The Buddha

Buddhist temples are places of serenity, beauty and acceptence. Ceremonies and festivals at the temples range from huge, formal events, to casual meals with the monks.

There are many traditions associated with holidays and events in the temples. These pictures were taken sometime after Chinese New Years, so the everyone is concerned with ensuring a happy and prosperous Year of the Horse.

Food and flowers are brought as sacrefices to please the deities, money and paper models are burned either as bribes for gods or for deceased relatives. People drink water with ghost money ashes for health. At the temple pictured, we burned incense and listened to the monks chant.

Every morning as I commute to work, I walk past a small temple on a river (I believe they would call it an "open sewer" in the US, and not a "river," but you say tomato, Taiwan says tomoto, eh?) I long to give up all my capitalist Western tendencies and donate all posessions, find complete denial of the self and be enlightened, however, the monks only speak Chinese, and I don't know how to ask "where is the bathroom?" yet.

Today I emailed my brother's best friend, Kenton. (K - if you are checking out the site and read this, kick ass!) I was so bored at one point, I entered people's names into search engines to see what web pages are associated with them, My sister? Her search found Communication Arts magazine's article about an advertising project she did, My brother (and Kenton) were on a site dedicated to their favorite sci-fi-esque game, War Hammer 40K. Paul Rinehart brought up the alumni site for his school in Denmark. Lori's found an article about library stuff from when she was in grad school. Maggie in Taichung is associated with a page she wrote in college discussing surrealist art in Spanish. Ryan Murphy, of course, is associated with Shamrock Design. (Contact them for all your 4-color printing and business card needs.) My friend, Dan, is associated with DTM Films. Rosemary Pettit is associated with a research program at the Univerisity of Maryland studying Chickens. And, Evan Piper is listed as the Tae Kwon Do champion for a martial arts school in the Southeast. I knew he was getting in good shape, but bicycling to South Carolina three times a week from Seattle to kick ass is VERY impressive. Take care all and have fun!

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