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When we talk about worship in Buddhism, inevitably we have to talk about the Mahayana school. The Mahayana is a reform movement that emerged in India around the beginning of the A.D. era. It changes the style, the tone and the content of Buddhist practice in profound ways.
BN: Laughing. We may be getting some goats soon. You know the economics of this? They milk the goats. The female goats give birth to billy goats, but there is no use for the billy goats. So after 40 days, they kill the male goat to eat. So we are going to adopt a male goat. And see from there if we can add more. We do eat seafood here, but I'd like the monastery to become completely vegetarian. We still follow the practice of not eating after noon.
theravada BN: Yes, serving others is what make us happy. It's paradoxical. You forget about yourself when you serve others. At the same time, we should work on knowing our minds and to develop ethical living, to learn not to cause suffering to others. Others are just like us even with our differences. So it's our responsibility to make our actions "blameless." We learn how to relate to our inevitable problems.
Lay followers generally engaged in this kind of worship. Monks and nuns also worshiped these objects, but with a different goal in mind. They worshiped these objects in a kind of meditation, to be reminded of the Buddha's teaching.
"Do you stretch?" I asked while working on his Hamstrings. "I'm sorry, what did you say?" Harvey responded. "Do you stretch regularly?" I repeated my question. "Are you asking if I am stressed?" Harvey couldn't hear my softly-posed inquiry. But he answered the real question I had in mind. I smiled and proceeded in silence.
BN: The word Buddha can mean knowing, knowing something. The five skandas may be the object of meditation (and we come to see their impermanent and dependent characteristics) and there is the awareness of them. Yet still the awareness is part of the characteristics of phenomena. I agree. I don't think that awareness can be truly separated from the characteristics of phenomena. Of course awareness is fundamental and essential to mindfulness.
The Leshan Giant Buddha is regarded as the biggest carved stone Buddha in the world. Carved from the Lingyun Mountain, this statue is found in the Dadu, Qingyi, and Minjian rivers in Sichuan, China. It stands 71 meters (230 ft) in height and spans 28 meters (92 ft) between its shoulders. At 14.7 meters (48 feet) high, the head alone is large enough for 100 people to sit on.
Notice how your arms swing as you walk along. Feel how you hold your head and neck, is it rigid and tense or fluid and moving? Switch your attention to different body parts as you are walking and you may be surprised at what you find. Do you feel the air brushing onto your skin, the warmth of the sun? Can you feel your heartbeat, or notice blinking?
