At the Wat Chedi Luang temple, the monks make an effort to interact with the public by scheduling a weekly “Monk Chat” evening. This gives visitors a chance to learn about Buddhism and the monastic life and allows novice monks to practice their English. But as we wandered the grounds of this temple one morning, a young monk strolled over to us. Apparently, we were going to be lucky enough to have our own private monk chat.

I was excited for this opportunity, since some of my most vivid memories of Thailand were the daily sightings of monks wandering the streets. They are so omnipresent that public buses and boat ferries even have special seats reserved for monks. In Chang Mai, due to the presence of the Buddhist university, these saffron- and orange-robed young men were especially plentiful.

The monk that we met called himself James, because his father liked James Bond. Honestly. James said that he’d been studying at the Buddhist university in Chang Mai for five years. He appeared hesitant and nervous at first over the prospect of conversing in English, but his language skills were better than he realized.

“What is a normal day like for you?” Lisa asked.

James said his typical day was to get up before dawn, walk the streets to collect alms before breakfast, participate in morning prayer or meditation, spend the bulk of his day in classes or studying and then take part in an evening prayer session.

“Is it true that monks are only supposed to eat twice a day?”

“Yes,” he smiled, “but when I study hard I get hungry, so sometimes I have to eat more.”

He also confirmed that monks are not allowed to have any physical contact with females. Because of the “different feelings” that arise from touching a woman, he said, it would “distract the mind” from focusing on spiritual activities.

Later, I questioned him about meditation. Did it ever become easier? After doing this every day for five years, could his mind now slip more easily into a state of emptiness?

“It is still difficult,” he admitted. “It is always easy to become distracted, to think about other things.”

Later, a group of novice monks came into the sanctuary with an instructor and took a seat on the floor. James said they were learning about meditation. As the teacher spoke, the young monks took notes and occasionally goofed around with each other. They didn’t look very different from any other group of teenage boys in a classroom elsewhere in the world, save for their shaved heads and saffron robes.

Would any of these young men, I wondered, devote their lives to monasticism and Buddhist study? A majority of them, of course, would re-enter what they call “common life.” Most Thai men become a monk for a period of time, but it is voluntary. They usually serve for a period of three months, although some enter a monastery for as little as a few weeks and others remain for several years. I recalled a conversation with Pravat, a local guide who had spent 11 years in a Buddhist monastery, six years as a novice and an additional five years as a full-fledged monk, before leaving to get a paying job.

“By becoming a common person, I could make some income and then send money home to my parents,” he said. “They are still farmers and make little money.”

The practice of serving as a monk is a rite of passage in this culture. Some have likened it to a Thai version of a sabbatical, giving young males the opportunity to remove themselves from their normal routine for a period of time in order to reflect on their lives before they take on the full role and responsibilities of being an adult. In its own way, it’s comparable to the ritual transition that Masai tribesmen undergo on their way to becoming adult warriors, or the Australian Aboriginal tradition of the walkabout.

This reinforced to me the incredible influence that Buddhism has over the lives of the Thai people. Everywhere in the country are men who have spent from a few months to a few years as a Buddhist monk. It has to significantly influence how Thais view their lives and the world. How different would my life be, or the life of my friends, if we’d spent our teenage and early adult years focusing on spiritual growth in a monastery?

“James, can I ask what attracts you about being a monk?” I said. “Why have you stayed in the monastery for five years? Many of your childhood friends must be doing other things in their lives.”

“I believe Buddhism speaks to the true reality of our life here on earth,” he said. “I am interested in learning more about that, in trying to understand it if I can.”

“Do you know yet if you will remain a monk, or if you will eventually leave the monastery?”

“I don’t know yet,” he admitted. “I will see. But it is good now, I am happy.”

Photo credit: Tevaprapas Makklay via Wikimedia Commons

Varanasi, India

Hindu pilgrims at sunrise on the Ganges River in Varanasi, India.

View of the Himalayas from Thiksey Gompa.

It was before sunrise when we arose and stumbled into the chilly morning air of Ladakh, nearly 12,000-feet high in the Indian Himalayas. We’d hired a driver to take us to Thiksey Gompa, one of several Buddhist temples and monasteries that are strewn throughout this region of northern India, just across the border from Tibet. This monastery allows visitors to observe monks performing their morning puja, or prayer ritual, which begins at dawn.

