Temple Day, and more

Saturday, June 18, Saturday.

I'm out of date. It is sort of more fun to write about events to individuals than to the blog, but should compromise and sometimes I first write something to someone, then get the idea that it might be of general interest. One can compromise and cheat.

This is "genuine" thou :)

One works differently on a slow internet, I cannot check back what I have written as quickly, so I just have the feeling I repeat myself at times. Tell me if so, I do not really care thou.

Nowadays I hardly talk about "my religion" thou I grew up pretty standard in the Pentecostal Church in Sweden. Maybe not too devoted, more following my parents, honestly I hardly had any friends there but on the other hand I have had few very close friends in my life, always been a loner. That way I cannot be accused of misleading anyone.......

After that, in the seventies and eighties I was a lot down in Israel, got more friends there than anywhere else and felt pretty normal there. Many enough who did not ask, thought I was a Jew. At the same time people start to forget Hitler, and the traditional antisemitism  sneaked into church and Western media as during the 2000 years before Hitler..

I forgot how many girlfriends I had there, I recall I had one wife for 4 years end of the seventies,  but I prefer to forget THAT mistake - thou funnily enough I nowadays now and then mail with her latest husband, an American Jewish millionaire, they livv in Israel, who says she has grown into being the real superbitch, thou still sexy for her age, and he is rather old, so apparently kinda satisfied.

In 1990 I was told there that "you are too old" and I spent more and more time in South East Asia since then, where the gals I meet do not say so. I do not meet the others. 

Back to the Temple, sorry. I remember how it was to go to the Pentecostal Church, I went but did not find it too exciting. I was rather obedient but not dogmatic enough for some of the older men there who were very suspicious of me. When I started university 100 kms off they "suggested" I look up that congregation in the university city, and my parents had put me in their student rooms but - I participated in some student activities but never felt for going to that church. Then I had an argument via letters with the pastor in the village congregation, he was interested in science, that I studied, and had questions. But then we came into religious questions, I had started to be interested i Israel and Hebrew and so he tried to explain to me what "belief" was. He mentioned some verse in the Bible, which apparently traditionally tries to "prove" something about "belief". Ah well, I analyzed every word in that verse, told him the basic meaning in Hebrew and all the different ways it could be interpreted and suddenly the meaning was not at all as crystal clear - he never answered that.

And soon I started to go to Israel on holidays, learned more and more about culture and religion there. Christians often say about the word of God in the Bible, that it is from God and humans cannot really understand it, while Jews TRY to understand all their lives - a definite intellectual difference.

And Buddhism? My first trip to Thailand was back in 1975, and the last decade I have been there many winters, much for health reasons - ny balance has gone worse after some infarcts in the balance center in the brain stem, soon ten years ago, so It is definitely dangerous for me to try to walk in slippery weather in Sweden, and also a Charcot foot, a sort of inflammation in the bone, that has left some bones just half the thickness, and if one of those break,  only wheel chair left for me.
It is comfortable sometimes with wheel hair, like when traveling and I have to be transported long corridors in big airports. But that is a far step from not being able to walk at all. At thfe Temple I saw one with the Thai kind of handicap transport:

Deviating from the subject, Buddhism - after 5 years now with a Buddhist wife I have got some insight in the practicalities of three big religions. What do they DO when they go to the Temple??? I have for sure no complete idea, what I have seen - like this Thursday, is that they sit on the floor, sometimes on mats, in front of the central Buddha statue where it might be or not, an important monk. People pray alone or with monks, "make merit", giving food to monks, gifts to the Temple, pray for their own well being and of relatives and friends, living and dead. Sometimes it i looks like a preaching of philosophy, and stories about Buddha. Meditation - I have not participated but my wife talks much about it. And glimpses I have seen and heard, my wife is sometimes a nun over a weekend or so, where she has to follow certain religious rules.

The attitude - I do see many similarities even thou it is called differently, Jews pray to G_d, Buddhists pray to Buddha the same way for an observer, thou they are careful mentioning that Buddha is no God, and Christians have some hybrid between God and human being, and devoted Christians always get irritated when I say it gives exactly the same feeling as white magic - that I read a bit about when I was half my age. "Believe and you will be saved" is plain white magic, like "belief can move mountains".

I have asked: is this "making merit" the same as "making good deeds"? I am not sure, it feels much of the same, but not quite. Someone knows?

And I see no point in visiting every temple around, as the others here. What does that give?

The temple we visited last Thursday was far from every village or city as I saw, a rather big area, not just the building. And lots of people, who unlike the Swedes - have something to look up to, they have Buddha and the King, and everywhere in Thailand you see the the Thai flag and an orange one symbolizing Buddhism, beside each other. It apparently fulfills a need, that the Swedes think they do not have anymore. They look up to the Temple of Science instead, not that they understand it any better than other Temples.


I and the parents mostly sat on a bench just outside the Temple and looked into the wide opening.

We looked into the Temple:

Monks living there. Yui talking to one who looked important there also.

Discussing life with Nun just outside.