Buddhism

I know I've taked about it a lot and I'm sure everyone reading this must be tired of it (all 5 of you) but I have to say something more on Buddhism.

I was walking in China Town and the only stores open on a Sunday were the ones selling Buddha statues. Covered in gold, or at least looking that way, they ranged in size from 6 inches and less to over 8 feet, sitting and standing, whatever you want.

They were all wrapped in plastic and there was 10 or more of these buddha stores on the street we were on. I just can't werap my head around how much of a commercialized belief system this is. From buying statues to shrines or all the vendors that set up outside teh main temples selling food incense or flowers. It just goes on and on.

I guess when you're concerned about karma, money seems a good way to accrue it, but that isn't a purely Buddhist thing of course. And I'm going to assume these Buddhas will go to people's homes, homes where they're just too busy to get to the temple regularly...so they need an 8 foot Buddha in the living room? Sure why not.

The way I ramble about this I think it's something I'll need to contemplate in depth back at home. You'd never guess I took a course on Buddhism at school. In all fairness to me though, the class was 3 hours long, ridiculously hot for the first 1.5 months and the prof was a bit of a flake. That and I didn't read much or try hard. But most importantly at no time in that class did the prof tell me about gaudy gold temples, vendors and tuk tuk drivers, statues by the boat load, and all sorts of sacred temple architecture and ornamentation being made out of cement that I watch getting poured.

Maybe because I assumed the tem,ples were ancient I only have myself to blame. I still really like some of teh old stuff, maybe it's new wave Buddhism that's getting me.

Or MAYBE I'm just seeing the superficialities at the surface and if I dug deeper I'd get a better understanding. Either way...ENOUGH.