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Finding Buddha's light side Local woman pens a cartoon book of higher consciousness By Bill Varble of the Mail Tribune Mari Gayatri Stein says the characters in what may be the world's first book of Buddhist cartoons seemed to pop into existence with little help from her. Stein, of Medford, has been illustrating educational books for 20 years. But as she sat drawing what would become "The Buddha Smiles" (White Cloud Press, $15.95), the cartoon characters just started showing up. "I don't mean I wasn't there physically," she says. "I was aware of sitting in my chair and of lovely sips of tea ... But the sense of an `I' doing anything disappeared as the characters emerged to tell their true stories." Stein plans a reading at 7 p.m. Monday at Soundpeace and one at 7 p.m. Thursday at Bloomsbury Books, both in Ashland. "I live in a cartoon world," she shrugs. "I see these images." The book had its genesis when Stein, a yoga teacher, was attending a retreat with Sylvia Boorstein, a California author and meditation teacher. Boorstein said she wished she knew a cartoonist who could draw what she was picturing -- people sitting in meditation. "Then I'd like the artist to draw a big balloon over the head of each meditator with little bubbles trailing from each balloon to each head signifying, `This is what's in this mind."' An hour later a drawing was on the bulletin board, seven meditators with thought balloons, one filled with question marks, another with a tropical island, another with fog, and so on. A meditating dog pictured a bone. The people and dog appear throughout Stein's book. Stein, 52, lives outside Medford with her four border collies, Moon, Morgan, Muse and Mulph. She grew up in Hollywood, did some acting and modeling. She worked for a Berkeley publisher but had no formal art training. Stein and publisher Steven Scholl of White Cloud Press in Ashland worked on the book for more than a year. White Cloud specializes in spiritual books, but Scholl had never heard of a full-length book of Buddhist cartoons. He says the Utne Reader has called about excerpts. Readers unaccustomed to humor linked to religious teachings may find the cartoons plain funny. In a twist on an old Zen koan, or riddle, a bemused dog asks himself, "What is the sound of one paw scratching?" In a cartoon captioned "Woman whose anger has taken root because she's still attached to the idea that life is fair," a dog counsels an angry woman, "Yes she's a ratbag. No, you didn't do anything to deserve such treatment. Get over it before you grow thorns ..." A woman thinks, "Whew! At last my mind is clear ... I'm really alive in the moment ... Or am I? Actually I'm thinking about not thinking..." as a dog thinks, "Sigh, humans are so weird." Stein thinks such cartoons have a therapeutic value. "I always like myself better after drawing a cartoon," she says. "And I like everyone else better, too." She says gentle humor is often found in Buddhist teachings. "Have you ever heard the Dalai Lama speak?" she says. "He laughs so hard." The book's subtitle is "A Collection of Dharmatoons." Dharma can mean the nature of existence, the path of right conduct, destiny or the way things are. "The whole thing about dharma is, it's about where you are, being real," Stein says. "Life is so impermanent, the idea of being attached to anything is so ridiculous. When we realize that, for even a moment, that's where the smile is." Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA