My weekend activities have been a tad unusual :)
Fri nite : 1/2 dharma talk & lantern-bbq party
Sat nite : Cemetary visit (with thekchen choling)
The lantern walk was very cool, went with Ling & co... a big group on walking tour of dempsey. Highlights : an engaging "tour guide" who pointed out e vestiges of e british baracks in the area, 3 giant fish (humongous shadows in e night!) and a wood furniture shop of parrots (giant exotic amazons, cockatoos & others) !
We passed by terracotta warrior statues and e popular wine company. Lycee cake and toy-fixing time afterwards at Aura.
Sat nite was quite unusual, an outing to cemetery with a buddhist centre.
It was interesting for a 1st timer, and not scary with Lama (e abbot of e centre) & so many people (group of ~50). At the cemetery, we went in pairs to offer candle & incense to the tombstones, followed by group prayers & preparation + offering of food, and then burning of gold-silver paper. The preparation of food was by using clean hands, and the first 3 fingers of e right hand make little balls from some pre-prepared dough(vegetarian & made of flour, brown sugar, yogurt etc), which was later transformed with some prayers by Lama into 'food' which was able to be received by spirit beings.
We went for supper afterwards (as advised).. & made our way home about 3am.
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