Once there, we took a seat on the cold stone floor of a dimly lit room. Dozens of saffron-robed monks sat on low benches and chanted, some of them rocking meditatively to the murmur of morning prayers. The chants were occasionally coupled with musical notes when one of the monks would crash a cymbal or blow on a horn. At periodic intervals, the younger men of the monastery dutifully rose and fetched containers of butter tea, which they poured into ceramic cups for the other monks. Outside, daylight crept over the snow-capped peaks and illuminated the village below. The chanted prayers seemed to float away through the open door on a light breeze, drifting over the valley to the mountains, where they joined the sun in greeting another day.

When the prayers were finished, we strolled quietly through the rest of the gompa and stopped along a pathway to gaze at a row of prayer wheels. These are metal cylinders that contain rolls of thin paper coiled around an axle. The paper is printed with copies of a sacred prayer and the wheel is meant to be spun whenever someone walks by. As it spins, the prayer is released to the universe, which is supposed to have the same effect as if it were recited. It’s also meant to symbolize the turning of the wheel of the dharma, or the setting of the Buddha’s teachings in motion.

An elderly monk walked up to the spot where we stood, slowly spinning the wheels and chanting words under his breath. He stopped in front of us and smiled. The man appeared to be in his 70s, with a thin head of gray hair and a circle of wrinkles on his weathered but radiant face.

Buddhist monks at Thiksey Gompa.

“Om mani padme hum,” he said, in a soft, slow cadence.

We looked back at him, not quite sure what he had just uttered. He then repeated the words, carefully enunciating each syllable.

“Ohm mah-nee pahd-may hoom.”

He nodded to us to repeat after him.

“Ohm mah-nee pahd-may hoom.”

He corrected my pronunciation of the last consonant, which seemed to be an impossible combination of an ‘m’ and an ‘ng.’ I’m not sure I ever said it exactly right, but he smiled, spun one of the wheels and then gestured for us to do the same.

“Om mani padme hum,” he whispered. “Om mani padme hum.”

It was our own private lesson in Buddhism, although we didn’t grasp it all until later. This chant is perhaps the most important Buddhist mantra and is meant to invoke the blessing of the bodhisattva of compassion. The meaning is not easily conveyed in other languages, but some have translated it into English as, “Praise to the jewel in the lotus.” It is said to refer to the awakening of the spark of divinity within each person, resulting in compassion for the welfare of all beings.

The Dalai Lama, who himself is believed to be an incarnation of the bodhisattva of compassion, has written that the meaning of the mantra “is great and vast.” At least in part, it signifies that with the correct intention, practice and wisdom “you can transform your impure body, speech and mind into the pure body, speech and mind of a Buddha.”

That’s a lot of meaning for six syllables. Although part of me wished I had the words and the opportunity to discuss the prayer with this monk, I also realized that any conversation would have distorted the beauty and simplicity of the moment. So I focused on the mantra.

“Om mani padme hum,” the monk said, one more time.

Then, apparently satisfied that we had memorized it, he smiled serenely and ambled away, gently spinning the prayer wheels and chanting as he disappeared into the distance.

Buddhist prayer wheels.

Photo credits: Bob Riel (view and monks), and Fanghong via Wikimedia Commons (prayer wheels).

I first heard the term “Whirling Dervishes” as a young child and, reasonably enough, surmised that they were dervishes who loved to whirl. What a dervish was, exactly, remained a mystery to me until last Friday, when I stepped into a 500-year-old Turkish bathhouse (repurposed as the Hodjapasha Culture Center) in the Sirkeci area of old Istanbul. Here, monks of a mystical Sufi order of Muslims–known traditionally for their spirituality, self denial, and tolerance–perform a centuries-old dance ritual…

I glanced at the notes I had taken as our guide, Etem Öztürk, explained the significance of the dervishes’ clothing: “They wear tall felt hats, white gowns with long skirts, and black capes that they remove,” he said. “The hats represent tombstones. The gowns are burial shrouds. The black capes are the dirt of the grave.” The point of the ritual, Öztürk continued, was to leave everything of the world behind and to become one with God, with Allah. “That only truly happens in death,” he said. “These monks are mimicking death. When they’re performing, it’s as though they are dead.”

Fair enough, though, as we watched, the dervishes seemed quite alive to me, the hems of their gowns lifting centrifugally from the floor as they spun, always counterclockwise, sending a gentle breeze out over us spectators. I watched for the movements Öztürk had described: the tilting of the head, the opening of the arms–the palm of the right hand facing up, the left palm facing down, in order to transmit the positive energy of heaven earthward, spreading peace and wisdom.

