Bamboo Temple

This past weekend, my roommate Jian Juan, took me to the Bamboo Temple up in the mountains of Kunming. We took a bus/van up the switchbacks which gave me a beautiful view of the city below and the mountains to the east.

The strong smell of incense hit me instantly as we entered onto the temple grounds. There were several buildings and courtyards, all housing different g-ds. Many of the alters had apples, bananas, and different kinds of offerings left for the g-ds. Many people were bowing down to each of the g-ds, burning papers/offerings, praying and reading about the history of the temple. It is hard to understand what the Chinese believe about Buddhism, where their hearts and minds are at and how much of their daily lives are devoted to this religion.

Talking to my roommate who is Buddhist, she told me that each g-d represents something different; wealth, work success, health, strength, school studies, etc. You can pr-y to the specific g-d for the area you need help in. I then explained to her that we, as Chr-stians, also pray for all of those things, but to one G-d, that we attribute everything we have and receive to our one and only G-d. We also go to church to feel closer to G-d, but that doesn’t limit our relationship with Him to within the church building.

My heart was saddened by physically being at the temple and watching the people bowing down to statues and paintings of multiple deities. There is a lot of work to be done here and I can only trust in Him to work in these people’s hearts so that they can see the true G-d.

I did have one funny moment at the temple. We were walking around inside one of the buildings looking at all the different statues that represented this one g-d. There were multiple signs that read “Quiet Please” so I was trying to whisper while talking to Jian Juan. All of a sudden a cellphone goes off. I turn around and one of the Buddhist monks pulls his cellphone out of his robe and starts talking on it, quite loudly. I just had to laugh to myself at this merge of ancient traditional methods and modern technology.

Please keep the people of China in your pr-yers as all they know is to bow down to multiple deities, that He may work in their hearts and lead them to His will.