Deep dents on the wooden floor of the cloister in the temple, believers who turn the prayer wheel devoutly to recite the six-character mantra, lamas who keep chanting and drumming outside the temple ... how many times must they kowtow to leave such a strong mark on the wooden board? How much love does it take for believers to spend most of their property to build this ancient temple with many treasures? This is probably faith, right? Staring at the enduring incense in the temple, I thought about this problem. Before giving my answer, let me talk about Ta 'er Temple.
Ta 'er Temple is particularly recognizable. When you see a glittering golden dome not far away, that is the destination. The first thing you see when you enter Ta 'er Temple is the eight pagodas in the square, which were built in memory of Buddha Sakyamuni. Eight pagodas correspond to eight great merits. Eight pagodas are arranged in turn, with white towers and scriptures, which are particularly solemn in the empty square. This pagoda is unique to Lamaism. I have seen similar pagodas in four continents of the Summer Palace in Beijing, all of which are Sino-Tibetan buildings.
The Ursa Hall of Ta 'er Temple is the birthplace of Master Zong Kaba. It is located in the center of the temple, where there is the Great Jinwata of Master Zong Kaba. Later, Ta 'er Temple was expanded around this temple, forming its present scale. I was deeply impressed by the golden dome of this temple. According to the commentator, in 200 1 year, more than 160 kilograms of gold was used to gild Jinding, which is a veritable "Jinding"! There are not only Jinding but also Silver Pagoda in the temple. In 20 12, monks and nuns wrapped the big silver tower with 860 kilograms of gold, with pure silver as the bottom, gold plated and inlaid with various precious jewels. No wonder the commentator said that the temple is the richest place in the Lamaism region, and all the wealth is gathered here.
In fact, the life of believers is not very rich, but they believe in Tibetan Buddhism and believe that these teachings can lead them to a better afterlife, so they would rather live a poor life and donate most of their property to temples. Maybe we can't understand why faith is so powerful, but there are so many incomprehensible ideas in this world that we can accept the existence of these different ideas.
Whether you believe in Buddhism or not, you can visit Ta 'er Temple. Because it not only has Buddhist culture, but also splendid art-ghee sculpture, mural painting and pile embroidery. Unfortunately, these artworks are not allowed to take pictures, so there are no relevant pictures for everyone to enjoy.
Butter sculpture is one of the characteristics of Tibetan Buddhism. It is a sculpture made of ghee as a tribute and contains thousands of contents. All kinds of Buddha statues, figures, landscapes, pavilions, birds and animals, flowers and trees together form a Buddhist story. Butter is the essence extracted from yak milk. Believers have the custom of offering ghee to temples, which is generally used for lighting Buddha lanterns or eating. On lunar calendar/KOOC-0/0/KOOC-0/5, butter was added with natural pigments to make butter sculpture, which was exhibited on the 15th day of the first month three months later.
When I saw the butter sculpture outside the glass of the exhibition hall, I was amazed at its vividness and grandeur. They are complete scenes of Buddhist stories with bright colors and meticulous patterns. The composition is very similar to the big scene illustrations we usually see in Buddhist scriptures, which is very standardized and rigorous. Making ghee sculpture needs to overcome the discomfort of the body. The solidification of ghee needs a low temperature environment, so it must be in a cold room. In the process of making, in order to reduce the temperature of the hand to the temperature where the ghee will not melt and deform, the hand is continuously immersed in ice water to cool down. The extreme beauty brought by this cruel art reflects the piety of monks.
Murals (including Thangka) are placed in the main halls of Ta 'er Temple. In particular, Buddhist stories, fairy tales and historical figures are painted on the cloth curtain. This mural has both spirit and shape. Amazingly, Buddha's eyes are staring at you from different angles. Pile embroidery is an art used to make stickers, three-dimensional pile embroidery is a unique work of art in Ta 'er Temple, and pile embroidery in Dajingtang is the only one in Tibetan Buddhism. Bright colors, very distinctive.
The six divisions in the wheel of Buddhist karma seem to be contrary to science, which focuses on the present and Buddhism on the future. Science constantly uses theory and practice to improve productivity and achieve faster and better life goals for human society. Buddhism uses the blessings of this life to pray for good results in the afterlife, which is a kind of consciousness. No wonder it is classified as idealism in philosophy. However, if faith can bring hope, it is better than inner desolation. It helps us to find a possibility to make the soul peaceful, which is different from worldly success.
In my opinion, faith tells us more what not to do than what it brings. In many religious teachings, people think that when you hurt others, you also hurt yourself. Good karma is probably like this! But many times, faith carries prayers and desires, and it will only be thought of when there is something to ask. I don't agree with the idea of "what material enjoyment do you want from religion". In addition, faith is different from religion, and there are many other ideologies. No matter how I look at religion or belief, I am a person who chooses to live in the present.