Throwing Away Buddha




A Buddha statue in a telephone booth posted in Facebook reminds of a close family friend, a lady who was particularly religious; praying diligently at home and in various Chinese temples to Chinese deities; suddenly converting to Christianity when she broke off with her boyfriend. Then, she had immediately threw away the tablets of the Taoist deity,  Tian gong or Jade Emperor into the dustbin. Tablets of Chinese deities like Buddha statues often mistaken for the deities and Buddha themselves, definitely draw gasps of horrors from some people when they are thrown into the dustbins or left disrespectfully at the roadsides. There have been questions on what one should do with broken, chipped or unwanted Buddha statues in the social media and suggestions on how to deal with them too; ranging from leaving them under the Boddhi trees to discarding them in monasteries. It is interesting to hear what the Chinese Buddhist monk, Sheng Yen 聖嚴 has to say:

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