Leaving Your Mark
No, this isn’t some fancy Photoshop trick, these are real human footprints ingrained in a hardwood floor.
70 year-old Buddhist monk Hua Chi has been praying in the same spot at his temple in Tongren, China for over 20 years. His footprints, which are up to 1.2 inches deep in some areas, are the result of performing his prayers up to 3000 times a day. Now that he is 70, he says that he has greatly reduced his quantity of prayers to 1,000 times each day.
The footprints have become a source of inspiration to younger monks at the temple. “Every day I come here and every day I look at the piece of wood, and it has inspired me to continue to make the footprints myself,” Genden Darji, a 29 year-old monk in the monastery, notes.
Photos from Reuters.
“His footprints, which are up to 1.2 inches deep in some areas, are the result of performing his prayers up to 3000 times a day. Now that he is 70, he says that he has greatly reduced his quantity of prayers to 1,000 times each day.”
24 hours X 60 Minutes = 1,440 minutes
Even though it’s an impressive and awe inspiring feat. (Pun intended) I think he’s exaggerating his numbers a little.
An absolute and utter waste of his life. What a miserable fool.
The only thing stupider than a Buddhist is an Obama voter. There is no chance in hell he wore those marks out into the wood. Please keep Buddhism out of America. While it is not the immediate threat to our greatness that Islam (spit) is, this kind of mindless pacifism has no place within our shores.
It’s interesting to me that so many people leaving comments about this monk’s life being a waste have decided unequivocally that his life has been a waste, even as it is spent in prayer for others. I wish I could say with confidence that the way another man has spent his life is a waste, because it must mean that my own life is a universal model for perfection. That is the only way I could conceive of someone else’s life being a waste – but so far I have not seen a model of the perfect life, and am inclined to think that this monk’s pursuit of prayer is far humbler than anything I have ever achieved.
A waste of his life? Praying for others? The hell are you on about? A buddhist does not pray or follow his religion at all in the sense that a christian does. When they say he prays, he is really doing a form of meditation. The goal of buddhism is enlightenment and inner peace, not the idea of getting into a heaven or spreading his religion… Waste of his life… What an utter fool.
Proof that it is far past time to trim them toe nails!
They make a stone to polish those calluses off too!
To Hugo Filch,
The only thing that is MORE STUPID than your argument is your lack of spell checking.
Stupider is a word, but my god it is terrible grammar.
To help clarify things a bit. Each ‘prayer’ would be either a single prostration (where the monk is kneeling down from a standing position) or a recitation of a Mantra. So each ‘prayer’ is only a few seconds long.
As the monk is performing the physical kneeling and prostrating he will also be saying a mantra and visualising a something similar to what is found on a thangka. The purpose of prostrations in particular (apart from the fact it is a form of moving meditation) is that it helps to reduce pride.
It is very funny, strange and pity to see complete strangers to the monk arguing about his prostrations while he knows nothing about it and am sure won’t give a damn if he even knows. I am also a Tibetan Buddhist Monk in India and I’ll leave you, with your insults to the perticular dedicated monk, with a quote in a buddhist text :
Even when someone who is your equal or inferior,
Driven by arrogance seeks to disparage you,
To place him on the crown of your head
With the same respect you would accord your guru is the practice of a Buddhisatva.
I’ve read all the comments and I sincerely THANK ALL THE CRITICISERS for letting me practice my patience. With that, I leave another quote from the same text:
For a buddhisatva who seeks a wealth of virtue,
Every harm perpetrator is like a precious treasure.
Therefore, without feeling irritation at all,
To cultivate patience is the practice of a Buddhisatva.
THANK YOU