Donation for the Temple - Heung Yau

[Mak_Tin_Si]

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So if you want to talk to me or ask me anything about Taoism, please feel free to go over to this forum and enjoy the new forum. New members for discussion are also welcomed.

 

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Mak Tin Si

Edited January 8, 2009 by Mak_Tin_Si

[Anabhogya-Carya]

In most people's mind, donation to the temple is something people do to pay respect and support for the temple. But this is only one side of the story. In the old days, people also know that there is another effect by donating to the temples which is to bring people good luck and get rid of future obstacles in life to make your life better! But why so? Here is the theory.

 

When a temple is there to open up for the public to ask for help or to go and get your life threatening problems solved like ghost busting or undo-ing curses, fighting black magic or evil demons etc, the temple is doing good deads. So when you donate to the temple, you are like donating to the hospitals. You are donating to support a place that save people's life and bring better luck to others. Therefore, you helped many others and give them the opportunity to get healed. This is a way to do good karma by donating!

 

So in Chinese when we see people donate to the temple, the host of the temple will return with a phrase saying: "Gung Dak Mo Leung" 功德無量. Meaning your good karma is infinite. This is because the whatever amount you donate now will help the temple to save infinite amount of life or people in the future.

 

Imagine if you donate to build a school. Okay the school is build, then there are infinity of people who can go an be educated in the future unless the school crash or close down.

 

So, by donating to the temple you paid your respect and support to the temple and you also did a good deed to create good karma that brings you better luck! This is the reason why people who are rich will donate lots of money to the temple, because they know that by doing this will help them generate much more luck than just money itself.

 

The donations are not for the people in the temple, it can only be used for the temple itself, so actually nobody can get any money from the donation box in the temple. Even the people who work in the temple will not get any from that box. So it is just purely for running the temple. That is how it work in the old days.

 

Hear Yee Hear Yee! Indulgences for sale! Come see his most grand pontifical holiness! Cut your time in purgatory!

[Tao99]

This got me thinking. Taoism began around three thousand years ago. All this time patrons have been supporting the temples and the work of the temples and schools to keep the Way alive and written down for future generations. And here we are 3000 years later, students of the Tao, benefactors of their generosity and love for the Tao, who without it, couldn't discover the Tao on our own if our life depended on it. I'd say we should be thanking them and that there IS merit in their generosity. So from me a great big THANK YOU to all those generous Chinese patrons of the Tao all those 1000's of years. YOU ROCK!

Edited November 29, 2008 by Tao99