Wow! I hope you guys have not missed me much because I have been totally engaged with one thing or the other since I got to China and I have not had the energy to update my blog. China has also banned facebook, youtube and the likes so I will posting my personal pics. Whenever, I get the chance during these business trips, to choose one day to visit a place of interest, I always vie for a historical religious center; 2 years ago when I went for a 5-day business trip to Rome and was giving a day to visit either the Coliseum or the Vatican City. I opted for the Vatican City without much thought.
Why Religious center(s)? When there is the famous Disney World which I humbly submit not to have ever visited. Well, whether people agree with it or not, they are motivated and driven by a spiritual space and I am always appalled upon how people organize themselves to revere spiritual entity or entities as the case may be; Catholic, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Evangelicals and the list goes on. With different perspective on how to organize reverence for the spiritual space that inspires them, the world happens to be in more of chaos than peace.
Difference in perception is actually a God’s initiative; according to the bible in the book of Genesis 11, people had the same perception on everything and they agreed to build towers to reach heaven. This is similar to organizing reverence to spiritual space; their motivations were however questionable; “Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth”. God saw that with same perception and imagination, man can do and undo.
If man can do and undo, God will therefore not be in the equation of any man’s decision and though they started by building one religious body, their motivations was actually to build names for themselves not necessarily to reverence God. Hence, God gave them various perceptions and scattered them abroad upon the face of the earth. Despite this separation, people have not stopped building towers to heaven but now on a different perception and they still want to make names for themselves worshiping their own creation and substituting it for God.
The Shaolin temple has more than a hundred statuette and statues representing various gods in one temple. It is filled with male and female monks and as the anecdote goes, Shaolin monk Sengchou (480-560) gained supernatural strength and fighting ability by praying to Vajrapani (one of the gods) and being force-fed raw meat. Thus, this Buddhist monastery is strongly associated with martial arts. The first Shaolin temple was built by an Indian dhyana master who came to China from India in AD 464 to spread Buddhist teachings.
The main act of worship is lighting incense or joss sticks. These are generally provided to worshipers by the temple in exchange for a small donation (there is offering time everywhere). Worshipers generally take three or nine incense sticks and light them from an oil lamp placed beside the burner. They hold the incense sticks in both hands while bowing the head and present them as an offering to the god(s) in the temple. Candles are also lit to the various gods. These candles are red and are made with a stick down the middle, and the stick is placed in special holders beside the incense burner, which consist of metal trays with holes in them.
My conclusion goes thus; the Shaolin Temple is another perception of man’s reach to heaven. The temple I visited in Chongqing is very big with about 50 different big temples in one single land mass. It is far bigger than the Vatican City in size and has some recreational spot to chill out. This is one of the central religions of the Chinese and I am still intrigued that great qualities like strong work ethic; innovative spirit; conservative nature of the Chinese is inspired by the teachings from these temples. Have a lovely weekend!
