Englewood Cliffs, NJ
Wedding weekend is over. My brother is married, and the physical reason why I left the monastery is done. The vaguer reasons why I'm not returning immediately need to play out now.

I am currently immersed in a culture and surrounded by people who think monasticism is some far off fairy tale, some mystic alternate reality which inexplicably is not concerned with making money and being entertained and accumulating material possessions with that money. They have absolutely no conception that from my point of view, they are the bizarro alternate reality. I suppose engaging this is part of my path, part of what I need to confront as the path of my karma, even if it becomes a death match.

Maybe my brother who just got married feels a similar way. He has proclaimed himself Catholic, he got married in a Catholic church and according to Catholic rules, I gather, but forewent having mass because too few attending could participate in the, what is it?, the sacrament? The cracker thing.

When reading Thich Nhat Hanh's writings on inter-faith dialogue, it feels so clear that such a dialogue is possible and can be harmonious. We're all striving for basically the same things for ourselves: happiness, to live our lives without fear or threat, to live freely. But when not reading his books, it's so hard to conceive. Faiths and religions are like Trivial Pursuit pies, each pie slice clearly blocked off and delineated from all other slices. Occassionally with interfaith dialogue, some feel-good connection can be made with other pies, a line can be thrown, but ultimately the barriers are there. We have our beliefs and they have their beliefs, and at the core of that attitude, that understanding, is that our belief is right, and something about theirs is wrong.

That's a hard one, because in my belief system, and any belief system which claims to respect the belief systems of others, we don't want to say that other belief systems have got it wrong. It offends us to think that other truly spiritual paths are in error, because once you do that to them, they can do that to you, and what are beliefs but intangible, fragile concepts which are wounded if they are disrespected or non-believed. If someone told me my belief system was shite for reasons I think are based on ignorance or intolerance, it doesn't destroy my beliefs since they are a part of my identity, but it hurts. It shakes them. It wounds them because these are world beliefs, and they are making it clear that they aren't. Or I can be indignant and ignore them, proudly maintaining righteousness in my belief. But I neither want to be shaken and wounded, or proud and indignant. I want to respect their beliefs, and I want my beliefs respected.

But that's impossible as long as I have my beliefs and they have their beliefs, because once we have those, it's almost automatic that we think our beliefs are right, and something about theirs is wrong, no matter how hard we try to respect theirs. We can only respect their beliefs on a superficial level of promising non-harm, not threatening them for their beliefs.

I don't think any of this is necessarily right, I think a paradigm shift is possible that negates all of this; one that melts down the borders of the Trivial Pursuit pie slices. One that melts down the concept of being right or wrong. One that doesn't recognize the possibility of respecting or disrespecting other beliefs. One that doesn't recognize a separation between beliefs. It's not a religious question, it's a human behavioral issue.

Religion is a mental concept and its sacredness is something we assign, and it has become so ingrained that we now call it tradition. Two thousand years of worship, and we can have tribes of people fighting and killing each other over Britney Spears and Madonna; the Beatles and the Rolling Stones; Modest Mouse and Built to Spill; John Lennon and Paul McCartney (ugh, why am I even dignifying Paul McCartney by putting him up with John Lennon?).

Not to analogize faiths and religions with pop stars. But there is a paradigm possible where the righteousness or wrongeousness of a belief system is not even an issue. All those concepts melt away. It's not easy. I can't do it. Once you start thinking it through analytically, you quickly hit concepts that we ourselves have created that necessitate deciding that this or that is right or makes sense, and this or that is wrong and doesn't make sense.

My brother just got married. One of the things he needs to work on and get rid of is the idea that he can be right. He argues and bickers with his wife. The engine that drives the arguing and bickering is impatience and anger, and the motivations or goal is the idea of being right. I try to tell him that when you're married, there can be no more concept of being right. It doesn't matter and it's not going to get them anywhere productive - lose it. Stop striving to prove you're right, and learn to listen deeply and patiently, and act wisely and unselfishly.