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I arrived at the Fo Guang Shan temple just minutes before
the ceremony started. I quickly found my side and the procession began. We paid our respect to the monks by bowing as
they past us to go to the temple; however, they remained with their backs
towards us, facing the three buddhas. I was a bit surprised, having only
attended Christian ceremonies but after some thought decided this was far more
affirming. Why would you turn your back to the symbol of the one you revere?
For some reason, this simple act made the procession even more spiritual and
less like someone taking the stage.
We
continued by chanting in a sing-song way various prayers with a lot of bowing.
I instantly thought of my mother who had knee surgery as we lowered ourselves
to the stools before us and remained in the full bowing position for a couple
seconds. I watched as the elders slowly made their way down and slowly made
their way back up, wondering if they would be shunned if they only bowed
halfway to save their knees. I didn’t see anyone not go all the way down. I
noticed over time it became easier for them to go down as it did for me. My
knees didn’t hurt at all and usually they do with some bending. I realized
somehow the way we were going down that I was using muscles in my legs instead
of my knees and decided this was a pretty decent work-out. Perhaps all of this
bowing helps your knees in the sense that you build the muscles around them?
Finally
we sat down and began to read/sing from this book. It was 47 pages long and we
said 45 of them non-stop. The lead monk would take random breaks and I honestly
wondered why he didn’t have a water bottle to keep his mouth from getting too
dry. I admit I started to doze. I didn’t actually say the words but followed
along and tried to read some of the translations. That’s when I realized this
was like a scripture and as far as I knew the entire scripture (it was 45 pages). I wondered why the
Christian services I had gone to didn’t read more scripture and perform less.
After all, the sermons are more or less opinions- interpretations of a text
that can be interpreted by anyone who reads it.
After
what seemed like forever we stood up once more and chanted numerous prayers
again, multiple times, and proceeded with more bowing. When I finally thought
it was over, I was pulled into a corner where a female monk prepared to
translate the sermon for us. She had a hard time coming up with the right words
and one man interrupted her with ridiculous questions about the times of
meditation classes, so I’m not sure I received the entire message. From what I
understood, the message was not to obsess on the superficial but to go deeper
because by categorizing things you are already limiting yourself. It seemed
like a very good sermon and I was frustrated I didn’t get more of it.
At the
end the monk announced today was someone’s birthday, or rather multiple
someones. Triplets came down from the children’s area for us to present them
with a cake and sing “Happy Birthday” to them. I left seriously considering
returning if not for the Buddhism teachings then for the exercise and exposure
to Chinese.
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