So I got a new Buddha statue the other day, my in-laws brought it back from Hawaii as a gift. And like my Shakespeare toys, this gets the kids curious. "You like Buddha and Shakespeare," they'll tell me.

The 5yr old understands a bit better and asks things like, "Now, who was Buddha? What did he do?" I do my best to explain that a long time ago this man lived who figured out how to be happy, and everybody said they wanted to be happy to, and wanted to know how he did it. So he told them the rules, and said that if you follow those rules, then you would be happy. So people try to follow his rules.

My 3yr old, on the other hand, goes Zen almost from the word go. What she asked was, and I quote, "Daddy, what does Buddha say when he gets to the end of Buddha Land?"

I would have said "moo", but I don't think anybody in the room at the time would have gotten it. Except my son, who would promptly have assumed that I was talking about a cow.