My wife has been out-of-town visiting her extended family since last Thursday. So, I got to enjoy a weekend of wild bachelor hijinks: unwinding with a few micro-brewed beers and PBS on Friday night; a hike in the silent, snow-covered woods on Saturday; On Sunday, a visit to the local Sikh temple.

Since my wife is a Christian, we normally attend church together on Sundays. Whenever she’s away on a Sunday, though, I head across town to the gurdwara. Why not a Buddhist temple? The closest Japanese Buddhist temples or zendos are all more than two hours away in any direction by car. The most active Buddhist group in my current town belongs to a Western adaption of Tibetan Buddhism that resembles a kind of business more than it does a faith community. It offers a blend of meditation and spiritual psychology where you can progress through a series of ‘training levels’ for a fee. It feels completely foreign to me, honestly, and unlike my other saṃgha experiences. So, outside of zazen at home and weekly with a small group of friends, attending church with my wife, and the occasional retreat or sesshin, I actually find myself feeling very much at home with the down-to-earth and devotion-oriented Sikh community here, which is made up almost entirely of immigrants from India. Going to kirtan there the first time was sort of diving headfirst into a cultural experience, complete with language barrier.  But, I’ve since made some friends there who give me the most hospitable welcome every time I visit.

A local interfaith forum I’ve participated in since 2009 is hosted by this gurdwara; that’s how I became acquainted with it. Having become a fan of Kabir just a few years before I began attending the forum, I remember happily discovering that the poetry of Kabir (a large body of it, actually) is included in the Guru Granth Sahib (the collection of Sikh scriptures). This connection to Kabir combined with the warmth of the community, as well as my appreciation of Indian music and food got me hooked.

For the kirtan, there are seasonal ragas (rhythmic structures for music) that are performed during the corresponding time of year.  When I attended this Sunday, the kirtan was done with basant (spring) ragas. There are certain shabads (hymns) that can be laid upon each type of raga. The shabads that were sung this Sunday were spring-themed, which was a hopeful contrast to the snow-capped roofs and trees visible outside. Someone mentioned to me later that flowers would be blooming right now in Punjab. In the last year, maybe for the sake of the younger generation, the people in charge of music have begun to use a PowerPoint projector/screen set-up so you can read the Punjabi and the English translation of whatever is being sung; a bonus for me although the singing was reaching me on some level even before the English words were available. The projection equipment is operated by a pair of teenage girls who struggle a little to coordinate the slides with what’s being sung. Understandably, it’s difficult to keep up over the course of an hour and a half’s worth of singing and playing, which can get pretty exuberant, at times.

You tear off the leaves, O gardener, but in each and every leaf, there is life. That stone idol, for which you tear off those leaves – that stone idol is lifeless. In this, you are mistaken, O gardener. The True Guru is the Living Lord.

Brahma is in the leaves, Vishnu is in the branches, and Shiva is in the flowers. When you break these three gods, whose service are you performing?

Up front: Power Point on the left; singers, harmonium and tabla players on the right; the Guru Granth Sahib raised on a cloth-covered altar at the center.  Stretching all the way from the front area to the back: old, young, fidgeting children, all sitting on the carpeted floor, not a chair or cushion in sight. Occasionally, new people enter: limping old men coming down the center aisle after bowing and making a money offering; all the women-folk sitting off to the left in saris; all the men on the right; the younger men occasionally checking their cell phones.

Your limits cannot be known, O my Lord and Master; I am blind – what wisdom do I have?

What should I say? While talking, I talk of seeing, but I cannot describe the indescribable.

The whole time, incredible smells waft up from the kitchen in the basement. When kirtan is over, I wander downstairs and receive a bear hug from the lead-singer priest-type figure (Sikhs don’t really have a class of priests, it being a householder religion), B—, who, whenever I see him, radiates one of the most genuine smiles I’ve ever seen. His enthusiastic hug and handshake catches me completely off guard, completely melting away my awkwardness and causing me to smile in return.  A few minutes later, as I sit on the hard basement floor packed full of other seated people, men with stainless steel containers snake up and down makeshift aisles dipping elements of a fragrant and delicious vegetarian feast into my Styrofoam plate. I can barely take a bite before another warm chapati gets dropped into my hand or another dollop of dhal, rice, curried vegetables or chutney is put on my plate. Later, on the drive home, still sipping a cardamon-heavy chai from a disposable cup, the bright afternoon sun reflects off the snow, which is beginning to melt.

The Lord’s Name – He has given me the Lord’s Name and enshrined it within each breath of my life. By contemplating the Name of the Lord within each breath of my life, all my doubts and sorrows have departed.

*All of the short selections of text in italics above are English translations from a few different shabads I heard on Sunday, which struck me for whatever reason. I did remember a phrase or two, but had to look up the full quotes later. The first selection (“You tear off…” ) is from Kabir.