Italian vernacular is full of surprises, and much of it is entirely beyond me. Quite comfortable with classical Italian, I often get lost when I hear a popular word or expression. This evening at Benjamin’s, where a merry company assembled out of the blue, I heard an Italian exclamation that delighted me: “Cazzo di Budda.” The Buddha’s dick, that is. Everyone laughed, but no-one was sure what it actually stood for beyond amazement or disbelief. When I returned home, I immediately checked the exclamation on the World Wide Web. Not much was on offer, though. The best I could come up with by way of an explanation is that it refers to something useless, incomplete, or badly made. Also, the exclamation refers to something not understood well because it belongs to another and alien world. In other words, there is little, if anything, that connect the male sexual organ and the Buddha. Or, to put it bluntly, the Buddha does not have a dick. Be that as it may, I feel outright lucky to have come across the exclamation this evening among evenings. Not for nothing is Italian one of my favorite languages. Buddhism is full of delightful surprises, too.