Arms Giving and more

So the other day, Ruthie and I had the opportunity to attend an “Arms Giving” [although I believe he meant Alms Giving] ceremony at a Sri Lankan Buddhist temple.  In our journey to branch out and try new things, I’m rather glad we went.  I truly had no idea what was going on for most of the time [chants were in Sanskrit and the majority of the service was in another language – I’m guessing Tamil?], but it was still very pleasant.  Fortunately, the monk gave the “homily” in English, which was nice to have it explained at my level – even if it was obvious that the kids and maybe an adult or two weren’t so excited at the ELI5 break down.

The drive back from the temple sparked an interesting conversation for Ruthie and me about what to do with respect to our progeny and exposing them to religion.  Both of us were raised Catholic; Ruthie due to a private Catholic education being better than public schools in her area, and me due to a Catholic family.  However, neither one of us is always so fond of mass religion.  Without going into too many details here, it’s safe to say that on a personal level, the act of attending church is what got me to stop going. 

Now, switching religions isn’t necessarily the answer, as attending a service is still participating in an organised religion.  But, going back to the college days, I was rather intrigued by Buddhism and Taoism, which still have their group ceremonies, but aren’t quite as rigid about the best way to practice.

Fast forward to now, and the ceremony we attended was one in remembrance of a co-worker’s father, who passed away five years ago.  While I liked the notion of it, I think Ruthie got a bit more out of the purpose of the ceremony than I did.  Sure there are candles and you can have dedications requested at mass, but it’s different than the Buddhist ceremony we observed. 

So this raised the question of Why not look into it a bit more while we’re here?  After some internetting, we learned that there is way more to it than simply attending a Buddhist mass [picking a tradition alone is a daunting notion].  But even still, there’s a bunch more exposure here than there is in America, so why not?  So perhaps we’ll continue our explorations and try and attend a few more ceremonies/masses/gatherings/meditations and see what happens.

-EP