Buddha Kingdom

About a week ago, I wrote the first part of the Buddhist Kingdom, which was about some strategies for traveling to Seda. If I stop writing here, I will become a tourist who comes back to promote the scenery of Seda. And as someone who purely travels, choosing to spend 11 days there is a bit asking for trouble. Because the accommodation is average, the food is okay, and there is no entertainment at all except the mobile phone. In addition, you have to endure the physical discomfort caused by high altitude sickness and the vagaries of temperature. The reason why I stayed in Seda for 11 days was not just to enjoy the scenery of Seda. So why? Let me tell you slowly. Although there may not be anything shocking to say, if I don’t write it down, I always feel that I owe myself a literary debt.

As we all know, Serta is world-famous for the Larung Gar Buddhist Academy, where practitioners live in red houses all over the mountains and plains. Cultivation is the entire life of people there. What is practice? It is not just about burning incense, worshiping Buddha, kowtow and chanting sutras, but more importantly, listening, thinking and practicing. In terms of study and thinking, Buddhist colleges have very systematic courses for everyone to study. There are also examinations during the study period, which are no less rigorous than secular universities. In terms of practice, monks who live in a red house have to take care of all their food, clothing, housing and transportation themselves. Life is a dojo. The row upon row of red houses in many beautiful photos are actually small and dark inside. There is no running water, no bathroom, and even no beds. There are only mats on the floor. I initially thought that the khenpos of the college (a degree equivalent to a professor in a university) would live in very modern houses, but when I went there I found that the khenpos who already had many believers still lived in such red houses. I even heard that one khenpo’s house was too shabby and the believers couldn’t stand it anymore, so they renovated the khenpo’s house. After the decoration was completed, Khenpo felt that there were too many wooden boards on the exterior of the new house, so he had the wooden boards removed again. Generally speaking, every monk receives 500 yuan from the college as living expenses every month. For me, the food expenses for a month are more than 500 yuan, let alone using this 500 yuan to maintain my daily living needs for a month. The people there have minimized their dependence on material life.

The first Khenpo I met at the Buddhist Academy was Khenpo Sodarji. The night I arrived, he was about to lecture on a Buddhist sutra ("The Mahayana Sutra"). Before this, I didn’t know anything about Khenpo Sodarji, I only knew that he was a very famous Tibetan Buddhist leader. At first, I did not listen to his teachings with admiration like some of his followers, but just regarded it as an ordinary lecture. But as I listened, I had to be impressed by Khenpo Sodargyi’s extensive knowledge. Not only could he pick up Buddhist classics at his fingertips, and he could casually cite a certain original text of a certain classic, but secular knowledge was also very important to Khenpo. Not a problem. One day, he gave a speech on the theme of "How Buddhists Keep Up with the Times". At the beginning of his speech, he quoted Dickens's novel "A Tale of Two Cities": "It was the best of times and the worst of times; this is wisdom. "This is the age of stupidity; it is the age of faith and the age of doubt." At the same time, he also detailed all the periods in the process of human civilization, and even listed the landmark events at the beginning of each period accurately. to the year in which the incident occurred. As a humanities major in a university, I feel ashamed of myself. In addition to his profound knowledge, his humor is another characteristic. During his speech, he could always use some witty words to make the people present laugh. After several encounters with him, you would not think of him as a superior religious leader, but rather as a very knowledgeable teacher who is very good at teaching.

One day at noon, several sisters and I went to visit Khenpo Chichen Lodro, who is another very famous Khenpo in the Buddhist academy. Before this, I had read two books by Khenpo, one was "The Truth of Life" and the other was "Why Are We Unhappy". I have not finished reading these two books, I have only scratched the surface. The reason is that I regard these two books as chicken soup for the soul and have no interest in reading them. But when I visited Khenpo, he gave me another book of his called "Buddhism: Superstition or Wisdom?" ! ”, I was fascinated after opening the first chapter of this book. In the book, Khenpo uses strong logic to demonstrate what Buddhism is and is not. He summarizes the connotation of Buddhism with the word "compassion and wisdom", breaking the past belief that Buddhism is idealism, Buddhism is a religion, and Buddhism is a superstition. prejudice. Khenpo also knocked on my head and said to me: I should listen more and think more, and don’t be superstitious. For a person who really starts to learn Buddhism, he will not waste his enthusiasm on praying to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas to bless him for promotion and wealth or other things, let alone hope that Buddhas and Bodhisattvas will help him avoid the coming of impermanence. He will gradually accept impermanence as the truth of the world and have a strong heart to face it when it comes. Buddhism does not promise to give you any sense of security; on the contrary, it aims to break your sense of security. Buddha is not a god with powerful supernatural powers that can determine or rewrite destiny. He is just a teacher with a bright personality, and teaches you various methods to face the troubles in life, expand the bright side of life, and ultimately let everyone You can become a person with perfect wisdom and compassion like him.

