Something beautiful...

These two photos are of (very cute moss covered) stone images of "Jizo", a child image of the Bodhisatva Jizo 地藏菩萨 who out of compassion willingly entered Hell in order to save all sentient beings there...In Japan he is especially associated with saving children, and people often make little Jizo statues such as those as a remembrance for a lost child...

(One of the photos of my blog's sidebar is a photo of 4 Jizo stone images...A picture I took more than 2 years ago when I visited Kyoto for a week...)

This is another photo taken on Wednesday at Sanzen In (in Ohara) and at the stone statue at the back is actually a statue of the "grown-up" version of Jizo Bodhisatva...

After going to Ohara first on Monday, but not being able to take as many pictures as I wanted, in fact these stone child Jizo statues were the main reason I went back again on Wednesday morning ...On Wednesday although it was again overcrowded with Japanese tourists (mainly elderly ones) I had a very relaxing feeling looking at those very cute child Jizo moss covered stones, the light was very beautiful, it was a warm and pleasant Autumn day (it deffinetely warmed me up after the very cold temple visits in Nara on the previous day, which I suspect is the reason for me catching this very bad cold)...At the time I was leaving the temple garden I was actually feeling almost happy, as if viewing the very cute stone statues had a healing effect...Perhaps they actually do have...

(The quality of these images is bad, since they are taken with my mobile phone...but since I don't have a digital camera, these are the only ones I can show you for now...)