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2014年3月17日 星期一

Mang Shan Tour. 1 Tin Toi Shan (莽山行.1 天台山)


Since its introduction to China in the early Han Dynasty, Buddhism has grown deep roots in China. Long after it ceased to animate spirituality in its birthplace in northern India, it has sprouted not only shrubs but almost a forest of temples and monasteries on all the famous and not so famous mountain sides of China or even at their peaks. The ordinary folks worship the Amida Buddha as a "god" who would answer prayers, something which the Buddha has admonished against because for him, the only thing which matters is the dharma and the practices based on it. Others  are attracted by its preaching of the need for purity to be found in silent meditation and contemplation of the illusions of worldly wealth, secular power and political influence. Still others find solace from its teachings on the fickleness and impermanence of human emotions. Those with a penchant for thought find plenty of nourishment in its profound analysis of the nothingness of being and the consequential need for compassion for the less enlightened. But whatever the cause, it's rare that we don't find a Buddhist temple or two amidst the hills of China.


I visited one such hill in China: Mang Shan (莽山), at the northern tip of Quangdong (廣東)Province where it joins the south-western tip of Hunan (湖南)




The temple at  the side of Tin Toi Shan (天台山)


The gilt Buddha at the temple there


The plague says: "One must endure all insults like the earth"

The couplet says: "The secret of heaven revealed in the mouth of the great void; the 'break-through' sensed like a single moon printed upon a thousand rivers".


Hills submerged in clouds

  
Branches bent by strong mountain winds


Jagged ridges cutting through clouds to touch the sky 


 Clouds struggling up mountain peaks


Denuded hill tops standing guard over the clouds


Clouds everywhere and man, nowhere. It's the realm of spirituality.

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