Faith - whether Zen or Catholic - revolves around what can never be explained or made familiar. We can no more define or explain the sound of one hand clapping, our face before we were born, or why we must kill the Buddha if we encounter him on our way than we can truly understand the mysteries of the Trinity, the Immaculate Conception, or the Resurrection. Faith in its pure form demands that we leap into these unknown truths or mysteries - but this is precisely what we don't want to do when we are faced with the death of someone we love. We choose ritual over faith. We would rather string beaded crosses inside an aquarium or worship at a doll-house altar and believe that we are doing something for the dead than admit the truth - that there is nothing we can do for them, no explanations about where they have gone, whether they even exist anymore. In our grief, we cannot we cannot leap into the unknown or express inexpressible truths. Even if our rituals seem false, clichéd, or in bad taste, they are the polite lies we need.
Kyoko Mori, Polite Lies
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