Monday, July 21, 2008

Jokhang Temple

In the center of Lhasa lies the Jokhang temple the most holy of the Tibetan sites.
All Tibetans, if they are to be considered devout, are supposed to make a Pilgrimage to the Jokhang Temple once in their lifetimes. They have to circle the temple clockwise as many times as they can before entering. They also can circle the block to make their pilgrimage extra effective, and we even saw pilgrims circling the city(!). Prostrating is also a part of the process.
That is what the folks in this photo are doing. They are prostrating in front of the temple before they go in. As you can see they have special mats and stuff to make it less hard on the bones, but of course there are many who don't. Nema says that it is good to prostrate every day. No specific number but in his family they do it the number of thier age. There are also many pilgrims that prostrate the whole circuit around the temple and Nema told us of some who will prostrate their whole pilgrimage route from their village in the country and take years to get to Lhasa.
The next photo is a large prayer wheel. They might have these in India or Nepal but not China that is for sure. The Prayer Wheel is full of religious scriptures, and each turn of the wheel is like "reading" the scriptures inside. It is important to read scriptures to counter act any bad things that you have done in your life. We saw people all the time walking around with prayer wheels spinning them all the time. I don't see how anyone can be as bad as all that.

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