The Wedding Festival: "So a Buddhist walks into a tent..."

I rode the transit bus up to Imilchil, where the Wedding Festival took place. As I looked out past the weeping willows that lined the dirt road and the aspen trees that lined the gardens that each family owned, I looked out at the crooked rocks of the mountains. As the dust rose from the street, I looked out at the mountain closest to me and saw that the rocks created a combined red and orange color. The mountain behind it was purple, and behind that was a blue mountain. Behind that, I saw the peaks of the final mountain, grey in the distance. Finally, the mountains that remained disappeared into the mists and clouds of the sky, which themselves formed more mountains that hovered above me.

“The interesting thing about the aspen,” Princess Leia said, “Is that they are all one tree.”
“Really?” I asked, “I can make a poem about that. Something that connects the aspen tree and the families here. The families don’t move far away, and by being close, that makes them stronger.”
“Yes,” Princess Leia said, “But if something happens to one tree, it messes up all of the others.”
“I see.” I said, “Then the analogy is apt.”

Once a year the people of the various mountain tribes in the Atlas Mountains converge at a special meeting place for the Imilchil Moussem. This special meeting, which takes place in September, is primarily a massive souk where 30 000 or more Berbers gather to sell and trade their possessions. However, the gathering is not merely an exercise in financial expertise - it is also the place of the largest wedding fair in the country. The tradition was started when officials during the colonial area insisted that Berbers assemble once a year to register births, deaths and marriages.

We continued to the Wedding Festival, where we and some other volunteers were scheduled to give blood pressure tests. Not knowing how to test blood pressure, however, left me with the job of keeping children occupied through the day. I laid out a sheet of paper on the table, set out colored pencils, and let them take over from there. I decided that I wanted to make the lessons have an organic feel, so I waited until they drew something related to health – a man smoking a cigarette would lead to a discussion on why not to smoke, or a soda can would lead into a nutrition discussion – all in all, that portion went exceedingly well.

Throughout the festival, however, it became clear that the white Americans who knew the Berber languages and Moroccan Arabic were the center of the show. Our tent was deluged with countless Moroccans, mostly men, throughout the entire festival. Some of the people think it was only for the fact that there were women at the tent; however, I do believe that a good portion of them had good intentions.

Another fact about Moroccan culture is that they have no concept nor need for lines. When in a public setting, there is no such thing as first come, first serve. The order in which one is helped is determined by how hard they can shove through everyone else. This isn’t considered rude, and usually, when an older person or women appears, the strong men will usually work to push that person up to the front. Nevertheless, in order to keep some semblance of order, there were always two people standing at the entrance to the tent. Of course, to stand against a tide of Moroccan men is as foolhardy as trying to stop the ocean by standing on the beach. The Moroccan men slowly pushed their way further and further into the tent, until all of the volunteers were pressed against the back wall. I had remember something that Princess Leia told me while walking through the kilometer length souk. She told me that I needed to be more assertive. So, I took a large step forward, cupped my hands around my mouth, and shouted.

“Can we please just try to make a line of people? Please?”

Suddenly, everybody looked at me as though they had just witnessed the rudest event in their lives. I looked at the other volunteer who stood as the guard.

“Is it asking too much that we put a little bit of order to this?”
“It’s nothing to worry about,” he replied, “They’ll so it how they always do it.”

I looked at the Moroccans, who all still stared at me. I decided that now was a good time to go to lunch. I ducked out of the back of the tent and walked down the road. I didn’t shout out of anger, but out of a desire to see some order. And yet, I found myself trembling. I knew that I was experiencing the physical sensations of anger, but I refused to allow myself to feel that in my mind. I was certain that what I did was not done out of anger, and yet my Catholic upbringing forced me to feel guilty about what happened. I sat down at a nearby tent, where I ordered a half kilo of chicken, and went over to the corner of the tent and sat down.

A few moments later, a group of men sat down next to me. Being Moroccan, it was only natural that the strangers would begin to talk to each other.

“Bonjour.” One of the men said.
“Oh no,” I replied, “I’m not French. I’m American.”
“Oh yes. Very good.” He replied in English.
“You speak English?” I asked.
“And you speak Berber?” he replied.

