if the heart is bright, the wonderful will appear

Yōnghé Gōng -  Lama Temple is reputedly one of the most magnificent Tibetan Buddhist Temples outside Tibet itself.  The first hall houses Maitreya the future Buddha and above him is a board which is inscribed in Chinese "if the heart is bright, the wonderful will appear".   I find it hard to explain how overwhelmed I felt while we were on our travels in China.These temples with their Buddhas and halls are enormous and each hall has pilgrims praying and presenting offerings to the images.  I felt at times that it was wrong to be photographing people in their moment of worship or meditation but I was assured that when Buddhists pray they close their mind and ears to all around them, oh to have that power of finding ones inner self.  Mr B and I both joined in the burning of incense, he's one of my extras, I have permission to share that he was thinking of our grandchild Michael James and the baby who is on his or her way before the end of this year.  We were encouraged to think of number three as good so we burned the incense sticks in multiples of 3, 6 and 9.  I still feel very emotional thinking of China, such an experience.  Hope you enjoy the little girl in her school uniform, her mother was very pleased when I asked to take her photograph, she made her stand up straight.