This is Buddhist country my friends...

In response to a query about the latest video that I posted:

"To earn merit" is a totally foreign concept to most Americans, but to the people here it can be the very definition of life. That is not the overstatement that it sounds.

As best I can (based on the things I've read and conversations I've had), allow me to describe life through the eyes of a Buddhist:

*note to everyone* This is an EXTREMELY simplified version of a small part of Buddhist philosophy... so take it for what it's worth.

You do not have one life, you have many, many, many thousands of lives. And while usually you don't remember your previous lives (it's not like if you are a worm you remember that you beat small children or kicked dogs in your previous life, all you know is that now you are a worm), you are expected to accumulate merit in this current life in order to advance to a higher level of being in your next life. Failure to do this will result in squalor, misery, or a non-human status in a later life.

So the result is that if you live here you are doing things for one of two purposes: to make money or to make merit.

There are endless, literally endless, ways to accumulate merit. Some are extremely effective: such as spinning those huge wheels which house rolls of paper with the phrase "om mane padme hum" written on them hundreds, sometimes thousands, of times. The more wheels you spin the more merit you get. Other ways are less effective: such as giving money to a beggar or helping someone in need.

So as you watch that video, just imagine that someone, somewhere, is gaining merit. And that's serious business.