A great many people chanting
21 January 2007
A great many people chanting
What is it like for the devout when lots of them meet, when they chant in unison and feel the energy of their faith in the wide eyed smiling expressions? They are riding a great wave made of their belief in action. They seem to know where they are going, where the wave is taking them and they open their faucets to pour into the manifest. They seem to either know or not mind.
This Sunday I attended the Nichiren Daishonin Buddhists annual general meeting for district held in a function room in Moulsecoomb leisure and sports centre. It was a bright day, it was a sunny day in winter. If you look out of the window on days like this the sun shines brightly and looks warm, if you go out the cold wind stings your nostrils and tries to turn your hands to stone.
It was one of those red brick leisure centres with smart corrugated roofs, all sorts of healthy people in tracksuits were going about purposefully doing what they had set their minds on doing. Vending machines, charity boxes, poster boards.
Spent half an hour in that pre meeting state, when some are yet to arrive and the early ones entertain themselves, groups separated themselves, I didn’t want to guess at the demographics or what held these separate groups together, obviously they remained diplomatically friendly with other groups and sent ambassadors to one another, now and again they’d meet and talk group to group.
Large gatherings of religious people, no matter what the faith, are not places where my mind rests easy. The act of personal chanting and chanting in groups has a very different dynamic. I could speculate, but that would show some prejudice, suffice to say that I believe in the essential autonomy of an act of devotion. This may be a paradox, but so what? I never said I was consistent.
A deep blue carpet with gold designs on. A well lit room with bare brick. Dartboards covered in banners with ‘Nam myoho renge kyo’ and other positive words like ‘friendship’, I can’t remember the others. A pool table held up the Gohonzon (the shrine, direction of prayer) I recognised it by its barrel legs even though it was covered in cloth and a board to flatten the top.
Roughly 60 people found their places on the ranks of chars facing the pool table.
Chanting is meant to improve ones breathing, we chanted. Maybe it’s because of the films I have seen, but I get uncomfortable with this type of behaviour, that’s what the cultists always do. The pitch and tone rested in that humming range that the Benedictines have perfected. I imitated Johnny Cash’s baritone and reminded myself where my mind ended and others began. Buddhists understanding of the world is that everything is connected, scientists will back this up as long as it is phrased right. No one expects world view from 2,500 years ago to tally precisely with the scientific understanding of the modern world. Do not have faith in science (that’s a literary paradox.). Nevertheless it is important to me that my mind is my own, things that seem good can easily hide things that are not. Part of this entry draws reference from a book that was very kindly given to me as a present, for all my cynicism and grumpyness Buddhism is mainly a good thing to think about and practice. I have a healthy respect and fear for what groups of people can do.
A number of testimonials, people recommending and verifying what is written based on their own experiences.
By this point I was already bored, I wanted to go outside for a cigarette, no I wanted to stay inside for a cigarette that’s an increasingly rare thing. Some entertainment, someone who looked like Malcolm McClaren read a poem, it was pretty good
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