I am not a subscriber to any particular religion; one of the reasons being that I believe that religions often take themselves too seriously. But that is apparently not the case with the “laughing” Buddha, an icon that mostly seems to adorn the counters of Chinese restaurants. But since spending time in China, I have come to really enjoy this often-whimsical figure. It is now difficult for me not to smile when I encounter him. Recently I learned a curios bit of information about my name in relationship to Buddhism. My last name, when translated – or roughly transcribed into Chinese, yields two distinct words – “Fo” is the word for “Buddha”, and “lun” (with the one vowel alteration of “a” to “u”) can mean “blue”. So the rough translation of my last name is “Blue Buddha”. Go figure…