Just as mentioned in my previous blog, I'd like to write about the reason behind why the Buddhist always pray to the statue, burn joystick, kneeling/sitting on floor, etc.

This answer I get mainly from the speech given by Bikkhu Uttamo that I heard from YouTube. The speech titled "The reason why Bikkhu Uttamo chose Buddhism". It's divided into 4 parts and I cant remember which part I heard about this particular topic. Here's one of the link. It's a link to part 3 that I liked the most.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFRWc05ZQxM

I also gathered this understanding from reading the Buddhist books and listened from the other monks.

So...lets break it down to one by one.

1) Why Pray or Bow to the Statue of Buddha?
Simple. The statue of Buddha is created to remind us of the sacrifices made by the Prince Siddhartha Gautama. How he given up his prince title, wealth, wife and newly born son, parents and everything to discover the true meaning of life, to discover why is there life, sickness, death and monk.

He left all those behind, go deep into the jungle, learn almost every religions at that time from all teachers and yet he still can't find the answer. One time, he met 5 men/monks that also tried to discover what Prince Siddhartha tried to discover too. Together, the 6 of them practiced the most extreme meditation ever that is by starvation (not eating anything). For 6 years Prince Siddhartha tried that and not working. One day, during his meditation there's this group of singer and violin player passed by and the singer sang "If you pull the string too tight, the violin's string will break. If you tie it too lose, it won't make a nice sound. So you have to tie it jst nice".

It was upon hearing that Prince Siddhartha realised that what he has been practicing is wrong. One should not torture himself to attain enlightenment. Hence, Prince Siddhartha discovered the way, which is often called The Middle Way basically means, we shouldn't torture ourselves for it, but we shouldn't just sit and do nothing too. The extreme way is not the way. We should practice at the right time, the right condition and the right way. That's the basic key in Buddhism.

When he has finally reached enlightenment, the 5 men that he meditated together with became his 1st Sangha. Sangha basically means the monkhood, where they swear to themselves (and to Buddha and Dhamma) to learn and practice Dhamma to reach enlightenment too.

This Buddha Siddhartha is not the 1st Buddha ever in this world. In fact some books said he was the 28th Buddha ever born in this world. But why is he famous? Well, aside the fact he's the latest Buddha, he actually rediscovered the Dhamma all by himself.

A person who has reached Buddhahood by rediscovered the way all by himself is simply called the Buddha, who has the right to teach Dhamma to everyone. The Dhamma (or teaching) i always the same from one Buddha to the next Buddha. Dhamma never change.

However, a person who reached Buddhahood from the teaching of previous or current Buddha, s/he is called Pacceka Buddha otherwise known as the "Silent Buddha". That's the type of Buddha that doesn't teach Dhamma to people coz he, himself, attained Buddhahood from the teaching of other Buddha.

So, back to the question, why bow to the statue? It's because we, the buddhist, understand how hard it is to attain Buddhahood, to leave everything behind just to reach enlightenment or to reach Buddhahood.

So whenever we see a statue or painting of Lord Buddha, we would bow to respect him. Respect his journey, respect the Dhamma he taught us and respect the Buddha.

Don't pray to the statue and request for things. That's not how things work. Praying to request is wrong, but praying to give merits to other people or living being is the correct way.

2) Why Burn Joystick?
Do you noticed that whenever you burn a joystick it smells so nice? It has a really nice fragrant. The smokes from the burn joystick will just goes up in the air, slowly lingering the air around and to everyone.

The smoke will go to and through everything. It will go to your nose whether or not you are a Buddhist or non-Buddhist. The smoke cant suddenly stop and turn around if you are non-Buddhist. Or the smoke would just run straight to a Buddhist's nose.

Dhamma is like that. Dhamma is beautiful and 'fragrant'. Dhamma doesn't choose people. Dhamma is for everyone. Whether or not you are Buddhist or non-Buddhist, Dhamma can be learn, practice and accepted by everyone. Dhamma is universal and can be use by everyone, every living being, be it alive or dead, human or animal, fat or skinny, EVERYONE.

So we burn joystick to remind us of the Dhamma, that Dhamma is universal, fair, beautiful, doesn't choose people and free for everyone.

3) Why is there Flower on the altar/table?
A freshly cut flower is beautiful, isn't it? But a dead flower is ugly, isn't it?

When there's fresh flower, you'd put it upfront, decorate your house, or even put on your table/altar. But when the flower is dead or even yellow, you'd throw it away directly.

The Lord Buddha always told us that everything in this world is impermanent (Pali: Annicca). One day you have it, one day it will be gone. Now you are hungry, but after you eat, you won't be hungry anymore.

Now you have water to drink, but later the water will be gone after you drank it. When you go party dancing, you are happy. But once you are back home from the party, you won't be dancing anymore, maybe you will be so tired and drunk.

Now you have your dog, but one day your dog will die. Now is 3pm, but in just 1 second, it won't be 3pm again. Nothing is permanent, that's what Lord Buddha taught us.

Hence, we should always remind ourselves of this impermanence and train ourselves not to be too attached to something too tight. If it's time to go, we should be able to let it go and remind us about annicca.

Thus, putting fresh flower on altar is to remind us about annicca or impermanence. Not because the statue of Buddha could smell the flower...that will be scary if it could

5) Why Chanting?
Well, if you don't feel like chanting, you are always welcome to just read quietly in your mind. Who said you have to chant out loud?

What the Buddhist chant? Well, we chant one of the Sutta. The Dhamma is written and composed into Tipitaka or Tripitaka. As the word suggested, it's divided into 3 categories. You can read more in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripitaka.

Tipitaka is divided into Abidhamma, Vinaya and Sutta. Vinaya Pitaka is the code of ethics to be obeyed by the monks, Sutta Pitaka is the summary of Buddha's teachings, and Abidhamma Pitaka is the further elaboration and explanation of the Sutta Pitaka.

So, the Buddhist normally would chant few Suttas in the Sutta Pitaka. It is said there are about 10,000 suttas in the Sutta Pitaka.

Why chant? Coz sometimes if you just read quietly you would fall asleep if you are bored. Coz if you just read quietly, other people can't hear, especially those who have died or spirits. So, if we chant out, those spirits (good or bad spirits) could also listen to the sutta and we may be able to help them gain merits for themselves, accumulate good kamma, understand the Dhamma even just a little bit, make them calm, and hopefully after all that, they would be able to be born again into a better world.

There may be different way of chanting, especially in the tones, but it is all the same. We are basically reading the same suttas. By reading the sutta, we read again what the sutta is all about. We remind ourselves again and again about the sutta and the Dhamma. If you have forgotten, hopefully, by reading the sutta you would remember it again.

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Fiuhh.....I've write so much and so long. I hope you would be able to understand what I'm trying to write and explain here. And I hope this will give an insight into what Buddhism is all about. Especially hope those who are Buddhist would understand what they are doing all along in Vihara.

Next I will write more about this.

Always with Metta