4th May 2008 Southbank, Brisbane
Knew about this festival from Karen and heard that there will be fireworks, so Khai Chin, Wei Jien, both Alice and me happily went to the festival and have a look.
Why are we so happy? or at least why am I so happy about the festival??
Mostly because it would be the 1st time i celebrate Buddhist Festival in a western country, it is a new experience. This reminds me of the Wesak Day, those days in Intec, days in Buddhist Group, time spent to be a volunteer during Wesak Day....
Well, that's not the point, if i want to say how i miss my life in Intec, erm...not really Intec, but friends in Intec, it would take a whole post for that. So, continue with the Buddha Festival.
Buddha Festival is to celebrate the birth of Buddha as Siddhartha on the 8th day of the 4th Lunar month. The aim of this festival is to promote peace and harmony as well as bringing the temple to people, making the religion more ???. The 1st festival in Southbank was back in 1997 and throughout these years, its popularity increases.
There are a few ceremonies and activities to be done on that day. One of the most significant ceremonies is the 'Bathing Buddha' ritual which main purpose is to improve harmony and inner balance. The procedure will be:
1. Kneel on the cushion.
2. Fill the ladle with water and pour over small Buddha statue for 3 times.
3. For each pouring, read:
- 1st wash: "May I eliminate evil thoughts"
- 2nd wash: "May I cultivate good deeds"
- 3rd wash: "May I help save all living beings"
Well, since we all need to sleep, ok, it's me that need to sleep, so we departed during afternoon. Of course i'm not that big influence la, we went there in the afternoon mainly because we skipped the multi-faith forum.
Anyway, so we took citycat, ya, as in the picture, from Guyatt Park to Southbank Quay
toilet of the Citycat
what am i looking at?c the pictures below n u will know
Finally, when we reached Southbank, this was what we saw:
Bathing Buddha Ceremony:
Guess what? I even saw Shao Lin Kung Fu!!The most surprising part to me is that it is presented not only by Chinese, but also Caucasian leh!!! Ok, i admit I'm 三巴, but i'm so excited when i see them presenting Shao Lin Kung Fu, with the background music is 男而当自强 and 霍元甲. There are even kids!!
So let's the pictures tell you la!
This is the process of 心口碎大石...There was a multi-faith light offering ceremony too, I nearly missed it as I was too engrossed with the Shao Lin Kung Fu. There were representatives from several religions (I can't remember their names and who actually they are...sorry~~) including representatives from Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism. They gave their prayers regarding the birth of Buddha. The environment is quiet and solemn...
After the Light Offering Ceremony, we walked around and saw many stalls that sold food and souvenirs...
I heard one of the stall keepers said that they are dealers and normally won't set a stall like that, this time is only for the purpose of Buddha Festival, and all the profit gained will be donated. How kind they are~ feel touched and become 'paiseh' to bargain with them...
professional photographer, Alice,with her professional camera.. =P
Honestly, the most important factor that attracts me there is the fireworks display! I really love to see fireworks, i recorded a video clip for that too, but as usual, I can't upload to my blog...Maybe I'm really noob in IT stuffs...haha!
Since i can't upload to my blog, i asked the very kind and nice Mr Kok to help me and he uploaded the videos to youtube. So thanks to him, the videos of fireworks are up on my blog now! haha! The fireworks really nice lo!!
Anyway, after the fireworks, we then went back and that's it for the festival!
and so to my update...haha!
* big thanks to Mr Kok for helping me. As a token of appreciation, i won't tease u in any comment u leave me for this post..haha, this post only.. *clapz clapz*
~jj~
