Posts

Showing posts from December, 2006

Bonenkai 2006

108 New Year chimes and 'Golden' contemplations

Image
New year celebrations is one thing common to wherever you live in, so as Santa and Christmas lights harbingering the onset of new year. Along with "mochitsuki", the making of mochi: glutinous rice cake and exchanging "nengajou": New year postcards, one of the remarkable characteristic of Japanese new year celebrations is the traditional ritual of tolling temple chimes 108 times . When I first saw it in the TV, last year, 108-toll of Japan's biggest bell at the famous Chion-in temple, Kyoto I could instantaneously track its origin back to India, the country where I hail from. 108 has always been the most divine number in Hinduism. Thoughts about number 108 also became reminiscent of my grandmother, who used to chime Hindu litany 108 times when I was a kid. Later I came to know that 108 is a holy number in Buddhism as well, most relevant example being 108 balls in Buddhist prayer bead: Juzu. As with Juzu, one of the most famous explanation could be Lord Buddha'

Is this the way to teach kids about abortion?