Sunday, September 17, 2006
Today we made a two-hour drive to the Sunnataram Forest Monastery. It's a Buddhist monastery/temple taken care of by Thai Buddhist monks.
One of the aunties I went with is a devout Buddhist and she wanted somebody to drive her and two other aunties to the monastery. It's located near the small town of Bundanoon, about halfway between Canberra and Sydney. I was told that the land the monastery was built on is about 100 hectares but there were only a few small buildings that I saw. Upon entry, we could see that a new temple housing golden Buddha statues was being built.
They were also building a pond right next to the new temple. It certainly didn't look impressive at first sight. We parked the car and made a walk towards the main monastery. People, volunteers and worshippers, were just helping out with cooking and lunch preparation. I was told that anyone could come to the monastery and have meals at the monastery at no cost. The monks were a friendly bunch.
When lunch was prepared, everyone gathered in the meditation room. The abbot chanted some prayers for a short moment before we started eating. The food were offered to the monks first of course. As a 'meat-eater', I was surprised that the vegetarian food was quite good, although I must say I was pretty hungry by the time we had lunch :)
The monastery was situated on a hill. we could almost make out the ocean from where we stood. There were birds chirping, unafraid of all the people around the compound. The air was crisp, although it wasn't too cold as it is almost spring time.
There were even a few peacocks which displayed their elegant feathers in full view. They were just amazing!
Here are some photos I took using my new Nokia N93 in 'negative' mode. The new phone is pretty cool. I could lots of things with its features - WiFi, 3.2 megapixel camera with 3x optical zoom, video camcording, TV output, swirvel and twist configurations, MP3s etc.
Well, it was a good journey on a lazy Sunday!
One of the aunties I went with is a devout Buddhist and she wanted somebody to drive her and two other aunties to the monastery. It's located near the small town of Bundanoon, about halfway between Canberra and Sydney. I was told that the land the monastery was built on is about 100 hectares but there were only a few small buildings that I saw. Upon entry, we could see that a new temple housing golden Buddha statues was being built.
They were also building a pond right next to the new temple. It certainly didn't look impressive at first sight. We parked the car and made a walk towards the main monastery. People, volunteers and worshippers, were just helping out with cooking and lunch preparation. I was told that anyone could come to the monastery and have meals at the monastery at no cost. The monks were a friendly bunch.
When lunch was prepared, everyone gathered in the meditation room. The abbot chanted some prayers for a short moment before we started eating. The food were offered to the monks first of course. As a 'meat-eater', I was surprised that the vegetarian food was quite good, although I must say I was pretty hungry by the time we had lunch :)
The monastery was situated on a hill. we could almost make out the ocean from where we stood. There were birds chirping, unafraid of all the people around the compound. The air was crisp, although it wasn't too cold as it is almost spring time.
There were even a few peacocks which displayed their elegant feathers in full view. They were just amazing!
Here are some photos I took using my new Nokia N93 in 'negative' mode. The new phone is pretty cool. I could lots of things with its features - WiFi, 3.2 megapixel camera with 3x optical zoom, video camcording, TV output, swirvel and twist configurations, MP3s etc.
Well, it was a good journey on a lazy Sunday!
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