Hindu Dharma

Before I take you further, into anyone’s kitchen, I want to hand you a lens — because without it, if you ask me, half of what follows in this book will look like exceptions to a rule, when they’re actually not exceptions at all. They’re the rule.

Here’s the lens. When you hear the word “religion,” you probably picture, without even meaning to, a certain shape: a founder, a specific moment of revelation, a single sacred text you could hold in one hand, a creed you could recite that would tell you exactly what a member of that faith is required to believe. That shape fits Christianity reasonably well — you can point to Jesus, to the Gospels, to a resurrection on a specific weekend two thousand years ago. It fits Islam — you can point to Muhammad, to the Quran, to a specific cave outside Mecca. It even fits Buddhism — you can point to Siddhartha Gautama, sitting under a specific tree, on a specific night.