On Thursday, April 17, I visited the Hue Quang Buddhist Temple in Santa Ana, California for a 7:00 pm evening prayer service with another student . This is a Vietnamese Buddhist temple and we were the only people at this prayer service who did not speak Vietnamese. Shoes had to be removed before entering the temple. The temple is an open room with a large white Buddha statue in the center and two white statues on either side. One of a man and one of a woman depicted touching her thumb and middle finger with her right hand and pouring water from a vase with the other. She is depicted with a child. The statues were illuminated with changing colors. Incense was burned and apples and oranges were stacked very carefully as offerings. Arriving early, we observed a woman dressed in blue bowing and praying to the woman's figure, and another person dressed in yellow ringing a giant bell with a large wooden beam suspended from it. An older gentleman with a very thick accent approached us and became our unofficial guide for the evening. He suggested that we pray to what he called “Lady Buddha” and that she would bring us luck and happiness. Then he taught us to say an important phrase that we should say during prayer when everyone else is saying prayers in Vietnamese. He taught us to say “A Di Đà Phật,” which I would later discover was the name of the bodhisattva Amida, and that the recitation of his name is very important. For the prayer service, square pillows were placed on the temple floor, and books on wooden stands were placed in front of each pillow. Our guide told us to stand at the edges of the room, and when the monk hit the bowl at the front of the room, we were to bow to the people in front of us... in the center of the card... ..ions. By examining the foundations and purposes of religion, we can begin to understand the “human condition.” The idea that religion was created to serve a shared purpose or to help solve a problem shared by all humanity is fascinating. Instead of continuing to argue about who has the right idea or who is going to hell, we should start understanding why we have religion. What sparked human interest in the divine or supernatural? What problems were presented to early humans that led to the need for greater power? How did these ideas spread and change, and why is there so much disagreement and hatred among so many of these groups today? At this point, it is no longer a question of who is right. Works Cited Oxtoby, Willard G, and Segal, Alan F. A Concise Introduction to World Religions. 2nd ed. Ontario: Oxford UP Canada, 2012. Print.