Like those of its competitors in New York or London, the sleek glass and steel offices of media company Rotana are filled with preening attitude and fashion-conscious staffers: assistants teeter in shoes that might have absorbed much of their monthly paycheck; executives parade the halls in power suits and pencil skirts. But Rotana isn’t in New York or London; it’s in Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia, a country in which women normally adhere to a strict dress code in public — a black cloak called an abaya, a headscarf and a veil, the niqab, which covers everything but their eyes.

There’s another reason many Saudis would find Rotana shocking: men and women working side by side. The sight unnerves enough men who come looking for a job that human-resources manager Sultana al-Rowaili has developed a trick to see if a male applicant can handle working in a mixed-gender office. She arranges for a female colleague to interrupt the initial interview, and watches to see if the man loses concentration or stares too much. Sometimes even that isn’t necessary. Many men are undone by the very idea of being interviewed by a woman. “They are in a state of shock to see a woman in a position of authority and to have to ask her for a job,” al-Rowaili says.

Saudi men may have to start getting used to such situations. True, Rotana remains an anomaly protected by the position and progressive ideals of its owner  — global investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al-Saud. And Saudi women still can’t drive and legally can’t even leave the house to shop, let alone get a job, without a male family member’s permission. Yet under the guidance of a few members of the Saudi royal family — in particular the current King, Abdullah — the kingdom is slowly changing. Mixed-gender workplaces are becoming more common, especially in banks and good hospitals, where female doctors are not unusual. “People used to say, ‘Why is she working? Why does she need the money?’ Now they say, ‘It takes a woman to solve a problem,’” says Norah al-Malhooq, an administrator at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh.

The government is expanding educational opportunities for women by building women’s universities (as opposed to segregated campuses at male-dominated universities); last month it even launched the kingdom’s first coeducational university. The state is trying to encourage women’s entry into the workforce, and is sponsoring initiatives to protect women and children from domestic abuse. And it is pushing Saudis to discuss the notion of empowerment, formerly such a taboo subject that even the word was off-limits in newspapers. “The message is that women are coming,” says Dr. Maha Almuneef, one of six women named earlier this year to the Shura council, a 156-person advisory body appointed by the King. “It’s a good first step. The King and the political system are saying that the time has come. There are small steps now. There are giant steps coming. But most Saudis have been taught the traditional ways. You can’t just change the social order all at once.”

Check out the entire article. It’s a fascinating glimpse into a relatively closed society, and an intriguing look at the cultural tensions that often arise between tradition and modernity.

The patient in Room 328 had diabetes and hypertension. But when Va Meng Lee, a Hmong shaman, began the healing process by looping a coiled thread around the patient’s wrist, Mr. Lee’s chief concern was summoning the ailing man’s runaway soul.

“Doctors are good at disease,” Mr. Lee said as he encircled the patient, Chang Teng Thao, a widower from Laos, in an invisible “protective shield” traced in the air with his finger. “The soul is the shaman’s responsibility.”

At Mercy Medical Center in Merced, where roughly four patients a day are Hmong from northern Laos, healing includes more than IV drips, syringes and blood glucose monitors. Because many Hmong rely on their spiritual beliefs to get them through illnesses, the hospital’s new Hmong shaman policy, the country’s first, formally recognizes the cultural role of traditional healers like Mr. Lee, inviting them to perform nine approved ceremonies in the hospital, including “soul calling” and chanting in a soft voice.

The policy and a novel training program to introduce shamans to the principles of Western medicine are part of a national movement to consider patients’ cultural beliefs and values when deciding their medical treatment. The approach is being adopted by dozens of medical institutions and clinics across the country that cater to immigrant, refugee and ethnic-minority populations…

A recent survey of 60 hospitals in the United States by the Joint Commission, the country’s largest hospital accrediting group, found that the hospitals were increasingly embracing cultural beliefs, driven sometimes by marketing, whether by adding calcium- and iron-rich Korean seaweed soup to the maternity ward menu at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, on the edge of Koreatown, or providing birthing doulas for Somali women in Minneapolis.

By the way, if the story of Hmong immigrants dealing with American doctors sounds vaguely familiar, that’s because it was also the subject of an excellent book about 10 years ago, called The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. If you’re at all interested in cross-cultural topics, especially as they involve health care, you should check out the book.

Indeed, an athlete who needs nourishment in order to perform at a high level during a sporting event would face a tough decision over fasting. Vecsey profiled a Muslim tennis player from Pakistan, Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi, who said that he fasts if he is at home and not competing, but that he doesn’t fast if he is involved in a tournament.

