Everyone who practices a religion thinks they do it correctly.

 

 

 

 

 

Everyone who practices a religion thinks they do it correctly. The Burmese kid listening to Salat on his phone interrupted by text messages and scrolling pictures of Selena Gomez, the self-mutilated ascetic, the Catholic kid getting his girlfriend an abortion, the guy stoning his wife for speaking in public, and me: with no particular dogmas and barely something you could call a practice, are the same this way.

I visited a temple on Makha Bucha day, a festival recognized country-wide in celebration of the spontaneous gathering of enlightened Monks who divined their way to a sermon delivered by the Buddha and were then sent forth ordained and responsible for sharing the word.

The missionary aspect of religions has always irked me. This very holy day is all about people who spontaneously figured out that Buddha had some good juju and they wanted to listen, so they did. But, being done with the “you will know them by their works” approach, they were sent forth as salesmen are.

Anyway, I find a lot of solace and peace in meditative practice and I really fucking love the art and architecture of Buddhism. I feel a sense of incredible peace in their holy spaces and around their holy staff. This temple was overflowing with people offering gifts purchased outside the gates, some even at the 7-11 in all it’s neon glory directly across the street.

All manner of worshipers are present. There’s a guy hitting every-single-bell around the temple and giggling as people walk the perimeter in various shades of seriousness talking, thinking, contemplating, praying. I loved that, because I love the sound of those bells. I have one in my apartment in Buffalo and it’s among my favorite sounds… I didn’t know the religious significance; I literally assumed it was for cows. It might be… and still be holy.  

Some people are praying with pictures of their loved ones, some are meditating. A westerner with a bun who looks like a much thinner and taller version of me sat looking around to see if anyone noticed how pristinely erect his lotus posture was. A surprising number of people are deeply engaged in taking worship selfies… some even employ their family members for high quality piousness photos. A group of teenage boys are being blessed by a monk using a bundle of split reeds and holy water. Having all presumably prayed for luck in love and new motorbikes, they are overjoyed and the monk is loving it. There are tourists like me, a lot of them frustrated women and I don’t blame them. The first sign that greets you as you enter the grounds is a sign that says women aren’t allowed in certain spaces, and the official explanation translates to: “because they menstruate and this humiliates and shames the spiritual environment.” I can’t imagine there’s a way to read that that isn’t a giant “fuck you.” I don’t know which one of the original salesman monks was responsible for that one, but I’m betting it wasn’t Buddha himself… dude was too fat to piss off women like that. 

In another corner of the temple grounds there is an LED Buddha and his technicolor dream-coat extravaganza complete with a robot skeleton who prays ecstatically, but stops suddenly when you cross an invisible infrared beam. You insert 10bhat for good luck and a happy life and the skeleton starts praying again, signifying you will get your wish. Women are welcome to participate in this tourist attraction. Their menstruation does not shame it. 

Anyway, it’s all a bit absurd. But as someone I knew who spent most of her life devoted to the academic study of religion put it succinctly and profoundly, “I mean, just look at the scale of it, there must be something to it.” Which is hard to argue with.

I know I feel pretty great after sitting in a temple for an hour and meditating out into that ancient eternal void where everything that has been or will be, is and was. I know that any persistent madness leaves me momentarily along with the baggage that defines my sense of personhood, dissolving pleasantly into some infinite ether. I’ll never be able to adequately describe it; no one can.

It seems like religious experience is the peak of a mountain top (thanks Dr. King) dense with forests down to the base. And so religion calls us to the mountain top to see; to look down at infinity, and from that perspective understand something we can’t from the ground. The pilgrims then, are all just people walking through a dense forest and recording the results. They’re carving paths, recording what works and then telling other people. Some just walk and are kind to people and that gets them there, some wear funny hats, others remove their shoes… but some assholes swear that killing infidels is the only way to make it through, because they killed every infidel on the way and they made it. Oh and they made their pre-teen wives miserable in a variety of ways as well, so that's also something we should repeat into the era of spaceflight, of course. Religion is the anti-scientific method of cause and effect relayed through a species old game of telephone.  

This conceptualization feels true to me because I think god or the divine or the infinite or nature or however you want label it must be indifferent. It’s the only explanation that doesn’t make god a massive piece of shit. So sure, the infidel guy can get there just as much as the nice guy who comforts sick people. As can the guy who believes almost nothing without evidence and is a hardened skeptic thereafter; but he meditates sometimes and feels quite nice about it. They all try to get there, and get back there regularly – that’s the unifying thread.

I think I do it correctly. Now how do I sell this religion to the guy stoning his wife, or the idiot disowning his kid for being gay? Or this performative shithead yelling at the sky in a dense neighborhood at 5:30am? Or any of the other people doing dumb religious stuff that isn't my dumb religious stuff? Because I do it correctly.