About a million years ago my buddy Nate asked me if I would design him a tattoo depicting the Buddha-to-be sitting under the Bodhi tree:
Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha-to-be, sits under the Bodhi tree and vows to reach enlightenment and break the cycle of death and rebirth. The demon Mara, who is temptation and death personified, attacks SG with his army in an attempt to thwart his enlightenment. In one fantastic scene, the arrows shot at SG miraculously turn to lotus petals mid-flight and rain down on him. After his army fails, Mara sends in his three hot daughters to tempt SG back to the world. Ultimately, Mara fails and SG awakens as the Buddha. This all happens over the course of one night.
And here I am, giving him a tattoo of the Buddha, but without the tree. (Or the hot daughters.) What kind of friend am I?
The real truth is, I couldn’t figure out how to put the tree in there without it totally overpowering the cool Buddha-to-be.
First, I started out with our best friend, Mr. Google Image Search:
Sketched:
I thought a kind of punky, badass young Buddha was appropriate for Nate:
Carved:
Now all we need is videos of the tattooing—if he decides to go through with it….
e-mail from nate: “far out, my man. this bad boy is going to look pretty sweet if and when i get it tattooed on my chest.”
I wanted to let you know that I’ve referred to this post, and used your image, in a post about Buddha’s temptation by Mara and the ramifications of that story for everyday life. I searched high and low for an image of that scene that worked for me, and yours was the only one that did! You’ll find the post here:
http://siobhancurious.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/arrows-into-blossoms/
If you have a problem with this or would like me to remove the image, please let me know.