ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER

Funny thing happened to me over dinner today. I decided to eat out at the little Hare Krishna restaurant near my place here in Tokyo's Nakano ward, a colorful little area known for having whacked out stuff like Hare Krishna restaurants, cinemas that show nothing but yakuza (Japanese mafia) movies and shops where you can buy vintage comic books for prices that will make your eyes pop out. The food is always very good and I like the folks that work there. It's a quiet little place tucked in between a 24-hour coin laundromat and a shop filled to overflowing with off-the-wall used junk like toasters, ski boots and porno films on Betamax. There's barely room enough for ten customers if you filled up all the seats along the counter as well as both tables, and I've never once felt any sort of pressure to adopt the faith. In fact, I'm a bit disappointed they don't have a few more Krishna publications on hand to read while you're waiting for your curry. I always enjoy leafing through those things. Nobody's ever even mentioned religion to me there. In fact, once when they were playing some Indian inspirational music they offered to change it if it bugged me. But I like that music a lot, as it happens. The Radha Krishna Temple album that George Harrison produced is a big favorite of mine as is the Kula Shaker song Govinda which was adapted from a Hare Krishna hymn.

When I slid open the glass door in front today I saw there were two guys in suits, one probably early 50s and the other probably early to mid 20s, sitting at the counter. They appeared to be together. But they were not siting next to each other. As I stepped in and took my own seat at the counter, I became aware that whatever conversation had been going on in the restaurant prior to my entry had suddenly come to an uneasy halt. I wondered if they'd been discussing foreigners or something they were worried I might get offended by. Then I noticed two copies of the Japanese edition of the Jehovah's Witness' mag The Watchtower sitting on the counter. I was wondering how the heck those got in there. Maybe someone had left them behind and the staff hadn't gotten 'round to chucking them out yet.

So then the cheerful middle-aged Japanese lady who runs the place, whose demeanor and dress would never give anyone a clue that she was actually a Hare Krishna devotee, says to the suit guys, "It's OK, we can talk in front of him."

Huh? I thought. Then this guy who was also behind the counter whose shaven head hidden under a scarf and beads strung tight around his neck gave him away as a Krishna devotee -- albeit one who was trying to hide the more obvious signs -- says, "We were talking about religion." I'd seen this guy in there before and always assumed he was the husband of the woman who served the food.

So I say, "That's fine. Talk about whatever you like." The lady behind the counter made a point of letting the gentlemen in suits know that I could understand Japanese.

Then I worked out what was happening (like I'm certain any one of you would have the moment you walked in). The two guys in suits were Jehovah's Witnesses who had chosen to drop in at the Hare Krishna restaurant to try and talk some sense into the Krishnas. I was an amazing thing to behold. Two Japanese guys who'd been won over to a ... shall we say non-standard version of Christianity most likely by some Whitey missionary battling it out in a vegetarian Indian restaurant in Tokyo with a Japanese couple who'd probably also been won over by some Whitey devotee of Lord Krishna while an American ordained in a Japanese sect of Buddhism sat watching in a ring side seat. Of course, I was in disguise as it were. I've never had any occasion to tell the folks who run the restaurant of my Buddhist affiliations and I most certainly was not going to bring them up now. I was in real luck today. Here I was expecting dinner and I got to see a floor show at no extra charge.

The conversation was pretty one-sided. The older Jehovah's Witness guy was obviously trying to show the younger guy the ropes of how this witnessing business was done. The young guy never said a word but looked on with awe as the older guy held forth in a booming voice far too loud for the tiny confines of the narrow one-room restaurant all about the coming Armageddon, the creation of the Universe, the unique position of Jesus Christ and so on and on. The Krishna dude mostly just listened respectfully and asked a few questions. At least he seemed aware that no matter what he said he wasn't about to make these guys adopt his faith. The Witness dude, on the other hand, seemed bound and determined to win the Krishnas over to his brand of Christianity.

The entire experience was anthropologically fascinating as my friend Nick might say. I followed the debate as well as I could. The Witnesses were determined to convince the Krishnas that God had but one name and that name was Jehovah. The Krishnas pointed out that if God was indeed infinite He ought to have an infinite number of names. The Witnesses said that our real nature was as spiritual beings. The Krishnas didn't seem to have a problem with that. They differed about what the actual form of God was. The Witnesses were convinced His form was unknowable while the Krishnas knew exactly what God's face looked like, and not only that, they knew what He liked for breakfast and what He did in His spare time. Both agreed that God was perfect and man was not. That's one thing pretty much all religions have in common -- this idea of perfection. The people we meet, the people we ourselves actually are, and world we see in front of us don't match this idea called "perfection" we carry around in our brains. In fact nothing we encounter ever does. Yet we stick to believing in perfection rather than believing in what we really encounter.

The Witnesses talked about the true nature of Adam and Eve and their place at the beginning of creation. The Krishnas had a different view on how the Universe came to be and didn't seem to care a whole lot about Adam or his wife. Now you have to remember that these particular Jehovah's Witnesses weren't like the variety you find in America or Europe who grew up surrounded by Christian doctrine. It's quite likely they'd never even heard the story of Adam and Eve in any kind of detail or knew much more about Jesus Christ other than as someone whose name foreign people yell out when they get upset until they joined the religion. (Helpful hint for those traveling to Japan: You can always get a laugh by yelling "Jesus Christ!")

