religion

If there is a heaven, and I am allowed entrance, I will ask for no more than an endless living world to walk through and explore.

Historically, Japan's shrines have been built in order to worship the gods who live in the sacred mountains or seas; They don't reside in the shrine itself, but in the space beyond it. This belief that the spirits and deities exist beyond the confines of the shrine, and that the shrine itself acts not as a centre, but as a kind of gateway, is very different to the grand, imposing churches and cathedrals of Christianity.

The majority of shrines are not found in the mountains or in the middle of the fields, therefore, but at the borders of mountain villages – which is to say, at what is seen as the edge of the mountains. The tori gate, marking the entrance to a shrine, indicates that there are gods on the other side of it.

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made

Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship–be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles–is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you.

Even a dwelling is a device that generates a distinct pattern of daily activities and their relationships. Some buildings are explicitly built for ritual, but the repetition of any activity, either mundane or religious, tends to ritualize them, and by facilitating this, an architectural structure can turn gradually – sometimes even unnoticeably – into an instrument of ritual.

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another

My attitude toward Alexander’s teachings prior to experiencing the places and spaces realized in his practice was akin to what Alan Watts said about certain teachings in The Bible:

Sometimes, as St. Paul pointed out, commandments are not given in the expectation that they will be obeyed, but in the expectation that they will reveal something to those who hear them.

Today, my answer is unequivocal. My interpretive lens: literal. Time and again, across cultures and continents and islands and oceans, in five different places now I’ve examined the evidence, and am persuaded.

Nicht nur einmal: immer wieder.