Our next door neighbor -- the Nanputuo Temple

Today might be the best day I have had so far. We decided to visit the Nanputuo Temple with a philosophy grad student who has befriended Michael. The temple is very close to the our building. If you look at the photo I took from the mountain (we climbed that later in the day) you can see the temple grounds in the right foreground, including the pagoda and a lily pad pond. In the center foreground is a white 4 story building with a white roof. That is our building. It took us less than 5 minutes to walk to the back gate of the temple, pictured here.

So Once we were inside, we enjoyed the grounds and Thomas posed as Siddhartha under the banyan tree. The grounds are beautiful and open to the public. We paid 2 yuan (about 26 cents) to get inside the temple proper. This is a very important temple in southern China, and there were many different altars, some are being restored . People were lighting incense sticks, bowing and presenting them at the various altars and it had a very peaceful feel. We even saw the altar for Guanyin, the goddess of mercy...who takes special care of those in need and is beloved of women and girls, who have often had a hard lot in Chinese history.
While walking the paths we saw caves with offerings in them, and according to Michael's student, the monastery and temple were started by a monk living in a cave.

Then Sophia began toddling around and caught the attention of one of the monks. He was taken with all the children and with the help of our friend, gave us a tour of the monastery areas near by. He even took us into his "office" a cave next to one of the altars (see the first picture). I pointed out to him that some of the Bodhisattva images in the cave had dark skin (and gestured to Sophia)..he told us that "the Buddha came to all the peoples" and to our surprise made a gift of the statue, which our friend told us the monks will do when they feel a close connection to a visitor. I am planning to have the photos printed and then take them back to him as a way of saying thank you. He certainly made our visit a more spiritual one. He gave Michael and I each a little pocket talisman -- Michael spent the afternoon translating the characters on his with the dictionary..it means "to go and come back safe and sound" Mine has a yin and yang symbol. All this culture just 5 minutes from our home!

Seriously -- you people need to get over here and visit us. It is amazing every day. Helen is so "in love" with being here that she told me today that "she loves the bus way better than the minivan, loves the fish swimming in the grocery store and all the unusual food, loved climbing the mountain and seeing the monk." We had lunch after the temple at the monastery owned restaurant across the street, which specializes in vegetarian food.

By the way -- I am receiving comments to the blog, but they do not appear instantly because I have blogger set to email them to me first. Because I can not view the blog directly from inside China, I can't reply to comments in the blog, but I read every one via email! If I have your email address I'll reply to questions.