The public-address announcer was advising everybody to drink a lot of fluids (presumably those sold on the grounds) to avoid dehydration. On a warm, mostly sunny day, that seemed like a good idea. Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan had a few bottles of water arrayed below his chair on Court 10, although it is the holy month of Ramadan, when many Muslims abstain from food or liquid from sunrise to sundown…

Qureshi, who is 29 years old and from the grass-court hub of Lahore, is one of a few Muslim players on the tour. He speaks with high respect of Ramadan, which this year lasts from Aug. 22 (a day earlier elsewhere in the world) through Sept. 19. There can be exemptions from fasting for pregnant women, soldiers, the mentally ill, children and people with a strenuous livelihood. Qureshi puts himself in that category.

Other Muslim athletes have worked out their response to their sport and to Ramadan, which ranges around the calendar from winter to summer. In these still long days of early September in the Northern Hemisphere, European soccer players and American football players are making their own decision as to how to observe the holy month.

I think the story is worth reading and is an interesting example of a clash not just between religion and sports, but between culture and a globalized world.

… with many nations (even third-world countries) becoming modernized as the world gets smaller, there are few remaining places on Earth where running is still a way of life, essential to survival, not thought of as fitness or a way to relieve stress after a day of TPS reports. Cultures in which running is life, deeply ingrained in the minds and hearts of natives and impossible to imagine what it would be like otherwise. But where can we find such “running cultures”?

He profiles the marathon monks of Mt. Hiei, Japan; the Tarahumara Indians of Copper Canyon, Mexico; the Kenyans of East Africa, and the Kalahari Bushmen of southern Africa. Here is some of what he writes about the marathon monks of Japan:

The marathon monks, who live in the Enryaku Temple atop Mount Hiei, are quite possibly the greatest anomaly in Japanese society, if not the world. Few choose to live their lives according to such strict guidelines, especially when it comes to feats of physical prowess…

Wearing only straw sandals (replaced often), white robes, a staff, and hat, each marathon monk begins walking or running approximately 50 km around the mountain to return in time for meditation and the meal. This is done over 100, 700, or 1000 days, depending on how far along the initiated is in his monastic training…

In reality, meditation is nothing more than training oneself to focus entirely on the present: the breath going in and out of the lungs, the wind caressing your face, the birds chirping from a nearby tree … Running meditation is only natural, by focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and communing with nature one step at a time.

See the entire piece for more about these running cultures.

Zoroastrianism- Zoroastrianism is based on the teachings of the first millennium BCE Iranian prophet Zoroaster. There are estimated to be between 150,000 and 210,000 Zoroastrians in the world today, mostly in India and the United States.

These small numbers mask the historical importance of this religion. Both Eastern and Western religions can trace ties back to Zoroastrianism, meaning the religion has most likely had more impact on the world than any other belief system.

Zoroastrians believe in one universal God, Ahura Mazda, who is in conflict with the forces of chaos, led by Angra Mainyu. Humans need to take an active role in the conflict by performing good deeds and having good thoughts and words. The conflict will ultimately be brought to an end when Soashyant, a savior, comes to Earth and reanimates the dead.

Yoruba- The Yoruba religion is the beliefs and practices of the people located in the areas that are now Benin and Nigeria before they encountered other outside religions. There are no specific numbers documenting the number of followers, but many believe that Yoruba is the largest African-born religion in the world. It has also heavily influenced several Afro-American religions such as Lucumi in Cuba.

The main belief of the Yoruba peoples is that all humans have a manifest destiny, referred to as ayanmo, to become one with the divine creator, known as Olodumare. Our destinies are determined through our thoughts and actions in the physical world. The Yoruba see life and death as cycles in the physical and spiritual realms while the spirit moves towards union with Olodumare.

Wedad Lootah does not look like a sexual activist. A Muslim and a native Emirati, she wears a full-length black niqab — with only her brown eyes showing through narrow slits — and sprinkles her conversation with quotes from the Koran.

Yet she is also the author of what for the Middle East is an amazingly frank new book of erotic advice in which she … urges Arabs to transcend the backward traditions that limit their sexual happiness. The book, “Top Secret: Sexual Guidance for Married Couples,” is packed with vivid anecdotes from Ms. Lootah’s eight years as a marital counselor in Dubai’s main courthouse. It became an instant scandal after it was published in Arabic in the Emirates in January, drawing praise from some liberals and death threats from conservatives, who say she is guilty of blasphemy or worse.

Ms. Lootah, a strong-willed and talkative 45-year-old, is one of a small but growing number of Arabs pushing for more openness and education about sex. Unlike earlier generations of women who often couched their criticism in a Western language of female emancipation, Ms. Lootah and her peers are hard to dismiss as outsiders because they tend to be religious Muslims who root their message in the Koran.