Today I was in a Catholic Church...probably for the first time in over 8 years, and as I stood in the pew and took it all in, I began to realize why I was enjoying it so much. I was surrounded by hard-wood, red carpets, frankincense, and gold. It was quiet. The vibe was formal, sacred, (and also more patriarchal than I like to admit in this case). I asked myself, "where have I felt this before, recently?" ...And then it dawned on me. The reason it felt so familiar and proximal was that about a week and a half before today I visited the international Buddhist meditation center. There, too, I had found myself surrounded by tall statues, red carpets, quiet humble silence, gold... and Buddhist centers also often burn incense.
I have always been one of the first to find common denominators between religions. Just the same, I was amazed to find these striking similarities in these two very different (or maybe no so different) religious contexts.
How many other religious sanctuaries would provide the same effect?? ...You have to wonder.
Then I wondered about all the things that the two god-heads have in common. But this wasn't about Jesus and Buddha. Many protestant churches are different from this. This was specifically about the Catholic church and the most formal Buddhist places of worship.
Here are some of my thoughts about this...
...I have heard many refer to Buddha as the Jesus of the East. Historically speaking, however, it Jesus would be the Buddha of the West. That's because the first Buddha (Siddhartha Gotama) was actually born about 500 years before Jesus. Anyway, they were both highly evolved human beings who had profound spiritual revelations and were in some ways prophets in that they directly experienced the divine and shared their wisdom with others.
... Jesus and Siddhartha Gotama were both men, and the original followers of these prophets were primarily men, and the living god-heads (like the Pope, and Tibetan Buddhism's Dalai Lama and their respective Cardinals / archbishops / priests, and monks) ...are all men. ...making both of their religions highly patriarchal.
...Gold, red carpets, and incense: Gold is valuable, Red carpets are regal, and incense is smoke. It makes sense for us to place valuable things such as metals (like gold), around things that we value or worship. I think this is about the personification of divinity. I also think that this may tie back in some ways to patriarchy and power. (Money=Power=Control). Red carpets are not so valuable, but somehow got culturally ingrained as being associated with the sacred. We know that red is a symbol of passion, so maybe that has something to do with it, too. Lastly, in many modes of religion and spirituality, smoke is viewed as having the ability to send prayer and intention up to the gods or into the universe towards manifestation. Smell is also one of the most powerful ways that the brain makes associations. We associate the smell with the sacred. Once we smell it, we quirky become open and poised for spiritual growth. So functionally, the smell will bring you back and open you to the sacred. Speaking of association, the same goes for gold and red. All these factors form a beautifully self-reinforcing cycle that keeps them in place, and helps these two religions stay strong.
(I final caveat. There are many Buddhists and Christians who practice in the absence of these factors. I know and repeat this, I was focusing here on larger social and psychological trends)
...Any way you put it, it's amazing what some time in a spiritual place of worship can do for you!
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