6 - Offering rituals: problems of religion, anger, and social cooperation

Summary

Theoretically, Buddhism rejects the world, and validates no part of it. But analytically we have seen that Buddhism validates the world all too well, contributing to the reproduction of the two most pervasive and discomfiting dimensions of Sherpa experience – social atomism and social hierarchy. The discomfiture of social atomism has several aspects – economic insecurity, family conflict, personal isolation. And the discomfiture of social hierarchy also has several aspects – social insecurity, social resentment. The religion, in aligning itself with these pervasive social tendencies, can itself be shown, as we shall discuss in this chapter, to be resented. Theoretically part of the solution, it is really part of the problem.

Yet the Sherpas assume, in an ongoing way, the absolute indispensability of their religion. Village life is regularly punctuated by religious rituals that seek the protection and support of the gods. The religious ideals may sometimes be a sort of cultural burden, but the religion is also conceived of as having brought civilization to the Sherpas' ancestors, and as having made and continuing to make true society and culture possible.

This view is couched in myths and stories concerning the establishment of Buddhism in Tibet: The myth (recounted in Chapter 4) of the building of Samyang monastery is perhaps the classic example. All of them detail some situation in which people were trying to accomplish some task, or simply trying to go about their business, but were harassed by demons and then were saved by the intervention of a religious figure.