Bathing The Buddha

On one of my first trips to Myanmar, maybe in 2004, I walked up to Shwedagon Pagoda (see Sunday at Shwedagon, Shwedagon Buddha, and Pause to Reflect), located the correct altar for the day of my birth (Thursday), timidly approached it, filled a plastic cup (a yellow one) with water, poured it over the head of the little white Buddha several times, and fell, for one brief moment in time, into a sea of emptiness. [NOTE: The nat statue (see Nat Worship) behind the altar is considerably larger and more carefully rendered than the statue of Buddha being bathed].