Buddhist ceremony

The other day we went to a Buddhist temple. There are several in the city. Some ask for an entrance fee, while others don’t. The Wo Longse temple is near the city centre. As with other temples in Xi’an (and China in general), this one has several buildings with statues of various deities. The individual prayer houses are separated by courtyards. The monks chant incantations every morning at 4.30 am and every afternoon at 2.30 pm. There are special ceremonies on certain days, according to the lunar calendar. This was one such day.

A monk walked around the compound, ringing a brass bell – the call to prayer. One by one, the monks assembled in the dimly-lit prayer room, which featured a large Buddha in the centre and walls ringed with statues of minor deities, some fierce, some more pious. The central figure was on a raised platform. In front, on a table covered in a saffron-coloured cloth, were offerings of fruit and flowers, candles made of ghee (butter fat) and burning incense.

It took the monks a little while to assemble. Most of them were dressed in plain, dark brown robes. The head monk, an older fellow, wore the same dark brown robes, but had a saffron-coloured cloth slung over the right shoulder, as did another monk, who turned out to be a ‘master of ceremonies’ of sorts, i.e. he saw to ‘organisational’ matters.

Most of the monks’ heads were shaven, but some had a short crop of hair (called a ‘no. 1’ in hairdresser parlance) with two rows of three fully shaven dots, which stand out. The dots are made by burning some small incense cones on the head, an initiation ceremony for newly ordained monks.

The ceremony started slowly with the high-pitched ringing of a bell and the slow, dull thud of a rather large drum. There was one large skin drum and another equally large one, which looked like some kind of over-sized seed pod with a slit in it. Both drums were tended to by individual monks handling drum sticks with felt-covered heads the size of apples. At times they were banged to keep the rhythm, at others to indicate the end of a section of prayer or chanting, often accompanied by everyone changing the direction they were facing (either to the front or the middle of the hall) and kneeling on ready-laid mats to bow the head to the ground in reverent prayer.

The room was wafting with the fragrance of sandalwood incense. A Buddhist song was begun by a single monk, whose drone-like baritone voice filled the air. The other monks took up the tune, which was interspersed with the periodic ringing of the bell and a single drum beat here and there. Eyes were closed and hands held palms together in prayer position in front of the chest (or heart chakra, if you so wish). The song then stopped and after several gongs, the lone monk sang again, leading the congregation on in a chant to Amitabha. The monks followed suit with the slow, monotonous chant. Slowly, barely perceptibly, over a period of about 15 minutes, the chant, interspersed here and there by a gong sounding or bell ringing, gathered pace, culminating in an exhilarating, hypnotic and uplifting crescendo. The text of the chant wasn’t simplistic, it changed over time, as did the pace of the chant, which wasn’t linear. The monks knew exactly when to slow down, speed up or move on to another section of the ceremony. It was a well-orchestrated, but this was not a show for anyone’s benefit – there were no tourists present – but rather a regular spiritual routine.

In fact, when I visited this temple, or others for that matter, I was the only Westerner present. These places are ‘off the beaten track’, but for that, the experience is all the richer. It makes a big difference when you’re travelling in a country or actually living there. Despite Xi’an being a big city, there aren’t that many Westerners present. Weeks go by without me seeing another Westerner. And to be honest, I don’t crave contact with them. However, if I really did want contact with Westerners, all I’d have to do is go to Starbucks in the city centre. It seems to be a place of congregation, a place where Westerners can get a decent cup of coffee. (Actually KFC isn’t that bad either and a lot cheaper.)

After about 45 minutes the head monk led the others from the hall in a procession which wound its way in a geometric pattern around the courtyard, with the head monk finally re-entering the prayer hall. All the while, the chant continued, if in a more subdued fashion, each one to him and herself. (There were a few female monks there too, but the majority was male.)

Another time, some incense was lit, and one of the senior monks, leading the procession, wafted smoke in a particular direction, his fingers forming a mudra. (Index and middle fingers outstretched, the others bent, the thumb resting on the ring finger.)

The ceremony lasted for about an hour. When it had finished, the monks quietly returned to their quarters in single file.