Purification

Had dinner at friends’ house last night and the topic of Buddhism came up. We had gotten on the subject of our imperfections, those things about ourselves that we self-examining sort never seem to cease trying to smooth out and make better. (Sometimes it feels more like a battle to the death.) Then someone said, This is why practicing Buddhism is good.

In that moment I felt the comment was like putting fancy perfume on an unbathed body. I found myself arguing that we in the West have co-opted Buddhism. We’ve skimmed off the juicy bits. We have the occasional one-hour sit in a loaned out girl scout’s cabin, judiciously learn to breathe from the diaphragm, carefully pick up spiders with tissue and set them out of doors instead of tromping on them and, satisfied, we call ourselves practicing Buddhists.

I also argued that we don’t really know what the hell Buddhism is. (By that I really meant I, and if I didn’t actually argue it last night, I am now.) If Buddhism is a religion, which I am categorically opposed to, there are surely some practices we don’t know about that can mess up a kid as much as Catholicism and Mormonism can. In the cold like of day all those thoughts sounds just that: cold. My friends, and all we good intentioned in the West, are simply borrowing it as a philosophy of life, and one of the basic tenets of all spiritual practices is intention.

But I couldn't leave it as just that. So, is Buddhism a religion? First, I suppose, you’d have to ask, Whose Buddhism? Japanese? Indonesian? Indian? As the original form of Buddhism was handed down it took on different forms. Some are stricter than others. I’ve tinkered a wee wee bit with Zen Buddhism, have tried sitting in zazen meditation and I find it too strict. This morning I started reading that purification rituals figure into the practice of Tibetan Buddhism. Incense burning, chanting and making object offerings. To my Western mind this seems easier, the arts and crafts version.

Then there are spa purification rituals, many Indonesian, that are spiritual in nature, as I’ve touched on in previous posts. Here’s another one: Jamu Asian spa rituals. Multi-star hotels offer them, like Four Seasons in Las Vegas and Spa Las Palmas in California. Jamu is an Indonesian tradition mixing an array of herbal ingredients that can be used internally or externally to promote health, healing and relaxation. The practice was originally passed down as a way to relieve sore muscles from long hours working in the rice field.

For the majority of us, Jamu is now mostly recognized as a line of products. Barring access to them, if you have some salt—Epsom, Morton—you can toss some into a warm bath, light a candle and some pretty-smelling incense and perform your own self-purification today. Other than those few items, all you need is intention.