A Western American Wanders into a Chinese Temple
How did it happen that Western Buddhists so quickly gained a monopoly on real Buddhism? We in the
West certainly don't seem to have gained much of a handle on Christianity over many centuries, and the
average citizen of my country is pretty clueless about science, history, and almost everything else
outside of popular entertainment. Yet we meditate and study Buddhist philosophy, while people in
Asian temples burn money and appease spirits through elaborate rituals. How were we the ones to
arrive at this precise understanding of something as sophisticated and refined as Buddhist thought and
practice?
A culturally European American walked into a culturally Asian Chinese temple. He had been reading
books on Buddhism, primarily by Asian adepts, had been favorably impressed and wished to develop
his personal experience in the matter. After entering, he was taken aback by the peculiarity and
anomaly in the practices and beliefs of the laity he encountered, by the formal style and insistence on
liturgy, by the presence of unfamiliar dramatic figures in temple statuary, by unfamiliar rites at temple
altars, by chanting the name of some guy he had never heard of and by hocus pocus all around. The
devout temple laity witnessed yet another dismayed European American run out the door and into the
street yelling something about an “egregious corruption of the Dharma.” What gives?
It is not much different when a culturally Chinese walks into a culturally European Buddhist center and
immediately encounters a laity intent on discovering their true selves, casual and disrespectful of
demeanor, sitting in a circle expressing themselves openly and freely, with no visible clergy or leader
present, before what seems to be an altar but on which a rock stands where the Buddha should be. He
sees that the devotees are engaged in some kind of modern dance practice involving an exchange of
papier-mâché masks constructed the previous week in which everyone is instructed to wear and the act
“spontaneously.” These casual free spirits are about to witness yet another polite Asian American
excuse himself respectfully and depart never to be seen again. What gives?
http://bhikkhucintita.files.wordpress.c ... sity2.pdf