Why Burn Incense at a Chinese Temple

Plan your Beijing tour? Visiting a buddhist temple in Beijing or other parts of China helps you understand the Chinese traditional culture and religion.

Buddhist temples to Chinese are akin to churches to the western people. Very often around a temple there are plentiful street front stores selling incenses. Some itinerant incense hawks are trying to pester you into buying incense sticks. So why burn incenses?

The reasons behind the burning of incenses are manifold. One factor is that Buddha would appear in the smoke produced by burning incenses. In other words, the smoke is a soul link between worshippers and the Buddha.

Incense burning reminds people to burn themselves, to give, and to sacrifice though many people still burn for money, for love, for health and the list could be much longer.

There is a Chinese saying that goes like this: 命由己造，福由己求 which literally means “Our fate and happiness are made by ourselves, not given by the Buddha or somebody else”.

A huge incense burner is vertically placed with incense sticks burnt by worshippers

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Tip:  Hassle-free Beijing Guided Tours

If you don’t want to go the do-it-yourself route and prefer the hassle-free escorted tours,  here are some options for guided tours to Beijing:

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