And on and on it went. I have to say the Krishnas came out marginally better if only because it wasn't them who came barging into a restaurant they knew was run by a rival religion in order to try and convert the owners. As far as I could see the Witnesses hadn't ordered anything but a couple of lassis (sort of like a milk shake made out of yogurt) to justify their presence which I thought was extremely rude. But, then again, the Krishnas were so into the discussion I had to remind them to give me some dressing for my salad. They didn't seem in any big hurry to kick these guys out.

I was hoping to hear the end of things. But I finished up my food and a piece of banana cake so delicious I thought I'd died and gone to Heaven (but which one?) and there was still no resolution in sight. So I paid my bill and went home.

I had no desire to jump in on their little debate. It was obviously entirely pointless. The Witnesses didn't have a clue how pointless it was. The Krishnas seemed to know this yet still held out the vague hope that they might put some chinks in the Witnesses armor. I was the only one with sense enough to keep my mouth shut. Debates with True Believers never go anywhere.

Listening to the Krishna vs. Jehovah debate, I realized that Buddhism really has no common ground with religions. Both parties were concerned only with matters of thought and belief, with what had happened in the dim past and what might happen in the far flung future, or what was happening far, far away where God hung out. While I'll admit to having had a slight fascination with such things in the past, every single explanation I ever came across failed to address anything that was truly meaningful in my life. The scientific explanations were convincing enough, but left me cold and ultimately bored while the religious ones just made my head spin. It might be interesting to speculate on what happened a godzillion years ago when Krishna first decided to emanate the material energy from His body to create the material Universe or 6,000 years ago when Jehovah decided to make some meat puppets to hang out on Earth and screw everything up until He got so pissed off at 'em He had to wipe 'em all out. It can be kinda neat to sit and dream about all the things that might become of you after you shuffle off this mortal coil. Maybe you'll end up in Heaven with the Saints and angels, or maybe you'll wind up in Krishna Loka with all those tasty looking babes you see in the paintings in the Krishna books (I'd prefer the latter). Maybe death will be just like sleeping only a lot longer. Or maybe you'll get reincarnated and get to be a bird or a wildebeest or maybe a llama. Heck maybe you'll even get to be the Dalai Lama.

Buddhism is about Reality. Religion is about thought. Reality is not the same as thought. Some words tickle a certain spot in some folks' brains, while other words get another spot all hot and bothered. And depending on where you like to be tickled, that's what you'll choose to believe in. Buddhism deals with an absolutely different area. Buddhism addresses the very fact of why we want to have our brains tickled all the time.

What I always wanted to know when faced with such explanations was the biggest question of all: So what? I'm not certain what anyone gets out of having some very rigid beliefs about how the Universe came to be or about how it'll end or even about what happens after you die. The search for comfort seems to be the driving force of such beliefs. But I don't see any evidence that they make anyone very comfortable at all. The stronger your beliefs the more you seem to need to reinforce them by convincing others you're right. But if you really are right in what you believe, why does it matter whether anyone's convinved or not?

The reason beliefs don't make us comfortable is stupidly clear if you ever take a moment to look. Life never works the way we think it will and in our heart of hearts every single one of us knows this for a fact every bit as clearly as we know how to breathe and how to make wee-wee. Even if you knew for a fact that, say, next Tuesday you were going to meet your dad and play backgammon, you have no idea at all what that event will really be like until you actually do it and after it's over your memories of what happened are faulty and ill-detailed at best. What is more, neither your memories nor your anticipations of future happenings, no matter how detailed, are ever the same as the actual act. You do not know your future even when you know your future. You don't know your past at all. I mean, how exactly did brushing your teeth this morning feel? Can you say for certain? You do not even know the present moment. Try and describe it in a way that no one on Earth could mistake what you're talking about. Try and describe it to yourself before it moves on and becomes something completely different. So even if I know for certain I'm going to Heaven or wherever or that I'm gonna get Enlightened or even that I have already gotten Enlightened some time in the past, so freakin' what?

Here's a secret though, one I'm a little reluctant to reveal, but which I will anyway because I heard it long before I understood what it meant and I appreciated hearing it. So maybe you will too. And forgive me for "witnessing" a bit for my own faith. If you practice zazen long enough you will discover exactly when, where, how and why the Universe was created and destroyed and you will know precisely what God looks like as well as what God enjoys eating and what God does in His spare time. And it can't be confirmed or denied for you by any authority at all. Not a single spiritual seeker of any faith or description anywhere in the world throughout all of history, past, or future, would ever be satisfied with your explanation or anyone else's for that matter. So why bother trying? Such descriptions are not only meaningless, they are also always, always, always wrong. It's like trying to describe the color green without using any words for colors. Hell, it's like trying to describe the color green while using every word for color in the dictionary. It don't amount to nothin' and it never will.

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