This would be the last full day we were going to spend in Koahsiung as we were gonna be heading back to Taipei for other excursions. Today’s excursion would be one of the biggest highlights of this trip I believe as we took a long bus ride to Foguangshan, which is considered to be the largest monastery in Southern Taiwan. You can see this monastery from miles away as their Big Buddha expands almost into the clouds it seems.
Entering the monastery was very different compared to the other places we went to in Kaohsiung, as there were many stores inside of the entrance, including a Starbucks. Profesor Young warned us of this as this monastery is famous for its bridging of religion and business into itself.
We began the tour learning about late Master Hsing Yun, whose known past the monastery of his learning of the one stroke calligraphy practice due to his deteriorating health. Creating hundreds of calligraphy notes a day at his age and health status was a testament of his belief and his strength. We even got to create some calligraphy art as well.
We spent our time at the monastery exploring the exhibits and learning about the origins of Buddhism and of the Buddha himself. The origins really interest me as its surprisingly similar to Christianity, with an enlightened figure leading his followers to a destiny or paradise.
We went to the Big Buddha himself and wrote calligraphy again, with each of his having our own quote or lesson to learn. After meditating and making some prayers, we had a Q&A session with some of the nuns of the monastery to learn more about their specific journey into Buddhism and about any other questions we had about Buddhism. After the Q&A, we took our pictures and said our goodbyes.
For the night, I went exploring the dragon boat festival by myself. I got to see some of the boat “racing” and even a dragon being sent out to the river as well. It was a beautiful night.
