When in Bhutan I visited a common farmhouse. The furnishings were meager, with a thin mattress on the floor serving as a bed and a primitive cooking setup. I walked from room to room quietly taking in the kind of life that these people must have, the rooms feeling cold and bare to me.
Then I entered the temple. Every house has a room dedicated as a temple, and it garners the most attention from the family spirit and budget. This one was replete with a gold Buddha, food and water offerings, fresh flowers surrounded by carvings and silk wall hangings – a focal point for the family.
I was warmed by their deeply rooted spirituality driven by their complete commitment to Buddhism; its history is their history and its guidelines for living a good life inform their choices. I remembered a book that I read years ago called “The Jew in the Lotus” which chronicled a journey of Jewish scholars and teachers to Dharamsala, India to exchange ideas with the Dalai Lama. They wanted to learn how to incorporate eastern spirituality into their changing religion and the Dalai Lama wanted to learn how they survived in exile and preserved their faith, family life and practice.
We could use a dose of spiritual commitment in our modern lives whether it is in practice or just a belief that guides us. It might seem antiquated, but resurrection of service and tolerance could go a long way in healing our world and the emptiness and disconnection that many people feel.
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Beautiful. <3