We continued on for a moment in Berber, the three other men simply listening. Again, being Moroccan, the subject turned to religion. Of course, being interested in pursuing a Divinity Masters when I return to America, I jumped on board. Unlike most of the other volunteers, I am enthralled with the concept of proselytization. I grew up in the South, which is known for its numerous churches and proselytization attempts.

“Are you Catholic?” he asked.

I’m not sure what was a more discomforting theory; the theory that here was a man who could correctly guess the religion of a white person’s childhood, or the fact that my Catholic guilt has somehow created a physical characteristic. However, here I was, sitting high in the Atlas Mountains, discussing religion with four Berber men. During training, we were advised to tell people that we were Christian when asked this question. I could make this an easy conversation.

“No.” I said, “I am a Buddhist.”

The first man’s eye widened, and I wondered if I had made a mistake. But instead, he simply turned to his three companions and started talking about Japan and China, and I knew that they knew what I was. Of course, they had probably never met a Buddhist before. The questions continued.

“You’re Buddhist? As in Asia?”
“Well, Buddhism has spread throughout the entire world.” I said.
“I see. So, when do you pray?”
“When I see the sun and when I see the moon.” I said, trying to be as poetic as possible.
“Oh, so you pray to the sun and moon?”
“Oh no. I mean when I wake up and before I go to sleep.”
“You know, there is a saying in the Koran,” he said, “People pray to the sun, but it disappears. Then they pray to the moon, but it disappears, as well. Allah stays always.”

Okay, I thought to myself, don’t be poetic. Just try to explain it. You have one shot. You can do it. I knew I had to give them a good impression of Buddhists. I found that being the first representative of a faith is stressful. This is especially true when you don’t yet have the words for such phrases as “I vow to abstain from partaking in harming living beings,” or, “taking things not freely given,” or “Right Intention”.

“How do you pray when you wake up?” They asked.
“I pray when I wake up, may all people have happiness, and may all good things that I do spread out into the world.”
“And when you go to sleep?”
“May all people have happiness, and may all good things that I do spread out into the world.”
“And when you eat?”
“May all people have happiness, and may all good things that I do spread out into the world.”
“I see.”
“I do that because I understand that all things are one.”
“All things come from Allah?”
“Well, from what you believe, yes. But look,” I tear some pieces of bread, “Imagine these being good things. This is giving charity. This is helping someone with chores.” I then moved the pieces of bread away from me and in front of them. “When I do something good, and give it to you, it becomes part of you. What is good in me is now good in you because we are one.”

The men nodded their heads. We continued to muddle through some phrases and terms, and finally came up to another concept.

“Have you ever heard of the fitra?” I asked, naming a Sufi concept.
“Yes.”
“In Islam, every human has within them a divine nature called fitra, correct?”
“Yes.”
“In Buddhism, every human has the ability to become Buddhas. It is called Buddha nature.”

I wanted to use the finger pointing to the moon analogy,. But I remember my last attempt to use an analogy of the moon.

“In Islam, Allah is like a light that lights on everything. Everything has this divine nature. Because that divine nature inside of us is the same as Allah, it leads one naturally to Allah, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Everything comes from Allah, therefore everything is naturally light, and not darkness. Things that we do that seem bad are only so because when we act in that way, we are actually turning away from God. We think we see darkness simply because we turn away from the light.”
“Yeah,” the man said, nodding, “That’s right.”
“Buddhism is the same.” I said, hoping to get it right. “Our Buddha nature is like a light within us that guides us to an even greater light.”
“Well,” the man said, “Buddhism has a lot of what Islam has. But not everything.” He held his finger up as though he needed to specify that he wasn’t relenting, but that my explanations satisfied him for the time being.

I finished my meal, and left the tent to go back to work. I felt proud of myself – I didn’t given in and simply say I was Christian. I stood up for who I was and what I believed, and I did it in a way that, rather than being adversarial, was based in a spirit of mutual respect. I felt the Buddha would be proud of me. And that’s when I remember that it had been a week since I actually performed my morning prayers. Of course, when I realized that, the Catholic guilt quickly picked up the slack, rising in my body like the dust rose above the tents surrounding the mountain in the middle of nowhere. Nowhere, I thought, is a perfectly fine place to be.