Buddha Hungry.
Hanh canceled on me the night before. Said she had an appointment to deal with her insurance after being rear ended a couple weeks ago.
So I was left alone. Of course I asked Emma, felt compelled to sway her into accompanying me. It's so natural to feel that she needs to go with me, whether or not I need her to go, she wants to go, or either of us care if she goes.
So I left, with a very small, distant sense of resentment. I headed down Mar Vista, and made a left onto Colima I knew something was wrong with my karma when I rolled up to the side of the temple. It's in a rich neighborhood. Up on the hill, immaculate lawns, every house six bedrooms. Buddha was all about getting out of the palace, not moving into palace-ville. What's he doing here?
When I got into the temple's side entrance, I saw a bunch of Chinese men and women in military dress with patches saying US Army. I don't think they were very military, though. It's typical in China for security and parking lot attendants to wear military uniforms and camo. I don't know if they were Buddhists. There's a whole group of these guys around the temples two entrances. They all talk and like they just got here from the mainland. I wonder if there's some kind of program to give Buddha visas to these guys. They obviously weren't students, and I don't think you can get a work visa here to be a security guard.
The guards didn't seem very buddha-like. I asked them were the meditation hall was, but the only word I forgot how to say was 'meditation hall', so I asked "我问一下，我下次来这里听说每周日有meditation,九点到十点二十分。你们知道在哪儿吗” They understood everything but 'meditation' so I just went on in and saw...
A long line of Vietnamese people, divided into groups with number signs. I understood that someone in the front was calling out something about numbers in Vietnamese. It struck me again as odd that there should be so many Vietnamese people coming here, considering this was a Chinese temple. Someone told me it might be because they were Chinese-Vietnamese, but this doesn't seem likely to me.
But I went on up the stairs and in past the room where offerings were set out, and on into the main courtyard. I checked the map to find where the meditation hall was, and saw that it was behind the main hall. But when I got the main hall, I saw this: A two row procession of young women wearing golden chains and jewelry around their head and on their hands, wearing dresses with purple, red, blue or green bordered in gold at the collars and shoulders, and rest of the dress was plain white. In their hands they each held a plate of rice and imitation crab.
There was about twenty, in two lines, standing before the entrance. Two my left there was another group waiting to take their place, in the same beautiful costumes. In their hands they held a sort of imitation bacon. It was a long rose and white striped ribbon, folded onto a plate. Further to the left, around the corner of the temple, was another double line, this of slightly older women, dressed in pink hotel-receptionist looking uniforms. They held dishes of imitation steak.
Watching this made me aware that any man, be he ascended, a god, or otherwise, would love to have a procession of a hundred or so young women, and middle aged women serve/servicing him. As for the food, though, I can't say as to who would want it.
But what was the point of this? It was the Chinese New Year offering to Buddha. If you want Buddha to be good to you, you got to be good to him. You don't know what kind of food he's into, so you prepare a bit of a selection for him to sample from.
Means Nothing To the Universe, Means Something to Us
While the procession went on, people were coming in and out of the temple, lighting incense and praying. As I realized that I couldn't find the meditation hall, I decided to go ahead and pray.
This was the best part. I lit the incense and stood before the giant incense (urn?) thing and prayed for greater peace and understanding, I looked out over the hills and prayed for my brother, wife, and all my friends, to become closer, and to let go of the things that keep us walled from the world and each other.
I used to go pray like this at the Daoist temple by my house in Shanghai. It is a powerful experience, as you feel the projection of your 'will', impotent though it may be in the face of the universe, over the rest of your mind, and the rest of your perceptual reality.
I hope there is something like pray we can do without any of the mythological baggage. And, of course, there is. When I pray, I am not asking anyone for anything, I am just concentrating my experience of hope and merging with my experience of the wider universe.
And just as there is value in this sort of praying, so too is there much value in meditation. After I had placed the incense in the ash, I stood around taking in the scene. Eventually, I worked up the courage to talk to the only white people there. Yes, despite being able to speak to anyone there in Mandarin or Chinese, I focused on the two white ladies.
We Above the Ignorant Herd
I guess part of it was that they were only ones who seemed like spectators, as they were moving their heads, pointing, and commenting to one another. After a temple nun came up and talked to them, I made my move and asked if they came here regularly. Only later did I realize that this seemed much too similar to a pick up line.
They said they attended the meditation services here and today there wasn't any because of the ceremony. They told me all about what they had learned here. The interesting thing was how they spoke of it. Rather than describing it as getting something material, like many Chinese might, they discussed as if it was a philosophic sort of pursuit. Buddhism was to them, a sort of means of acquiring understanding.
And so it is with most western admirers of Buddhism/Daoism and other Eastern religions. They admire the Buddha as a philosopher and spiritual being, rather than as someone to entreat for prosperity. They admire the Dalai Lama as a wise man, rather than a god king to be worshiped.
They see in Daoism a means of grasping the universe, and don't see the fee based ceremonies or pantheon of saints. Vulgar Daoism and Vulgar Buddhism have been just as prevalent as vulgar Christianity. And when we contemplate the actual meaning of all three, we can not merely dismiss the vulgarity, for that is the central meaning, in terms of history and society.
If we are to accept the elevated understanding of religion, than we should do more than merely wave our hands at the vulgar mob. For they are worthy of our enlightenment, if we think it superior to their own understanding. It is clear why educated theologians and academics who have this elevated understanding of religion, without the superstition and dogma, spend more time pointing the shallow understanding of atheists than the shallow understanding of their fellow believers. They think that the masses need this vulgarity. It is pretty messed up to think your own truth is too much for your fellow humans to comprehend.
And it is this vulgar religion, at least, that binds them, sucks their energy, their labor, their will, and aggregates in the form of the Chuch, the Temple, and the costume of mythology.
What We Should Do With Food.
It's fun to get dressed up, and it gives a heightened sense of meaning. If we are to accept costumes such as religious ceremonies use, without finding it embarrassing or silly, than we should accept that it means something to us.
And if we are going to make all that food, than we should give it to someone or something that can eat the food, like ourselves, or those of us who can't get enough food.
I think we would all be happy if offerings were given to the poor instead of gods. I think we would be even happier if we put our labor, energy and wealth into building places were everyone could live, were everyone would like living, were everyone could go to think of meaning in their lives.
We could make temple's everywhere, as what they really are, aggregations of symbolic value. And we could set aside the symbolism of feeding gods, and put our focus on feeding each other.
Namaste!
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