Hello! I am Madoka.
Thank you for coming on this page.
I am very happy to have this chance to inform you about Japan.
My English and sentences probably be wrong, please be fast and loose. ( ^v^)/
And I appreciate you for giving the opportunity of my English practice.
Today I will introduce on the New Year’s Eve Event in Japan, 2)Tolling the temple’s bell .
Let’s go to the temple for tolling the bell at the last night of the year !!
The table of contents
1, Why is “to toll the temple’s bell on the New Year’s Eve” ?
2, Why does the temple toll the bell 108 times ?
3, Can everyone attend tolling the bell ?
1, Why is “to toll the temple’s bell on the New Year’s Eve” ?
This is the Buddhist event .
It is ringed 108times late on New Year’s Eve and continue into the early hours of New Year’s day.
It is officially to be ringed 107 times late on New Year’s Eve and once on New Year.
But actually this time control is very difficult, so nobody doesn’t care about it.( ^ -^;)
It is said that “tolling the temple’s bell 108 times” can bring to purify our soul from worldly desires and evil passions.
And We will be in clean on New Year!!
2, Why does the temple toll the bell 108 times ?
There are two popular theories.
1) It is the total number of worldly desires and evil passions.
In the teaching of Buddhist, six sense organs have six felling ,then our life has passed, present and future.
Calculation is like below’s,
Eyes
Ears Good Clean Passed
Nose X Normal X Dirty X Present
Tongue Bad Future
Body
Mind
6 X 3 X 2 X 3 = 108
2) It is “Struggles”.
In the teaching of Buddhist, we have four basic struggles and eight given struggles.
We say it “ Si Ku Hak Ku “. “Si” means four. “Ku” means struggles. “Ha” means eight.
The pronounce of “Ku”(=struggles) is same as 9 in Japanese.
Calculation is like below’s,
“ Si(four) Ku(nine) Hak(eight) Ku(nine) “=> 4 X 9 + 8 X 9 = 108
By the way,
Four basic struggles are “birth”, “aging” , “disease” and “death”.
Eight given struggles are “To lose loved one” , “To meet hated one”, “ Not to get what we want “ and “ Can not to control body&mind”.
3, Can everyone attend tolling the bell ?
Yes, you can !
In case of popular temple, it might be crowed with people and wouldn’t be able to do.
Please check the situation before you go, or it is better to go local temple.
Thank you for reading until the end.
I have another article ” How does Japanese do on New Year’s Eve ?1)Eating “Soba“! “.
If you are intrested in it, please read it.
Have a good day !
Madoka
