MY THOUGHT OF RELIGION
My mother, when she was alive, practiced Buddhism. I was so mad at her in my teen I ran away from home and lived in a Buddhist temple for about three years. I could say I was grown into Buddhism, to accept it as a way of living.
As soon as I began to be aware of my existence, I was annoyed of my mother religious practice. Every day, at five o’clock in the morning, she prayed. Her chanting, the bell, and the sounds from the wooden fish that my mom tapped on to pace her chanting, disturbed my sleep. Living in a Buddhist temple I had to wake up every morning at five o’clock to pray, that annoyed me a teen who was like any other teens, liked to sleep late. Every morning at 5 o’clock, the temple’s bell tolled. The temple’s bell toll was always an unpleasant reminder of my grogginess from being woke up early to pray. A little older, I learned to appreciate the romantic and beautiful imagery of the verse, “at midnight the sounds of the bell from the temple on the mountain Han San visited the gondola” from the famous poem Phong Kieu Da Bac. Religion and poetry blended into my life seemingly seamless.
It was natural that I thought I could easily keep the first vow in practicing Buddhism – Refrain from killing other living existence.
To be continued.
