Work, West and Pray

I'm sitting alone exhausted from multiple and punishing work deadlines, soothing my throbbing head and glared-burnt eyes in the soft darkness of night. There's just the neon glow of my computer screen for company, as I contemplate the largely incomprehensible...

I have every intention of keeping it simple tonight - excuse me. It's no bad thing in reality, as I'm so brazenly starting from scratch with my budding Buddhism. Here am I, a 21st-century quasi-agnostic European of Celtic origins, fumbling around in the dark to comprehend the great mysteries and vast truths of a mostly medieval Oriental life philospohy. Hmmmm. A truly tough, baked walnut of a thing to crack.Positively implement braking in fact.

What exactly would it have felt like to chant the extracts of the second and sixteenth verses (or Sutras) in something approaching your own mother tongue, I wonder? To today's common-or-garden Anglophone, such as you and I gentle reader, it's a bizzare but compelling excurison into pure lyricism. There's a distinctly rhythmic quality to the unusal sounding words.They soothe and lull with their exotic patterns.

I must confess to sneaking regular peaks at the English translations, and none of the poetic majestic is lost in translation. Their rippling stream of lines celebrate the profoundly simple nature of Bhuddist thought. What a revelation that it can all be so simple in essence. Understanding the old Japanese is merely an added, lottery dream ball bonus. A high prize winning one I grant you.

Bu it really is all about keeping it real. Modern Buddhists who just happen to be in Japan are apparently getting on with spiritually infused lives in large numbers. It's a popular and widely accepted slice of everyday stuff. Like being a tennis club member, or supporting England in the 6 nations tournament. I guess. Not the big, funny or clever excursion into the unknown we make it out to be. Just a basic, buy-it-in-bulk, off-the-shelf way of life. How refreshing.

Even in my present punch-drunk tiredness of deadlines, this seems like a thing much to be desired. Living a life more ordinary. But with Buddhism. And more sleep between one's bouts of work.