Dzambala Budda
The Wealth Buddha
According to Tibetan Buddhist mythology: “One day a Yogi was walking through the forest and saw a man starving. The suffering was so severe that the Yogi wanted to cut off his own arm to feed the man to end his suffering. He could see that the suffering was distracting the man from his spiritual path. When suffering is present, one can’t experience the bliss created by being spiritual.” Hence the Generosity Buddha was born to keep prosperity alive, to awaken bliss in us, and to end suffering for all.
His mantra is: Om Jambhala Jalendraye Svaha
Inspired by the teachings of Beatrex Quntanna about generosity and prosperity, I began exploring Tibetan Buddhism and Buddhist art. The imagery is loaded with symbolism, and the art is meant to be copied as its own form of spiritual study. This Buddha is acrylic on canvas stretched over a 4×4-inch wood block. The original is one-to-one scale with Generosity because I wanted to drop it into the painting for the cover layout of Beatrex Quntanna’s annual workbook, Living by the Light of the Moon as seamlessly as possible, so it needed to be pretty small.
I created the whole book design and all the graphic art for Beatrex Quntanna’s Living by the Light of the Moon as well as the layout for the companion Moon Book Calendar.
Painting progress