A religion is a house

A religion is a house
Some rooms have good stuff 
Healthy values
Helpful practices

You're alone at home today
Where do you put
The needle of your attention?

Do you go online and look at porn?
Do you imbibe a pleasure-producing substance?
Or do you do some fasting, song, silence or service?
Do you try a flavor of meditation: 
Breathing, walking, eating, drinking tea
Loving kindness or Tonglen
Do you repeat a mantra
Or contemplate death, perhaps?

Do you devote yourself to a being
Who represents
The qualities 
You want to grow
Within yourself?

Or do you join with others
With a sangha, for meditation
With a community, for celebration
Perhaps you try: Carnivale, Purim, Ramadan, 
Songkran, Christmas, Sabbath, Holi
And see what sticks?

Some rooms are best
Not to enter
Rooms with people who say: 
"This house is the right one
The people out there
In other houses
Are 'them'
Failed attempts
At being us"

Learn about the house
You were born into
And if you're curious
Explore other houses too

On your travels
Be mindful
Of the rooms you choose
To go inside
Cherish the baby
And leave behind the bathwater