My teacher shared a memory from a visit he once took to a monastery on the border of Tibet and India — deep in the Himalayas. He was traveling with a group of students, and the experience was meant to be profoundly spiritual.
As they entered the monastery, the monks welcomed them with elaborate ceremonies: drums echoing through the halls, prayer wheels spinning, sacred mantras chanted with intensity. The air was thick with incense and symbolism. But rather than feeling uplifted, Rudi felt something tighten inside — a subtle constriction. Despite the reverence, something felt... hollow.
He looked around at the solemnity, the structure, the deeply embedded tradition — and suddenly felt disconnected from it all.
Then, stepping outside, he saw them: three young novice monks, no older than 10, laughing and playing freely in the dirt. No chants. No rules. Just life — unfiltered, joyful, alive.
And in that moment, Rudi turned to his students and said something unforgettable:
“There’s more God in these three children than in everything happening inside that monastery.”
It wasn’t a dismissal of Buddhism or ritual — it was a clarification of essence. Spirituality can be filled with powerful tools — but when those tools become rigid, repetitive, intentionless, when ritual replaces energy, the presence of God is no longer felt — only the form remains.
What Rudi saw in those children was spiritual aliveness — what we might call, consciousness, joy, energy, bliss.
That is the real temple, we have to step outside the walls and outside on the mind to find it.
