Posted to Facebook - Life Teaching by Sin Fong Chan
Visiting places of worship with an open mind
https://www.facebook.com/notes/life-teaching-by-sin-fong-chan/visiting-places-of-worship-with-an-open-mind/538029069628424I treat religion as a subject of knowledge.
I go to a church or cathedral but often for the wrong reason - funeral service. There are occasions when I carry my camera as a "tourist", I would enter one and even say a prayer, not for my own wellbeing, but for the many who are less fortunate than I am. Then there are Easter and Christmas concerts that I attended.
I also enter places of other faiths - and "do what the Romans do".
At a temple, Taoist or Buddhist temple, I burn joss sticks, kneel or bow depending on the circumstances. There are always statues or paintings made / drawn to the images of the Shen 神 I pay respect to. Oh yes, I say my prayers, too. When I was a child, I prayed to pass my exams, but now I pray for peace and health.
I take off my shoes, put a robe, rinse my feet when I enter a mosque. I have visited some "badly ventilated" mosques overseas near deserts with very high temperature, where the smell of the air was rather unbearable despite the fact that visitors did rinse their feet before entry. I do not how to pray in the Muslim way, so I give it a miss.
From my recollection, I believe I had visited an Hindu temple several times when I was a child, feeding the pigeons. There were statues of goddess with many arms, and god with an elephant head. The past visits help me to open a channel of dialogue with my students from India.
Visiting places of worship is definitely an experience, especially when entering it with an open mind. It is a choice to have a strong faith in one over the others or even rejecting all except one. Isn't this similar to other forms of discrimination and bias?
I go to a church or cathedral but often for the wrong reason - funeral service. There are occasions when I carry my camera as a "tourist", I would enter one and even say a prayer, not for my own wellbeing, but for the many who are less fortunate than I am. Then there are Easter and Christmas concerts that I attended.
I also enter places of other faiths - and "do what the Romans do".
At a temple, Taoist or Buddhist temple, I burn joss sticks, kneel or bow depending on the circumstances. There are always statues or paintings made / drawn to the images of the Shen 神 I pay respect to. Oh yes, I say my prayers, too. When I was a child, I prayed to pass my exams, but now I pray for peace and health.
I take off my shoes, put a robe, rinse my feet when I enter a mosque. I have visited some "badly ventilated" mosques overseas near deserts with very high temperature, where the smell of the air was rather unbearable despite the fact that visitors did rinse their feet before entry. I do not how to pray in the Muslim way, so I give it a miss.
From my recollection, I believe I had visited an Hindu temple several times when I was a child, feeding the pigeons. There were statues of goddess with many arms, and god with an elephant head. The past visits help me to open a channel of dialogue with my students from India.
Visiting places of worship is definitely an experience, especially when entering it with an open mind. It is a choice to have a strong faith in one over the others or even rejecting all except one. Isn't this similar to other forms of discrimination and bias?