At the wake
Disclaimer: For those who are intolerable to criticism of religions, please refrain from reading the below entry. I will try my best not to deframe anyone of your religion and YET expresses my personal feelings and thoughts.
Today seems like a busy day for me, though i felt not much things has been accomplished. Waking up at 9.30am, my entire family rush to prepare ourselves, so that we can be present at the wake by 10.30am. When we reached, only 2 relative were there with a team of people to set up the wake. Err...
Anyway the buddhist ritual proceed smoothly. Seriously, the ritual seems absurb to me. Nonethesless, we respected the religion and witnessed everything at the side. When my grandma preserved corpse arrived, all of us gathered. People helped to dress up my grandma before asking the males to button up. Next, a monk came and mediate... don't understand a single thing, but the sentence structure seem to rhymes. Interestingly, i observed an external person standing at the side, who also murmered the exact stuff! His mouth correspond exactly to what the monk mediate. Impressive. I really wonder how u all memorized these, which lasted for at least 15 minutes. After the meditation, my dad's brother were asked to offered incense and bring back the soul of my grandma, while the rest of my relatives were "instructed" to cry for my grandma to come back. As usual, they burn paper money and offered incense.
A lot of things that they do were tag with a certain meaning, which i completely disagree. For example, the sons and daughters were asked to simulate "cleaning" my grandma by using a wet towel and "imagineryly" wipe my grandma without touching her body. This is to make her "pure" so that she may become a buddha. Errm... no doubt, different people have different thoughts. So even if you are a buddhist reading this blog now and feel that what i'm typing its not right, don't bother to comment. Comment only when you yourself know what you're doing, understand perfectly, deeply believe in what u're doing and are confident to convince me that this ritual is ABSOLUTE necessary.
Imagine you are the most devoted buddhist, are you confident to become a Buddha? Be realistic. We are man with limitations, not God.
Haha... religion is always a sensitive topic. People will always Bo Song one another. But this is my blog. Not yours understand? I comment the way i want it. This is call "monopoly" in Economic terms. I'm monopolising my own blog. What the hell am i'm talking anyway... People just want to believe in things they don't really understand, or blindly follow what others are doing. Don't you have a brain to think for yourself?
Finally after most of the procedures are more or less done, the placing of my grandma into the coffin were next. They placed a certain kind of powder like substance into the coffin + paper money before placing my grandma in and nailed the coffin. Well... the money is not for her. It is to give to some "creature" or whatever la, that is along the way while my grandma is on her way. If this seems reasonable to you, believe it in all you want.
All i can say is that my grandma is no longer alive. No matter what we do, she can never witness it. The ritual stuff is not going to convince me anything. I am NOT going to offer a single incense and kneel down to any of the dead, but i worship the true and LIVING Almighty God who has power over life and death. The time to show care and concern to my grandma is over. Of course i grieve for her absence and am going to miss her for sure. I am not heartless when i deny going through the ritual. I understand who i believe in, and i know He understand me. And please, don't pray or offer incense to me when i died. Flowers will do. Blue rose would be nice.
Enough of all these craps. After all things are more of less settled, our family had lunch together before i went out with my sister to Orchard. Haha! Collected the sunblock from I.E.C. in FORUM. 54.49 gram in weight and has a nice fragrant! Oh ya, i also understand one thing, that to become a dermatologist, u have to first become a doctor before specializing in dermatology. Look at this white tube! Brandless de leh...
Next i accompanied my sister to Taka. I had my first Mos burger meal!!! OMG... i'm so noob... next we went to Sunplaza to take a walk and play "spot the difference" before i return to the wake. Oh ya! My sister bought me this writable DVD! So thoughtful of her... cos i told i that i wanna reformat my com and need to back up my movies! But alas... the movie does not seem compatible... sian...
When i returned back to the wake, i manage to see Pan pan, Huifen, Song En, Carol, Mui Qiang and his wife, my mum's elder sister and husband, employees and Esther boyfriend's family. Thanks for coming!
Today seems like a busy day for me, though i felt not much things has been accomplished. Waking up at 9.30am, my entire family rush to prepare ourselves, so that we can be present at the wake by 10.30am. When we reached, only 2 relative were there with a team of people to set up the wake. Err...
Anyway the buddhist ritual proceed smoothly. Seriously, the ritual seems absurb to me. Nonethesless, we respected the religion and witnessed everything at the side. When my grandma preserved corpse arrived, all of us gathered. People helped to dress up my grandma before asking the males to button up. Next, a monk came and mediate... don't understand a single thing, but the sentence structure seem to rhymes. Interestingly, i observed an external person standing at the side, who also murmered the exact stuff! His mouth correspond exactly to what the monk mediate. Impressive. I really wonder how u all memorized these, which lasted for at least 15 minutes. After the meditation, my dad's brother were asked to offered incense and bring back the soul of my grandma, while the rest of my relatives were "instructed" to cry for my grandma to come back. As usual, they burn paper money and offered incense.
A lot of things that they do were tag with a certain meaning, which i completely disagree. For example, the sons and daughters were asked to simulate "cleaning" my grandma by using a wet towel and "imagineryly" wipe my grandma without touching her body. This is to make her "pure" so that she may become a buddha. Errm... no doubt, different people have different thoughts. So even if you are a buddhist reading this blog now and feel that what i'm typing its not right, don't bother to comment. Comment only when you yourself know what you're doing, understand perfectly, deeply believe in what u're doing and are confident to convince me that this ritual is ABSOLUTE necessary.
Imagine you are the most devoted buddhist, are you confident to become a Buddha? Be realistic. We are man with limitations, not God.
Haha... religion is always a sensitive topic. People will always Bo Song one another. But this is my blog. Not yours understand? I comment the way i want it. This is call "monopoly" in Economic terms. I'm monopolising my own blog. What the hell am i'm talking anyway... People just want to believe in things they don't really understand, or blindly follow what others are doing. Don't you have a brain to think for yourself?
Finally after most of the procedures are more or less done, the placing of my grandma into the coffin were next. They placed a certain kind of powder like substance into the coffin + paper money before placing my grandma in and nailed the coffin. Well... the money is not for her. It is to give to some "creature" or whatever la, that is along the way while my grandma is on her way. If this seems reasonable to you, believe it in all you want.
All i can say is that my grandma is no longer alive. No matter what we do, she can never witness it. The ritual stuff is not going to convince me anything. I am NOT going to offer a single incense and kneel down to any of the dead, but i worship the true and LIVING Almighty God who has power over life and death. The time to show care and concern to my grandma is over. Of course i grieve for her absence and am going to miss her for sure. I am not heartless when i deny going through the ritual. I understand who i believe in, and i know He understand me. And please, don't pray or offer incense to me when i died. Flowers will do. Blue rose would be nice.
Enough of all these craps. After all things are more of less settled, our family had lunch together before i went out with my sister to Orchard. Haha! Collected the sunblock from I.E.C. in FORUM. 54.49 gram in weight and has a nice fragrant! Oh ya, i also understand one thing, that to become a dermatologist, u have to first become a doctor before specializing in dermatology. Look at this white tube! Brandless de leh...
Next i accompanied my sister to Taka. I had my first Mos burger meal!!! OMG... i'm so noob... next we went to Sunplaza to take a walk and play "spot the difference" before i return to the wake. Oh ya! My sister bought me this writable DVD! So thoughtful of her... cos i told i that i wanna reformat my com and need to back up my movies! But alas... the movie does not seem compatible... sian...When i returned back to the wake, i manage to see Pan pan, Huifen, Song En, Carol, Mui Qiang and his wife, my mum's elder sister and husband, employees and Esther boyfriend's family. Thanks for coming! I just hope tomorrow will be a better day.
posted by Joseph at
1:17 AM
3 Comments:
As i read this blog entry of yours, i must say i am pretty shocked. My grandma passed away in October last year. The Buddhist wake i attended is totally different from yours.
At the wake, we were not instructed to cry. There was no paper money ard, cos Buddhists believe there is no such need. We did not burn those paper houses for her. Grandma did not die and become a Buddha. What we hope is that Buddha will guide grandma.
I am not here to lecture u or anything like tt. But my experience of the understanding of God was a different one from yours too. Back then, I hated it cos people kept forcing me to go. Eric told me there are different types of Christians. So my guess is there are different types of Buddhists. Some are called Taoism which people often mix up with.
Sorry Mei jie... haha... But thanks for highlighting it to me. In fact, i'm told that the wake i've attended was mixed with Taoist ceremony.
Don't worry so much! Afterall it's just how i feel... i understand how it feels when someone critized about my religion. Sorry if i angered u... :)
In Singapore, a number of Chinese have religious beliefs that are a mix of Buddhism and Taoism although in recent years, there has been a gradual shift to more Buddhist beliefs.
Well like Christianity which has many denominations, most other religions do have different schools of thought and branches.
Well, we will never understand the practices and teachings of other religions unless we read up about them in detail. Of course, the fact that it is called 'faith' requires you to believe even if there's no empirical truth.
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