Issues with buddha

I have issues with buddha. Let me repeat that: I have issues with buddha. There is nothing wrong with buddha or buddhists or buddhist practice... nothing. But I seem to have some very strong reactions to any connection between me and buddha. It just is. The sky is blue...and I have issues with buddha.
Recently, I was given a small buddha statue. It was given to me, along with many other people, so it didn't feel like it was intended for me as some meaningful thing. To me, it felt like a gift from a generous person who was sharing their practice with us. There were several different buddha statues given out and a friend of mine pointed out that the one that I received was a "teaching" buddha. I didn't make much of it but when I thanked the person who gave it to me, I remarked upon the fact that it was my first buddha and that it was a teaching buddha, and that I thought that was fitting.
The person took the buddha statue from me, looked at it closely and said, "It's a hybrid."
At which point I laughed out loud, quite rudely, right there in front of the person.
The person didn't get upset or even react to my laughter. They simply continued to explain about the different hand positions of the buddha statues and demonstrated, with their hands, how this particular statue was showing two different hand gestures- one for teaching and one for meditating.
"Well that's fitting too," I remarked. "I'm somewhere in between," and smiled.

Later, I felt pretty bad. This person had given us a gift, a sharing of their practice, and I had laughed at it, and that felt bad. I wondered about this, because I knew that I hadn't intended to laugh at this person, and honestly didn't feel like I was laughing at this person when I laughed. But still, they had been there, explaining something to me, and I had laughed.
I considered approaching them later, to explain: "I wasn't laughing at the statue, I was laughing at the thought of buddha being a hybrid. When I think of a hybrid, I think of a Prius, and I thought it was funny to think of buddha as both gasoline and electric powered."
But then I imagined the person's response to this and realized that I was trying to make them feel better, that I was assuming that they were hurt by my laughter. That seemed a little insulting to them, to suggest that they couldn't take my laughter at the situation, that they didn't see right through it for what it was...
And that's when I tried to see what it was.

It's true that I was laughing at the idea of buddha being a Prius but I also knew there had to be more to it than that. And there was. I didn't want the statue to be a buddha. I didn't want to be given a buddha statue. And so I think I was trying to reframe it, to turn it into something about me by making it a teaching buddha or by making it something that fit in to today's world: a Prius. Both these acts were unintentional but upon later reflection, I think that's what they were: a deflection of the fact that I was given a buddha statue, from someone who knows an awful lot about buddhism, from someone whom I have asked to teach me about their buddhist practice.
When I saw that, I cried.
"This is really hard for me," I thought. "I have issues with religion. I have issues with emotions. This whole practice is counter to how I was raised and what I was taught to value."
But then I thought that really, no one in my family had any problems with religion, that that was coming from me. And though the emotion part may have come from my causes and conditions, that was over and I honestly wanted to change my habits around that.
"Why is this so hard for me?" I asked myself. "Why am I fighting the thing that I want? Why can't I accept that this works for me, that I want to study buddhism?" and that made me cry some more.

"It's labels," I thought to myself. "It's you and your hangups about what a buddhist is and what it would mean if you were to become a buddhist too. Stop trying to make buddhism acceptable, just acknowledge that this is what you are doing...because it is what you are doing."
And then I thought about the fact that it's always about me, never about what I think it's about, and I thought, "Damnit! It's about me accepting me again. You won't accept this buddha statue because you won't accept yourself. You're judging your need for belonging, your judging your need for "religion," you're judging the absolute joy that you feel when you are part of a group, and you're afraid of your commitment and obsession with this practice. Once you accept this part of yourself, it's going to get a whole lot easier."
"I hate this practice," I said out loud. "I hate that it's right and that it's true." And by right I mean "right," as in when you're in an argument with someone and you are absolutely sure that their explanation is totally wrong and that they are an idiot for thinking that. But then you find out later, that they were totally right. And that you were totally wrong.
I hate that, I hate it when this practice turns out to be "right."

And so I put the little statue on my mantel, not in the center, that felt too much like an altar, but I stuck it where I could see it, because I knew that it was bumming me out, and I needed to feel that, to see that was going on with me and buddha.

The next morning, I got up early and actually went to the zendo to meditate because interim was over and I'm on vacation so I could actually participate in the whole morning program: zazen, kinhin, morning service, and soji. After soji, as I was walking out of the building, I heard the drum roll for breakfast. As soon as it started, this great feeling of affection rolled over me as I pictured someone inside the building, beating the drum, leading everyone to breakfast.
"Damnit!" I thought to myself, and I stamped my foot on the ground in anger. "Why do I like this so much?" I rode home and walked in to my room to see that statue, sitting right there on my mantel.
"Stupid buddha," I said under my breath as I took off my jacket and headed toward the kitchen to make myself breakfast.

I spent the day with a friend, completed a bunch of errands, went to work for a little bit, and ended up getting home quite late. This time, as I walked into the door of my bedroom and spied the buddha on my mantel, I smiled and my shoulders dropped. I felt an immediate release of tension when I saw that little buddha statue still sitting there, doing nothing, but looking at me.
"Well that's interesting," I thought. "Apparently I'm liking the buddha now."
And when I packed my bags for my visit with my family, I grabbed that little statue, and put it in my purse to make sure I didn't lose it in my travels.