The Statue that survived Hiroshima

Overlooking the Hudson River, up on 105th street, lies the statue of Buddhist leader Shinran Shonin. He is wearing a peasant hat and holding a seemingly wooden staff. The statue is deliberately placed in front of a Buddhist temple. It is fifteen feet tall and made of bronze.

  This statue was brought in New York City by a businessman in the 60s; not all that uncommon. What is fascinating about it is that this statue stood only 1.5 miles away from the epicenter of the nuclear blast in Hiroshima, in 1945. By looking at it, one would not be able to tell its history, as it has a look a polished look. How awesome is that?
  The fact that it survived was deemed a miracle seemed to be a miracle at the time, while bringing it here symbolizes not only peace between Japan and the US, but also a desire for lasting peace all around the world. 

  The statue is on top of the hill, if it can be called that. To get to the highway and the water from there, you have to go down some stairs. The highway and the hill, are connected by a small park, very narrow but long. When I went, many people were walking their dogs, some couples were walking along, enjoying the view. Kids were running around playing cops and robbers. There was life all around. At the same time, since this happened at the beginning of December, the park was not green. All the trees had lost their leaves and were now just naked branches, while the grass was brown, lacking vitality. The scene seemed like a perfectly-placed allegory of the significance of this majestic statue. The nature had dried out and the park had an overall melancholic feel, but in that setting the roaming families were all joyful and full of life, enjoying the time spent together, in peace, while Shonin was gazing down upon them.

 While I was sitting on a steel bench, looking up at the statue from the park, with people roaming around next to me, I felt like Shonin’s way of standing there, with his hands pressed against each other, in front of his abdomen, made me want to sit there and meditate for the rest of the day. My physics class from that afternoon seemed like a distraction from the big picture. It reminded me of the meditation tradition that the Dharma Bums so freely adopted. In that peaceful moment, all I wanted to do was escape my stressful student life, riddled with impending deadlines and (500) word counts, even if it was for just one single hour. Granted, Japhy and Ray took this feeling a lot further when they decided to live Buddhist lives, outside of societal norms, but both situations had the same feeling at their core: a desire to keep the big picture in mind. 
  The simplicity of Shonin’s statue does exactly this. By only showing his stand there, dressed in proper Buddhist attire, emphasis is placed on the important values in life, the pursuit of happiness and a need of finding one’s self. These are, in my opinion, the main points of Kerouac’s book as well.