Cleaning a Taoist altar, there are some guidelines in which I will explain on this posting.
The first question that people usually ask me is that, do we need to select a date to clean the altar?
There are no specific date needed. If you are particular, the best time to clean would be on the 14th day of the 12th Lunar Month 十二月十四 (2 Feb 2015). After cleaning then you can do so offering on the next day which is the 15th day of the 12th Lunar Month.
What are the materials to prepare?
1. Clean NEW paint brush, or a paint brush that is totally dedicated to clean only your altar. The brush you are not going to use it to paint! but to brush off the incense residue and also accumulated dust.
2. Prepare 5 different colours flower.
3. Clean NEW cloth
4. Clean NEW bucket to contain cleaning water.
How to clean.
Clean your hands thoroughly with soap and wipe it dry before touching anything on the altar.
1. Remove all incense base sticks (red ones) from the urn and put it into a container - as you are supposed to burn all the base sticks once you clear them.
1. Use the clean brush, dust off all the incense residue if any from your statue. However, you cannot dust the Face of the statue, the rest is ok.
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| Tai Sui General Statues from blog.joshfahler.net |
2. After dusting off the statue(S) then use the brush to dust off remaining residue from the altar table.
3. Use the 5 different colours flower, place it onto the clean bucket fill it with half cold and half boiling water. So it will be lukewarm. Use the water and the clean new cloth, soak the cloth into the lukewarm flower water and then squeeze it dry and wipe the altar table.
4. There is no need to wipe the statue or the incense urn. They are suppose to be dry as long as they are on the altar. Therefore having a brush to dust it off is crucial.
5. After you have completed the cleaning and wiping process. Arrange all things back into order, meaning arranging the offering cups etc.
After all the arrangement is done back into place, then you can offer incense (3 sticks) on all the available incense urns.
