Three bowls and a pair of chopsticks each

Wow, I heard from my mum that the two posts that I blogged last wednesday never showed up (at least not by the time she wrote to me). Let me know if they really never did and I'll repost some of the stuff I wrote then, as I can't seem to access even the page for editing my own blog from here so I can't see what's actually there, I have to do all this by email.

But for now, let me tell you something about the life at the temple here on Jiuhua mountain.

The day at our little temple begins at 4:30 when one of the girls starts banging two pieces of wood rhythmically together to let all of us know it's time to wake up. And so we do, get out of bed, put on our clothes, wash up and put on the dark temple robes.

At 5 a.m., the 9 of us have all taken our places in the temple room, each having a prayer cushion in front of us for kneeling and bowing down. And so the morning prayers and chanting begin, with one of the boys beginning the rhythm with a little bell, and the other percussion instruments soon join in, and the song and chant begins. Needless to say, I can't do any of it, nor do I understand anything. But I do my best to keep up with the kneeling and turning and joining my hands...

The prayers finish around 6 a.m., after which we quietly walk into the next room, neatly in a line, to eat breakfast, which one of the women has by now laid out on the tables. so we sit down, at three tables, each seating 3 people, the 3 men on one side, and the two tables of the women facing them. The food is served by one of the girls, who will give each of us some rice porridge in one bowl, and different kinds of salty vegetables in another, and maybe some bread. She will then stand by during the whole meal to give people more food or water, as they want it. There is a little prayer before eating, and some of the rice is offered to the buddha on the altar, before we tuck in. The Master begins first, of course, and the rest of us follow suite. the whole meal is eaten in total silence.

After the meal, the master will talk to us about different things, mostly about practical stuff as everything is still in its very beginning as the life at the temple is concerned. In the lst post (which might never have appeared) i wrote about how he has been really angry a lot, and not just talking but shouting and even hitting people, with some of people begging on the knees and crying and apologising for doing some little silly things in a "wrong" way. But this has changed in the past couple of days, now he is actually talking and teaching people nicely... makes everyone a lot happier, too! But, people are still on their toes, trying to avoid making 'mistakes', such as putting the chopsticks in the wring position or serving the vegetables in the wrong manner... hmmm

After breakfast, everyone does all kinds of work, there seems to be a lot to do as it's all so new still. But I really don't know what to do myself! I keep asking everyone what can i do, but they keep thelling me there's nothing I can do. And then the master tells me to try to help out and so something... But as I said before, I'm mainly supposed to be studying and learning about Chinese culture, so I've been spending a lot of time with my Chinese books.

And as the mountain is so so beautiful, it's lovely to walk around the little footpaths...

This week it's the holiday week for the national holiday, and it can be seen even in our little temple, though it's pretty much out of the way from any of the main temples, and it doesn't even appear on any of the temple maps. But still, we have had quite a few visitors in the past couple of days. They seem to come in two makes:
First, there are huges groups of people, mostly from the 'lower' classes (it's funny how clearly the classes show in the socialist society!!!). They all come wearing their tour group hats and carry their pilgrim bags, and they rush in in a huge wave, sticking insence everywhere, throwing money on the altars and the boxes, kneeling down just about everywhere and throwing the insence boxes and wrappers all over the place. They even come in during the morning and evening prayers, just doing their thing right in the middle of all of us in our robes!! And then they are out just as fast as they came in.

Then there are the other kind of visitors, who come in smaller groups, and seem to be mostly from the middle and upper classes. They come in more slowly, look around, talk to us, pray and offer some insence and generally are much more quiet and take their time.

So so much to tell about the life here, but I have to get back again. I still don't have time to answer those emails but i'll try to get to it soonish. And next time I will continue the story of the day at the temple...

Hope this works this time...






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