Beautiful Buddhism – The Tales of Two Travelling Turtles

Beautiful Buddhism

The heart of Tibet

Tibetan Buddhism has wrong-footed me. I always imagined devout Buddhists as somewhat meditative, beholding the world around them with quiet enlightenment and wisdom. So when I got up at the crack of dawn to join hundreds of pilgrims perform the ritual of Kora by walking clockwise around the walls of Labrang monastery, I expected a mood of serenity and spirituality. Instead, it felt more like joining commuters walking at a brisk pace to catch the 07.36 train! What great progress they all made, young and old, flicking the occasional prayer wheel as they went and exchanging a word or two with others on their way. Mind you, with over 1,000 prayer wheels to walk past and 3.5km to cover, it still took over half an hour to get around.

Walking the Kora around the perimeter wall of Labrang monastery

My preconceptions were further shattered when I joined hundreds of monks at their midday Sutra chanting. To my astonishment, it seemed to be perfectly acceptable to have a quick natter with your neighbour while the Lama in charge was punctuating the ritual chants with some solo throat singing. And, lest your thermos should run dry, there’s always a waiting monk on hand to top it up with hot water.

So, it all feels a lot less reverend than you might imagine. Visiting the huge working Labrang monastery is more like visiting a university campus. And at Sera monastery, learning through debate is laid bare when you see the monks trying to catch eachother out at their noisy daily outdoor ritualised debate.

Monks debating at Sera monastery

Every temple has a richly ornamented Assembly Room, comprising of cushioned rows where the monks/nuns come several times a day to sit cross-legged, meditate and chant. The smallest one I witnessed was in the monastery next to Everest Base Camp, which was unusual in that both monks and nuns took part together because of the tiny community there. The chanting, punctuated by occasional bells, surrounded by the peace of dawn at the base of Mount Everest was magical.

Although the exact ritual seemed to differ slightly from place to place – for example I witnessed throat-singing only at Labrang – they were all similar in having a senior monk lead and/or supervise the proceedings and another one topping up the thermoses. However, as far as I could tell, every monk seemed to have a slightly different personal routine. Some would join in the chanting, others would open scriptures and read them for a bit. Then, as if by symbiosis, these different routines would come together every few minutes, punctuated by the bell-like chime of the small Tingsha cymbals, or some ritual like the pouring of water into a bowl by the monk leading the proceedings.

All the temples also have shrines. Multitudes of buddhas are crammed into small rooms, together with scriptures stored in boxes like pigeon-holes in the walls. These shrines have candles burning in yak butter that the visiting pilgrims top up. As they process through, the pilgrims often bow with their hands together in prayer leaving a small donation – a one Yuan note or two at each – and then move on to another Buddha of their choice. (Helpfully, there are scores of individuals selling ¥100 bundles of notes outside the gates!) Like the Assembly Halls, these shrines are claustrophobically busy with every square inch painted or ornamented, with textiles hanging from the pillars, and small bowls filled with water at the feet of the buddhas. The Buddha statues themselves are often draped in textiles – one sect famously adorn some of them with yellow hats.

It was striking that whatever the size of monastery, there would be a stream of pilgrims, more numerous than the scores of tourists, coming to give offerings, or better themselves in some way. The sheer number of these pilgrims would suggest that the vast majority of Tibetans practise their Buddhism actively. It certainly feels that way compared to the secular crowds in the temples in China. This feeling is further reinforced by the ubiquitous presence, even in the middle of nowhere, of “prayer flags” – a string of flags coloured blue, white, red, green, and yellow with sacred text on them. (The colours symbolize all the elements respectively: the sky, white clouds, fire, water, and earth.) Tibetan Buddhism really isn’t a quiet activity for a devout few. It is the beating heart of the nation’s identity.

Prayer flags fluttering at 5,200m at the Gau La Pass

by Chris