I am not a Buddhist; I had always been skeptical of the spiritual fervor that so often sweeps across places of worship.
I am a mere a traveler, a curious observer, seeking the novelty of a far-off land. To me, religion is more a product of culture and history than any tangible, transcendent force.
I viewed it as something to be studied, but not fully experienced.
But, as I stood before the Sri Dalada Maligawa (the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic) in Kandy, Sri Lanka, it tugged at me — as if the temple was inviting me to shed my cynical veneer and open my mind.
The scent of incense floated in the air thick and sweet; ornate stone carvings and intricate woodwork adorned every pillar, each depicting scenes of Buddha’s life — moments of serenity, wisdom and compassion frozen in time.
The palpable sense of reverence that permeated the space — you could see it in the faces of the devotees, young and old, who inched across the packed halls that reverberated with the soft rhythm of their chants, the almost imperceptible hum of belief in the air around me.
Moving deeper into the temple, I found myself drawn toward the inner sanctum, where the sacred tooth relic of Buddha is enshrined.
The devotees stood before the gold-caged relic, their heads bowed, hands pressed together in prayer. It was the silence, more than anything, that stopped me.
The temple was busy — tourists and devotees alike flowed through its halls — but this small room, with its gleaming relic resting in a golden shrine, seemed to exist in a world apart from the noise. Time stretched here.
The air felt still, heavy with something more profound than mere tradition. It was as if the relic itself, the very embodiment of Buddha’s presence, had become a bridge between the earthly and the divine.
It was not just an artifact, not just a religious symbol — it was a living link to something far greater than any one person, place, or moment in history.
The relic held within it not just the memory of Buddha’s physical being, but also the deep, unspoken understanding of his teachings: peace, compassion, and the impermanence of life.
In that fleeting instant, I understood that Buddhism, in its truest form, was not a religion to be studied but a way of seeing and being in the world.
We had been trained to compartmentalize experiences, to dissect them and find logical explanations.
But here, impulse fade. One could not at once rationalize the quiet power one could feel in the space.
For the first time in my life, I encountered the idea of truth without needing to break it down into fragments: The whole truth, untouched by skepticism or doubt.
Past golden Buddha statues and offerings of flowers, the world outside seemed more vivid now — more connected, more fragile.
How much of our daily lives are consumed by the desire for permanence — through wealth, status, or even our own identities?
In the presence of something so ancient and revered, I realized that impermanence is not something to fear. Rather, it is a reminder to embrace each moment for its fleeting beauty.
The crowds gathered in the temple courtyard, many of them pilgrims, moved with a shared purpose, their prayers offering a kind of communal energy.
I found myself less concerned with the religious rituals and more attuned to their shared experience.
There was no grand revelation for me in that moment, no immediate shift from non-belief to faith.
But what settled within me was an awareness of how limited my previous worldview had been, how confined by my own rigid frameworks.
I understood that the sacred does not always reveal itself through the logical mind, but through the experience of being present, of connecting with something larger than oneself.
I had been reminded of something fundamental — the need for stillness, for reflection, for a deeper engagement with the world around us.