what I was writing, but as soon as I did, I thought that it wasn’t a good idea, and as soon as I thought that perhaps this story had its beginning when I sat cross-legged in the middle of my room one day, thinking of Vaseline Buddha, and picturing the Buddha buried and melting in Vaseline, I thought that it wasn’t really true, and after thinking that when I unwrapped the bandage, I should perhaps hold a mirror up to the reclining Buddha, I put it under my bed, reclining, and from time to time, I lowered my head and looked at the Buddha, reclining peacefully under the bed, and recited at random, to pass the time, Buddhist mantras, such as om mani padme hum, maha prajna paramita, and doro amitabha. And I thought that a name like Fasting Clown could suit the bandaged Buddha, but that I could give him the name, The Difficulty of Light Swimming on Difficult Waters, or The Difficulty of a Water Strider Walking on Difficult Waters, because someone who performed the miracle of walking on water came to my mind, and I thought that perhaps he got the idea of performing the miracle from a water strider.

But when I returned home a dead goldfish was waiting for me. The person who watched my house for me while I was away didn’t say anything about the death of the fish. At night, I put the goldfish in a plastic bag and went to a cemetery by the river, where I took a walk now and then. Once, looking out at the sea, I thought that the sea was a huge grave for fish — I pictured the countless dead fish in the sea, and the sea was the biggest grave in the world — so I thought that I should bury the goldfish in the pond where it once lived, but I couldn’t think of a suitable pond.

The cemetery was a burial ground for missionaries who were beheaded while proselytizing Christianity during a period in the past. I dug up a bit of the soil in front of a missionary’s grave and buried the goldfish. The place, where beheaded missionaries were buried, and which overlooked a river, seemed the perfect grave for a fish, and I felt that by burying it there, I gave the fish a proper funeral. I suddenly recalled that the Danish word kierkegaard means churchyard, and I named the dead fish Kierkegaard, which seemed to suit the fish. And I was pleased by the fact that I was the only one who knew that a fish named Kierkegaard lay sleeping in a graveyard for missionaries, and that I could come to a kierkegaard, or a churchyard, whenever I wished and think about Kierkegaard the fish and Kierkegaard the philosopher.

Anyway, there were moments when I felt so dizzy that I really felt as if I would die, and wanted desperately to die for that reason. Or could I say I wanted desperately to die, and felt as if I would die for that reason? At any rate, I learned that a desire to die could be more desperate than a desire for anything else. My consciousness was urging me, badgering me to come to a decision, but I didn’t listen, not even to my own consciousness

I still thought about suicide only in a faint, vague way, and in fact, I’ve never thought properly about it. And my idea of suicide in those days was a quite playful one, regarding the issue of whether a person who committed suicide behaved no differently from usual, or differently from usual.