May 28, 2010

Oushuu33Kannon Temples 11-12-13 Part 23


After looking at the small shrine, Ian and I turned right and started up a slope toward the main building. We found this statue beside the path. As you can see it is very worn and people had piled small stones on every horizontal surface. As far as I can determine, the act of piling up stones represents building a stupa, originally a grave, to represent the Buddha. However, there may well be more to it than that.The main pray hall was quite typical and contained nothing unusual as far as we could see. It was, however, very pleasant to look at.
This is Ian offering a small pray in front of a small shrine building. Ian is much more conscientious about doing this than I am. He has been having some problems so he uses the pray as a chance to quiet his mind. I, on the other hand, have almost no problems at all and meditate every day, so I tend to look around more and spend time finding good places to take pictures for this blog.
This is Ian on the stairs up to the building that contains the statue of Kannon, which is the focus of this stop on the pilgrimage.
The next picture is the shrine at the top of the stairs. Notice the small building on the right. It allows the priest and others to enter the shrine from the right side (you can see the railing on the stairs). This is particularly important in bad weather.

No comments: