Saturday, 7/31
DOI SUTHEP
Our first stop was Doi Suthep. The day was a bit gloomy, but no rain on our way up the mountain. We passed a couple of very pretty (clean), albeit small, hillside waterfalls, but I was on the wrong side of the bus and we passed them fairly quickly, so I missed taking pictures. I figured I would take a picture on our way back down.
When we arrived at Doi Suthep, Wat recommended that we all take the cable car up to the temple, so that we would all be together. If anyone wanted, they could walk back down afterwards.
The Holy Relic of the Lord Buddha is preserved in the Golden Stupa.
The seven levels represent the seven levels of meditation.
People circle around the stupa three times;
1) Lord Buddha (Buddha), 2) his work/his teaching (Dharma),
and
3) Holy Monks (Sangha)
There was a row of Buddha statutes in various positions. Wat explained that each
Buddha was for a day of the week representing the day of the week you were
born. The silver bowl in front of each Buddha was for people to drop coins to
make merit.
Positions of Buddha:
SUNDAY:
MONDAY:
Looking
Day (2 palms up): calming the ocean
Night (1 palm up): forbidding relatives to fight
TUESDAY:
WEDNESDAY:
Reclining
Carrying and receiving bowl
THURSDAY:
FRIDAY:
Meditation
Pondering
SATURDAY:
Day: Meditation covered with serpents
The serpent wanted to make merit, so it crawled up and spread around
Buddha's head.
Night: Sitting in Nirvana
Surrounding the Golden Stupa were various statues of Buddha where people were
praying and making merit.
Copy of the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok.
There were bells hanging in every doorway and along the sides of the walkways.
People buy the bells to decorate the wat in order to give merit. Some of the
bells had the name tags and some were anonymous.
Historical Monument of White Elephant
People were going down the row and ringing all the bells. Wat said that they
really don't need to, but that many believe they should ring the bells to let
heaven know they are here.
Miscellaneous images at Doi Suthep:
Sheila, LaMar and Amy talking about religion.
While we were at Doi Suthep, it rained very hard twice. Everyone took cover
during the rain and just waited it out. After it stopped raining the first time,
there were little patches of clearing where we could see Chiang Mai, but these
pictures are as good as it got.
Group picture of everyone gathering before we left.
Because of the rain, everyone decided to take the cable car down because the steps might have been slippery. I also didn't take any pictures of those pretty waterfalls on the way back down because they were now just falls of muddy water (not pretty) because of the rain. Oh well...
