Altars

I recently changed some things in my living room. A modest statue of Amidha Buddha ended up on a pedestal in a corner of the room in front of a simple Japanese screen. (Facing east by pure happenstance.) I placed two displaced brass candlesticks with candles on the pedestal at the base of the statue. I have a thing about symmetry, so they were placed like candlesticks on a Christian altar. Then I went about my business. Later in the day, the candles irked me. I removed them. It occurred to me that I was averse to the altar-like appearance of the statue setting. I meditated on this over the next day. And that was it! It came to me. The messages of the great and profound are so purely good and right. The construction of altars to those wonders of humanity is the root of all corruption of their messages. Few devoted students, monks, priests can extract the truth from the ritual as the ritual dominates over time. Allowing my consciousness, my mindfulness, to be my workbench, or altar, of spiritual and psychological growth is a at the core of my practice.