Thoughts about mindfulness, mortality and how we deal with it. There may be some funeral thoughts, including practical ideas from my own experience of many funerals, but there are other 'good funeral guides.' I want to offer branch lines rather than the express route from midwife to funeral director. I want this to be about mindfulness, life and mortality, not about dying. But...
Wednesday, 4 May 2011
Incense for Perhapsists
This is a temple in Hong Kong, to Tin Hua, who is (I think, my Cantonese being a wee bit shaky) a god of seafaring and fishing. They don't want people taking photos inside the temples - fair enough - but I hope this shot from the doorway gives you some idea of the joss-smoked, wonderfully gaudy interior. At a different temple to the same god (photo didn't come out) by the sea on Lamma Island I did as requested by a couple of my regular visitors (OK, by my regular visitors...) and lit a joss stick on behalf of all Perhapsists. It seemed the decent thing to do. No doubt the humanist police will soon hunt me down. I also visited a Buddhist nunnery, the huge prayer-hall of which was a much more tranquil place, with a beautiful courtyard. All redolent of rather more useful insights, truths and practices than yer average knock-about temple (three guys were eating their lunch in one corner of this place above) I popped a couple of bob in the can to help keep the Buddha gilded etc - but slightly missed the rackety mixed-up Buddhist/Taoist/Confucian mix of temples like this one to Tin Hua.
I can smell the joss sticks from here! Wonderful... Thanks for sharing your travels with us GM.
ReplyDeleteYou're very welcome CB, but I'd probably better not follow up with the entire album, my broadband would go down...
ReplyDeletePlaces which inspire wonder are... wonderful. Thank you for the joss stick. I am an avid candle lighter in cathedrals. All very mind-opening, GM, but I fear you may be in for a period of rigorous re-education, possibly on a potato farm in Lincolnshire. What price serenity in the BHA gulag?!
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