Lama Temple

It was Tuesday, 2oth of October 2009 when i went to Lama Temple.
Lama Temple is located in Yonghegong Dajie, you can take Subway line 2 and stop in Yonghegong Lama Temple station. You can take EXIT C cause it'll be the most convenient to get into the temple.

Lama Temple is a Buddhist Temple with Tibetan influence. The monks are pretty different with Shaolin Monks, because they wear red cloak, and they don't practice the martial arts heheu. I'm not an expert on this matter, so i borrowed this definition of Tibetan Buddhist from Wikipedia;

"Tibetan Buddhism is the body of Buddhist religious doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet and certain regions of the Himalayas, including northern Nepal, Bhutan and India (Arunachal, Pradesh, Ladakh, and Sikkim). It is also practiced in Mongolia and parts of Russia (Kalmykia, Buryatia and Tuva) and Northeast China"

On my way to Lama Temple, i passed a lot of store that sells incense, flowers, charms, and other stuffs that people usually use to pray in the temple. Well, i think incense can be pretty good for aroma therapy as well, so these Yonghegong Dajie stores are worth so check.

You need to pay 25Y to get into Lama Temple. It's for a ticket and one CD. Too bad that they don't have student discount there. But anyway, Lama Temple is a nice place for me.

(i'm sorry, but it was taken from the internet... hehe)

My visit to Lama Temple began with an accident. I was so gladly taking some pictures when suddenly my camera gave me a warning about "out of memory". That was strange, because i always remember to transfer the pictures from the MMC to my laptop. I checked it out, then i found out that i forgot to put the MMC inside the camera. Crappy shit.

(This lion is practically everywhere. People believe he brings good luck)

It was good that i have Martyna and she had a really good SLR with her. So, i took my time to go around Lama Temple. Actually, i managed to take pictures with some monks. I will upload it here as soon as i get a cable data.

(the bigger your wish, the more incense you need to use)

Ok, the first temple in Lama Temple is the Matreeya Temple. Matreeya is the Buddha of Future. He has a smiley face and big belly and always looks happy and optimistic. People burned incense in front of his temple and prayed for wealth, examination, happy marriage and that kind of stuff related with future. We're not allowed to burn incense inside his temple, nor to take pictures of him. The statue of Matreeya is guided by "Four Deffenders of Buddha", their statue were massive, they looked like warriors with scary faces.

Then, I found a statue with a lot of coin on it. I thought that we can make a wish on this statue, so i prepared a coin, and gave Martyna a coin as well. But then we found out that we're not allowed to throw coin on this. I don't understand why there was a lot of coin there. Maybe we can only throw coins in certain occations.

(don't throw coin on it, pals...)

There were many kinds of temple for many kinds of Buddhist Gods. There was also the temple of Kwan Im, the Goddess of Mercy. A Chinese girl told me that this is the most popular temple. I guess i know why,, heheh.

I think the most interesting part of Lama Temple is the massive statue of Matreeya, which is written in the Guiness Book of Record. The statue is 80 meters tall above the ground, and constructed about 8 meters deep under the ground. It was made from a single trunk of wood. It's so amazing, the statue is just beautiful. Actually, it's not allowed to take pictures inside the temple, but i managed to find a picture of Matreeya from the internet. I really want to show it to you.

(The Guinnes Book of Records written Matreeya)

I also went to the Jie Tai Art Exhibition Room. In this Exhibiton Room, there was a three-stories marble stage made in 6th century to welcome the Panchen Lama who came from Tibet. There were also some Buddhist God statues and explanations about Buddhism. These are few things that i learned in there;

• Guru is the way to call someone who create the doctrin of this Buddhism way
  
• Buddha means conciousness; the purpose is to get the full awareness of yourself. There are three kinds of Buddha; The Past Buddha, The Current Buddha and The Future Buddha
  
• Devi means wisdom; she appears in the form 16 years old girl maiden
  
• Sarmadani is the idea of controlling what you say, do, and think
• Bodhisattva means enlightment
  
• Dharmapala is the idea of protecting Dharma (the good deeds)
  

(Well, i don't have plan to change my belief, it's just for knowledge, u know ;p)
Too bad, we're not allowed to take pictures in this room either.

(candid pict of me taken by Martyna, i'll soon upload my pict with the monks)

I met a lot of foreigners here. I believe they also think that Lama Temple is a great tourist destination. I just hope they can provide a guide book/ broschure so we can learn about the history and art of Tibetan Buddhism more.