The Buddha Walks Into a Tattoo Parlor*

DOES HE GET A TATTOO OF ME?

Cutting a cake at our going away party in 2021. Tats are real.

*That’s an adaptation of the book titles by one of my teachers, Lodro Rinzler, who wrote The Buddha Walks into a Bar and The Buddha Walks Into an Office, among several others.

In addition to the two tattoos of the Buddha himself, I also have several tattoos of lotus flowers, a quote by the late Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, and some others.

It’s not like I get naked on the first date…I’ll reveal them all in good time… dear one.

However, like kissing on the first date, I’m a huge fan of tattoos. That I didn’t have any ink until I was 55 is interesting, I guess, but more a testament of how my early worldview was shaped by the evangelical Protestant environment within which I grew up.

“Tattoos are for sailors, professional athletes, and those friendly neighborhood biker gangs.” That’s what my parents kept telling me; they had high hopes of me turning out to be a meek and mild Clarke Kent type who, hopefully, would never discove…