Temples and Shrines in Japan New Year 2009 PT 3

Just following along and visiting some temples and shrines for the new year season. Notice the guy staring at me as I pray. he he

I always wondered about those little statues and why they were dressed in red:

Jizo god figures
http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/jizo1.shtml

Matsumoto guide:
http://welcome.city.matsumoto.nagano.jp/

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[Limastudent]

The chanting with the drum is the exact same chant that is done here at the Nebraska Zen Center in Omaha. Temple members here also do it in Japanese exactly as that monk was doing it. What a wonderful, exciting chant it is! Love hearing it from Japan!

[toddatron]

Cool....I wish I could understand the words but just give me time:)

[novanine]

Man you sound so stuffed up!

Loving these vids. In just a few vids of yours I think I've seen more Japanese culture than in a whole host of the vids of other Japanese Tubers I'm subbed to!

When paying respects at the temple are people visiting ancestors or gods? I'm aware that both types of worship go on in Japan.

[toddatron]

Yea... I was in trains and streets filled with people sniffing and snoting for the last month and I was waiting for it to finnaly get me. Worst timing ever...

[toddatron]

As for respects I am not sure... just like lighting a candle in church I suppose they pray for whatever they need or want.

[Nikotiini69]

The part where water was put on the grave looks like in Finnish sauna. The pot and the stick looks just like in sauna and you throw water to the hot rocks. Its weird to see similar thing done in a grave yard.

[toddatron]

I posted a link to the Jizo and matsumoto in description box

[toddatron]

Its the grave of my father in Law.. he is a family hero of sorts and honored by the whole family. I unfortunatly never met him...They are putting incense in the hole and watering the grave perhaps this proverb explains the water:

As water poured on mountain tops Must soon descend, and reach the plain ... then place the coffin in the grave, and each throws in a handful of earth. ...

[toddatron]

He returns home with empty hands but his wife is happy for what he has done. During the night of New Year's Eve, the six Jizo reward the couple for the their unselfish generosity. Thats the reason for hat thing I believe. The idols are Jizo they can be like patron saints or gods of various protections

[toddatron]

On New Year's Eve, a poor old man goes to the village, hoping to sell a piece of cloth his wife wove to make some money for the New Year's holiday. He meets a man who is trying to sell straw hats, and he exchanges the cloth with the man's five hats. On the way back home in the snow, the old man spots six stone statues of Jizo (a Buddhist deity of compassion), looking cold. The kind old man covers their heads with five straw hats and his own scarf.