Blessings

This morning we were blessed at the local Buddhist pagoda (temple) in the village.  This is a newly constructed building, still under construction in parts, and brightly painted with murals from the life of Buddha.  Inside, there are new figures and ancient ones.  The main seated Buddha is clearly very old, perhaps from the temple that was replaced by this one. There are several hundred monks and penitents who live on the grounds, this being a place that takes on the elderly, sick, or disabled if they need help.

Before we went to the temple, we went to the local market to buy offerings.  We bought noodles and oil and coffee and fruit.  A number of students bought their own small offerings, mostly coffee or tea. 

The market was really interesting, with vendors in small stalls.  Some had small general stores, others sold one or two items--fish or meat or melons.  Bowls of live catfish flopped around.  A whole pig's head sat for sale.  Large hunks of meat hung from hooks.  Whole families worked together, with babies and young children helping their parents.  People smiled and waved, some of them laughed as we tried to identify various strange foods.  There were flies, lots of flies, and no refrigeration was in evidence.  Cats and dogs mingled with us, as the jumped over plates of food or bags of rice.  It was definitely not like anything most of us have seen before.  

We carried our offerings back to the temple, removed our shoes, and climbed up.  Our offerings went onto a large silver platter at the front of the alter.  We kneeled and bowed three times to the Buddha statue.  Then two saffron robed monks came in, and we bowed to them. To give our offering, we all held hands while still kneeling, and the student who happened to be in front, Rachel A., ceremonially lifted the silver platter and then set it down while still kneeling.  

After accepting our offering, the head monk went and got an ordinary white five gallon bucket of water and some plastic flowers.  He lit some incense, and held it over the water as he chanted.  When he was done, he dipped the flowers into the water and began splashing us by shaking the flowers over us.  This was the blessing.  The second monk took a bunch of green herbs and splashed us as well.  Then the head monk dipped a bundle of red strings into the water and handed them to us for our wrists, to be worn for three days.