I MUST HAVE BEEN REALLY HUNGRY
Tonight I was invited by a coworker to go to a Buddhist relaxation group. I was fairly hungry and realizing the cupboards were bare, the promise of refreshments proved to be the straw that broke the camels back. So armed with tupperware I took off to the refreshme................I mean Buddhist relaxation group.(jk about the tupperware, i'm not that lame) I was quite curious about what this would all be like, not that I am looking to change religion, but I appreciate a good cultural experience, and hoped a missionary moment would come out of it. When we arrived at this house we removed shoes and went to a room that was too small for the 17 of us. We arrived a little late and the chanting had already begun, so I quietly found the only seat left...IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM and pretended I knew how to chant the prayers that weren't even in English. Luckily the prayer was short, so I thought the experience would end quickly, but they repeated it for the next 10 minutes, after 3 minutes I was getting tired and out of breathe, It felt like a lifetime. It's sort of like getting mugged, it only lasts a few minutes but it seems like a lifetime is passing and you wonder if you're gonna die. For 20 minutes the chanting continued........without ceasing, I mean not even a second. Questions swarmed my oxygen-deprived mind, When will this stop? Will someone get cross if I stop? What will they do if they get cross? When can I breathe? Will they kill me if I stop chanting? How am gonna keep myself entertained through this ordeal? I got an answer to the last one...... ready........ I picked a line that sounded like what they were saying, and just repetaed it, so there I sat chanting "the pickle likes to reggae, it makes my bottom hairy" Ok its weird, but it was keeping me alive and warding off the wrath of the Buddhist nation. The chanting was monotone, so all the words blended and so it didn't really sound like "my bottom is hairy" and when one lipped it, it looked just like the prayer, I found that it gently lulled my immature mind into survival mode...... I was gonna make it. This Buddhist stuff was really working, I was able to find inner peace during external crisis.
Looking around I saw that I was nearly the youngest, most were in their forties and fifties, and one must have been barely 20, she was there with an obviously reluctant boyfriend. He was desperately trying to maintain the chant, look interested and totally focus on the breathing, thank goodness us Mormons have a break between each verse, I've gotta introduce the concept. I decided to play a game in my head called who could chant the longest without stopping. I guessed the young female would outdo us all, heck she was able to roll beads around in her hand while chanting plus hitting the the metal teacup with a stick to signal a new prayer, totally amazing to me. Every ounce of my energy was focused on breathing, remembering my dumb chant and really hoping people would keep chanting to drown out my ridiculous performance. Ahhh the teacup bell, now a new prayer, I have to think of a new chant.........I had no time for beads. Then it happened......the one I had picked out to win went down, she dropped the beads, stopped chanting and stealthily took a swig of her Red Bull. Hah she was weak, it wasn't even halftime and she had already lost, disqualified because of Red Bull and best off all she lived to tell the story. Their were no repercussions, she was gonna be ok, my most pressing questions had been answered, I could stop talking about my hairy bottom and live to tell the story.
After all was said, chanted and done, they had munch and mingle and the refreshments were lame. At least gooey, warm choclotate chip cookies, not the dumb cold hershey kiss plopped down on a pile of rock hard dough, but their it was, a whole platter of Hersheys kisses stranded on islands of dough. On the way home I did get to share the gospel with my co-worker, I talked about God and with an air of despair she told me about how she had stopped believing in God and turned to Buddhism, and how she had a met a Mormon missionary in Japan that promised to go to a Buddhist group if she went to church, so she went, and he didn't hold his promise. That ended her interest in Mormonism, now that I have gone to her group, I hope she will accept my invitation for Sunday morning at 10AM.
Tonight I was invited by a coworker to go to a Buddhist relaxation group. I was fairly hungry and realizing the cupboards were bare, the promise of refreshments proved to be the straw that broke the camels back. So armed with tupperware I took off to the refreshme................I mean Buddhist relaxation group.(jk about the tupperware, i'm not that lame) I was quite curious about what this would all be like, not that I am looking to change religion, but I appreciate a good cultural experience, and hoped a missionary moment would come out of it. When we arrived at this house we removed shoes and went to a room that was too small for the 17 of us. We arrived a little late and the chanting had already begun, so I quietly found the only seat left...IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM and pretended I knew how to chant the prayers that weren't even in English. Luckily the prayer was short, so I thought the experience would end quickly, but they repeated it for the next 10 minutes, after 3 minutes I was getting tired and out of breathe, It felt like a lifetime. It's sort of like getting mugged, it only lasts a few minutes but it seems like a lifetime is passing and you wonder if you're gonna die. For 20 minutes the chanting continued........without ceasing, I mean not even a second. Questions swarmed my oxygen-deprived mind, When will this stop? Will someone get cross if I stop? What will they do if they get cross? When can I breathe? Will they kill me if I stop chanting? How am gonna keep myself entertained through this ordeal? I got an answer to the last one...... ready........ I picked a line that sounded like what they were saying, and just repetaed it, so there I sat chanting "the pickle likes to reggae, it makes my bottom hairy" Ok its weird, but it was keeping me alive and warding off the wrath of the Buddhist nation. The chanting was monotone, so all the words blended and so it didn't really sound like "my bottom is hairy" and when one lipped it, it looked just like the prayer, I found that it gently lulled my immature mind into survival mode...... I was gonna make it. This Buddhist stuff was really working, I was able to find inner peace during external crisis.
Looking around I saw that I was nearly the youngest, most were in their forties and fifties, and one must have been barely 20, she was there with an obviously reluctant boyfriend. He was desperately trying to maintain the chant, look interested and totally focus on the breathing, thank goodness us Mormons have a break between each verse, I've gotta introduce the concept. I decided to play a game in my head called who could chant the longest without stopping. I guessed the young female would outdo us all, heck she was able to roll beads around in her hand while chanting plus hitting the the metal teacup with a stick to signal a new prayer, totally amazing to me. Every ounce of my energy was focused on breathing, remembering my dumb chant and really hoping people would keep chanting to drown out my ridiculous performance. Ahhh the teacup bell, now a new prayer, I have to think of a new chant.........I had no time for beads. Then it happened......the one I had picked out to win went down, she dropped the beads, stopped chanting and stealthily took a swig of her Red Bull. Hah she was weak, it wasn't even halftime and she had already lost, disqualified because of Red Bull and best off all she lived to tell the story. Their were no repercussions, she was gonna be ok, my most pressing questions had been answered, I could stop talking about my hairy bottom and live to tell the story.
After all was said, chanted and done, they had munch and mingle and the refreshments were lame. At least gooey, warm choclotate chip cookies, not the dumb cold hershey kiss plopped down on a pile of rock hard dough, but their it was, a whole platter of Hersheys kisses stranded on islands of dough. On the way home I did get to share the gospel with my co-worker, I talked about God and with an air of despair she told me about how she had stopped believing in God and turned to Buddhism, and how she had a met a Mormon missionary in Japan that promised to go to a Buddhist group if she went to church, so she went, and he didn't hold his promise. That ended her interest in Mormonism, now that I have gone to her group, I hope she will accept my invitation for Sunday morning at 10AM.
posted by Jer at 8:02 PM
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