There was an air of festivity at the Tzu Chi Cultural Center in Taipei yesterday as the center celebrated Buddha Day with a "Bathing of the Buddha" ceremony.
The smell of jasmine wafted through the center, as a result of the thousands of fresh jasmine flower buds strewn around the main hall and its staircases, as chanting Tzu Chi workers and members slowly wind up the stairs.
Buddha Day is an annual holiday for Buddhists celebrating the birth of Buddha and is the holiest day on the Buddhist calendar.
In Taiwan, the government has set the second Sunday of May each year, the same day as Mother's Day, as Buddha day. On the holiday, a "Bathing of the Buddha" ceremony is often performed.
During the ceremony, said center representatives, water is typically poured three times over a Buddha icon while participants chant.
Purification
The ceremony symbolizes the washing away of troubles and purification of one's heart and mind, they said.
In addition to the ceremony, which carries on today, the center held a vegetarian cooking workshop and invited medical volunteers to set up stalls.
Families milled around, stopping to consult with doctors about their health problems, with the scent of jasmine mingling with the homely smell of cooking food.
"The vegetarian cooking workshop is part of a movement in Tzu Chi to encourage people to eat vegetarian meals. In the light of recent health scares like SARS and avian bird flu, we want to promote healthy eating and lifestyles," said Cecilia Wang (
The health workshops were also part of Tzu Chi's effort to encourage healthier living, she said.
The center had doctors and nurses available to perform services from checking blood pressure to giving gynecological advice.
Taiwanese scientists have engineered plants that can capture about 50 percent more carbon dioxide and produce more than twice as many seeds as unmodified plants, a breakthrough they hope could one day help mitigate global warming and grow more food staples such as rice. If applied to major food crops, the new system could cut carbon emissions and raise yields “without additional equipment or labor costs,” Academia Sinica researcher and lead author the study Lu Kuan-jen (呂冠箴) said. Academia Sinica president James Liao (廖俊智) said that as humans emit 9.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with the 220 billion tonnes absorbed
The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Wanda-Zhonghe Line is 81.7 percent complete, with public opening targeted for the end of 2027, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said today. Surrounding roads are to be open to the public by the end of next year, Hou said during an inspection of construction progress. The 9.5km line, featuring nine underground stations and one depot, is expected to connect Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Station to Chukuang Station in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和). All 18 tunnels for the line are complete, while the main structures of the stations and depot are mostly finished, he
Taipei is to implement widespread road closures around Taipei 101 on Friday to make way for large crowds during the Double Ten National Day celebration, the Taipei Department of Transportation said. A four-minute fireworks display is to be launched from the skyscraper, along with a performance by 500 drones flying in formation above the nearby Nanshan A21 site, starting at 10pm. Vehicle restrictions would occur in phases, they said. From 5pm to 9pm, inner lanes of Songshou Road between Taipei City Hall and Taipei 101 are to be closed, with only the outer lanes remaining open. Between 9pm and 9:40pm, the section is
China’s plan to deploy a new hypersonic ballistic missile at a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) base near Taiwan likely targets US airbases and ships in the western Pacific, but it would also present new threats to Taiwan, defense experts said. The New York Times — citing a US Department of Defense report from last year on China’s military power — on Monday reported in an article titled “The missiles threatening Taiwan” that China has stockpiled 3,500 missiles, 1.5 times more than four years earlier. Although it is unclear how many of those missiles were targeting Taiwan, the newspaper reported
RSS