Garden 91

Buddhism was introduced in China as early as 100 A.D.

The legend is that one night the emperor Ming, of Eastern Han Dynasty, dreamt of a 12-foot tall deity with rays of golden beams shinning from his back as he flew across the palace. The Emperor woke up the next day and asked his ministers if they had heard of such a story, and one replied: “I have heard of a great enlightened master in India named Buddha who can fly and has lights shining across his body, perhaps this is the one you’re referring to”.

Whether the tomb guardian beasts are from the Warring States period or from the Terra Cotta Warriors of Qin Shi Huang’s mausoleum, they all explain the emperors and nobles attitude toward death.

The Buddha shrines of earlier periods only displayed a single statue of the Buddha, but in later periods the carving of Bodhisattvas began to appear on either side of the Buddha.

In Chinese, there is a phrase to describe someone whose heart is tender and full of mercy, we say this person is to have “the heart of Bodhisattva”.

But what exactly is Bodhisattva?

In ancient China stone weights were a necessity in daily life, literally as an object for measuring, but also as a metaphor in weighing people’s heart and symbolizing good conscience in doing business.

According to Buddhist sutras, music can appease people’s heart. When our hearts have been brought to a state of peace, we are more likely to get influenced. The harmonious music from Sukhavati, the western pure land of bliss, is best known as “the music of paradise” and the goddesses of the music from this paradise were named flying Apsaras.

Simply said, Arhats are groups of enlighten disciples of Sakyamuni Buddha.

The earliest record indicates that there were sixteen Arhats and later, around 860 A.D., the number of Arhats increased to eighteen.

There’s an old Chinese saying: “Saving one life is greater than building several levels of pagodas.”

After Sakyamuni Buddha entered nirvana, his disciples followed the ancient Indian practice of cremating his body and burying his remains in a tomb.

Zhang Qian, an explorer of Han dynasty, went to neighboring countries of to the west China and brought back lions as gifts for the emperor. When the ancient Chinese first saw them, they were astonished by the look of the lions.