The Circle of Life

 Please allow me to introduce you to 

The Big Buddha

It is a huge white Buddha which is seated on a lotus blossom.  Standing 14 metres high and 152 steps up to the base. 

The swastika looks out of place at the base there, but the buddists believe that swastika is a symbol of the circle of life..... and lets face it, Buddhists have been around a lot longer than the 3rd Reich.

The Long Son Pagoda - a Buddhist Temple which was founded in the late 19th century.  The entrance and the roof are both decorated by mosaic dragons made of glass and ceramic tiles.

And more googly eyes.... 

Incense is burned to send the scent of Earth to Heaven.

The dark buddha at the back represents the past, the gold buddha at the front represents the future.

The long ear lobes show a long life, which is why some people try desperately to lengthen theirs.

 On the ceiling of the pagoda, there are paintings originally created in the 1940s telling the story of Buddha's life.

He was born into a royal family and wanted for nothing....

When he was older he came across 4 situations

1. A begger with only one foot

2. A skeleton with no tomb

3. A Man who had problems

4. An elderly man who had nobody to care for him

Buddha looked at his own life and couldn't understand why he should have everything and these people were not blessed equally......

 So he sat under a tree and thought about things.  Women would bring him food, and he would refuse saying that his beliefs only allowed him to eat once a day, but the women convinced him that if he ate 3 times a day that he would become strong and would be able to think better......

And he came up with a plan.....

Back in those days, it was believed that if you murdered 20 people you would become immortal.

Buddha passed a murderer who had killed 19 people and was pretty keen to make Buddha his 20th, but he struck up a deal.  He said, "If you can outrun me I'll let you murder me, but if you can't outrun me, you must become my servant."  Thinking that this would be an easy job, the murderer accepted the deal...... we all know what happens in the end - he couldn't outrun him.  

He said to Buddha, "Why shouldn't I just kill you anyway?" and Buddha replied, "You have not shared anything in your life, you have just taken everything for yourself.  There is no point for you to be immortal because your life will have no meaning."

The murderer immediately saw the light and followed Buddha from that day forth.....

When Buddha finally died, they laid him on his side and pretended that he was asleep, because when you die you don't wake up, but when you sleep, you do and they wanted to hold onto the hope that he would one day wake up.

The circle of life is explained here in this picture.  There's a fair bit to it, but basically if you're a good person, you'll either come back as another good person or you'll go to heaven, but if you're a bad person, you'll come back as an animal or you'll go to hell!  

Simple!

There are a list of 10 'deadly sins' listed at the bottom which are very similar to the 10 commandments which pretty much say - don't be an asshole to anyone.

I think there's something in that for everyone.