Ten Thousand Buddhas

Healthwise, this has been for me the worst start to a year that I have ever had and at the moment I am on sick leave, which is a relatively new experience for me. Hence the reason I haven't posted anything here for the last few days.
But, I guess this just comes with the territory when you get to a certain age.

Anyway, not being able to sleep much last night I ended up watching a movie - Infernal Affairs (recently remade by Martin Scorsese as The Departed.) It's a great story, well told, dealing with complex moral questions of right and wrong, good and bad etc. but (and how sad is this?) one of the things I liked most about it was spotting all the locations in the film that I had visited while I was in Hong Kong.

The film begins in the Monastery of the Ten Thousand Buddhas.

This is a totally fascinating place and, to my Western Judeao-Christian eyes, almost bizarre.

There are in fact many more than ten thousand statues of the Buddha in the temple and its precincts, and they come in all shapes and sizes and poses.

One of the biggest challenges, though, is simply climbing up the four or five hundred steps to reach the monastery- but you can always stop at any point and pretend you are studying one of the statues, when in truth you are just trying to get some oxygen into your lungs.

I think my favourite was this 'surfing Buddha.' Obviously that was not his proper title, but he reminded me of a surfer or skateboarder.

The monastery of the ten thousand Buddhas is one of the places that I visited on my own, taking the train to Sha Tin and following the signs up the hill.

Being entirely on my own made it an even more 'alien' experience, and, for me, an even more rewarding one. There were so many sights I simply could not understand. Why is there a Buddha sitting on top of a huge blue dog? What is the significance of the nine-storey pagoda?

What do all the symbols represent?

In one way I was glad that there was no one with me who might have been able to answer these questions, because it meant I was free just to 'experience' it as a sort of visual feast.

Sometimes I think experiences without explanation are worth it for their own sake.

Shop till you drop

Where have I been these last couple of weeks? you might ask - if anyone ever reads this blog, that is.*

Well, you can be sure of one thing I have not been indulging in the nation's favourite pastime - shopping - even though it is now getting very near to Christmas. Nor have I recently been where this photograph was taken (Mong Kok in Hong Kong) which is a pity, because Hong Kong is a fantastic place. I say this even though shopping is undoubtedly the top pastime in Hong Kong and it is probably one of my pet hates. (With the possible exceptions of buying CD's and books.) Oh... and the imminent possibility of purchasing a new camera! That I will enjoy, although I know already exactly what camera I want to buy, so it won't take long.

To be honest I just don't know where shoppers get the stamina from. I've found it easier to walk the West Highland Way than to walk down Sauchiehall Street on a late December day. (In fact, to be even more honest, it's a long while since I did either!) NO - shopping is just not my thing. Any shopping I do now is usually done online. Your feet don't get so sore for one thing.
I am, however, really looking forward to Christmas because the family will all be together again.
Of course, I will be working on Christmas Eve (a Sunday) even doing a bit of the night shift with our midnight service and I'll be working on Christmas Day. But I wouldn't miss it for anything - not even flying off to the sun (or more likely sitting in a tent in a fog-bound Heathrow Airport. Ouch! poor folk.)

Anyway... back to Christmas. "This'll be your busy time!" is the comment I hear more than any other during the run up to Christmas. You can almost hear the implied observation that for the rest of the year you don't really do very much anyway. I'm not sure it is much busier for me than many other times of the year: it's just that people see me at all sorts of events. Tomorrow morning I will be at my fourth school Christmas service!
(Actually, it is only my third. I had a clash of dates for one of them and had the brilliant idea of making a short video to be played in the service through the multimedia system, an upbeat message, wishing everyone a really Happy Christmas. Unfortunately the school's laptop wasn't quite up to it and struggled to do both video and audio at the same time. Apparently my contribution was more like the Rev. I. M. Jolly, when the sound slowed down and went out of sync with the pictures.

A colleague who was present at the service because her daughter is a pupil in the school very kindly and thoughtfully wrote this to me the next day: "Just a quick note to thank you for giving me the best laugh I’ve had in ages – tears were rolling down my cheeks – you may already have heard. Not sure what was up with the sound on your message today – but I did make comment that you could audition for the next IM Jolly!
As you well know I am not highly PC literate so I am afraid we all just enjoyed the moment – or rather minutes. It certainly made the end of our service today highly memorable. Eilidh was there with another 2 from VP – and she has talked about your funny voice every since she came home – wondering if you were better now – if you still have funny voice – so I have tried to reassure her that it was your tape recorder not you that was a bit sick and next time she sees you in her school you will be fine!!!"

Well, isn't that what we are supposed to do? Cheer one another up?
What I'm not looking forward to, however, is my next visit to the school.
(I think I'd rather go shopping!!)

*Don't forget to add your comments if you do read this.