Sembahyang

In many parts of Asia, particularly Buddhist ones, when you see incense burning by the side of the road, it means someone has died in that spot very recently. Unlike at home, where when you see the aftermath of a recent accident, all you are likely to see, at least initially, are a lot of emergency vehicles. That is a kind of blessing I think, bc in Asia, these things seem to end up far more out in the open. In Vietnam I remember seeing an accident where a woman was killed, and just seeing everything, it was just out there in the road amidst the bicycles and motorbikes, for everyone to see. It was a particularly gory accident and it took me a week before I could sleep well after that. That was when I learned, that in the Buddhist tradition, when someone dies, especially when they did a violent or unnatural death, you will always see incense burning at the place where the accident happened. So, in the middle of the road usually.

Sunday night, I was walking home from having coffee with a friend who lives in my building, when we happened on a similar situation. This one, much larger than any I'd seen before. In a square area of about 6*10 ft. was about 10 inches of ash, surrounded by hundreds of sticks of incense burning. We asked a guy who runs a little foodstall on the corner what the incense was for.. his answer "Sembahyang." Prayers. When asked why: "Orang baru mati, dihantuhi." Someone just died, it's haunted. So the Chinese in the area were burning colored paper in the street surrounded by incense, as a means of sending the person to the spirit world so that they would not stay there and haunt those who witnessed the accident. Further down the street we saw a disturbing confrontation between a blind muslim woman and an Indian man. I assume the two incidents were connected, but I'll never know for sure...

But it got me thinking. How do we mark a sudden death in America, and why? In Arizona, it is often crosses and the iconic Catholic images; an influence of the Mexican Roman Catholics, I suppose. In other parts of the country, crosses sometimes, flowers, candles... Later I discussed this with my friend Vinca who had been with me when we saw the aformentioned scene. She is from France, and I asked how the French might mark a tragic death such as this. Her answer, they don't.

But all of this leads me to a larger question that pops up fairly frequently, living in a society where people ask "what is your religion?" as often as they ask "how are you?." That is the question of the role that religion, faith, and mysticism still plays in modern societies. Now, obviously, there is a difference between these three things, but they are all a part, or were at one time a part, of most societies in the world. The difference is whether they are compartmentalized into solely our personal lives, kept away from our professional lives and out of our government systems, or if they are all incorporated into every aspect of life. Here, my masters classes are taught by Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, and Muslim scholars. And, while in the states, it is rare that a Professors political leanings are not immediately obvious, here, you are more inclined to hear the strains of their faith in their lectures, with the politics left out of it completely. In daily life here, and in Indonesia especially, the strains of Javanese mysticism still exist, regardless of the persons religion. The Hindu faith, with it's many gods, once dominant in Southeast Asia, is still practiced by some here, and bits and pieces of it come through in many aspects of everyones lives in this part of the world.

Part of the reason I suppose I see a difference here, is that at home, we have long extolled the virtues of the separation of church and state (and I still firmly believe this is important in a society like America), but here, when you speak with someone who is Hindu or Muslim, they will tell you, it is not a religion, but a way of life. And as that is the case, it would then be a natural follow on conclusion that these aspects of faith and religion would have to be incorporated into other aspects of life. It is because of this, if I understand my teacher correctly, that Malaysia is not a secular state, but an Islamic one. Because when you are a Muslim, Islam is supposed to be a part of every minute of your life. For me, it is certainly a different way of viewing the world. But thats good... To try to understand the world through the eyes of someone else, thats all part of what I'm here for afterall.