Another master who left a deep impression on me is Master Tashi (guru probably means distinguished teacher in Tibetan Buddhism, because I don’t know the name of Master Tashi , so I call him guru here), he is just in his early 30s, but he has the realm of a practitioner. Several friends and I followed the guru to visit the birthplace of His Holiness Jigme Phuntsok—Banma County, Qinghai, near Serta. On the way back, the master stopped the car on the side of the road, and a group of us had a picnic on the wide grass. There is no one around the grassland, and there are mountains standing under the flowing white clouds. The strong sunlight from the plateau shines on us, and from time to time, the breeze blows and brings coolness. Although I only ate watermelons, plums and other fruits, melon seeds, pine nuts and other nuts, and the only staple food was Shanxi jelly, it was the most unforgettable lunch I have ever had in my life. Even the sky was the clearest blue I had ever seen. "After being in a cage for a long time, you can return to nature" is probably this situation. At that moment, I was thinking, what are we pursuing in our entire lives? The peace and freedom at this moment are not based on any material enjoyment, or even on my relationship with anyone, but simply on enjoying the state at that moment. Perhaps a lot of pain in daily life is just because you want too much, but in fact, what you really need in life is not much.

In addition to following the master to Qinghai, we also went to the Sky Burial Platform in Seda. Sky burial is the funeral custom of the Tibetan people. In their concept, the soul after death can reach the Pure Land of Paradise after passing through Tianzang. The deceased is moved to the sky burial platform by his family. After the ceremony of salvation, the sky burial master will dissect and cut the body piece by piece, and then feed it to the vultures. Since tourists are not allowed to get too close, we can only watch the entire sky burial process from a high platform in the distance. I only saw part of the corpse and the scene of the vultures flying in to eat the corpse. I did not see the dissection process, but it was enough to shock me. Human life comes from nature, and all food, clothing, shelter and transportation in human life are inseparable from what nature provides. When a person dies, whether it is sky burial or other burial methods, our bodies will return to nature. From this perspective, we and all things in nature have always been closely connected and inseparable, especially between people. Before a hair of mine becomes my hair, it may be a small flower swaying in the wind. After it withers, it blends into the earth and decomposes into the basic elements that make up life. These elements are recoded by nature, the magical engineer. It changed its way of existence and became part of life again. We are just an occasional form of existence in the great cycle of life. When we hurt other beings, we are actually hurting ourselves, because we are originally one.

In Serta, what I can’t forget are not only the khenpos, but also some people who moved me to tears. They are a group of Tibetan compatriots. When I was in Seda, I happened to catch up with the grand Dharma conference. Many Han people traveled thousands of miles to attend the Dharma conference. Some Tibetans came here with their families. If they had no place to live, they would set up tents in the open space of the square. If they could not go to the sutra hall to chant sutras, they would sit or kneel on the roadside to recite sutras. You must know that this is the rainy season in Seda. It has rained for several days and even hailed for two or three days. The temperature at night is less than zero, so you need to wear warm clothes even during the day. Observe these Tibetans, they wear simple or even not very neat clothes, may only eat tsampa, and stay here for 7 or 8 days just for their faith. In their eyes, I could not see confusion or anxiety. On the contrary, they were so determined and pious. In comparison, the material conditions we enjoy are much better, but we often spend our lives wandering in luxury houses and mansions, unable to see the direction of life. They may have nothing, but they have spiritual power that cannot be shaken by material things.

In fact, before I came to Serta, I knew nothing about Tibetan Buddhism. I even had some prejudices, thinking that Tibetan Buddhism was too mystical. Due to the limitations of cognition, when we make a judgment about a thing, we usually base it on existing experiences and concepts, and draw conclusions that conform to our own cognitive logic based on the superficial connections between things. Breaking the existing cognition actually makes us feel uneasy, so when we come into contact with a new thing, it is difficult for us to use an open mind and understand the thing itself without any prejudice. I can’t say how in-depth my understanding of Tibetan Buddhism has been through this trip. I can only say that I don’t dare to draw conclusions easily about some of the things I saw. I am willing to listen and feel first before deciding whether I want to Agree or deny.

The mandala is the tallest building in the Buddhist academy and a holy place in the minds of many Buddhists. Before this, I heard many people say that as long as you circumambulate the mandala a certain number, you can be liberated and no longer reincarnate. This may sound a bit superstitious. A Jomu (female monk in Tibetan Buddhism) told me that the mandala actually represents the true face of the Dharma, and that walking around the mandala is to discover one's own heart. The mandala at night looked especially beautiful and solemn in the lights and glass. I followed a large group of tourists and believers to go around the mandala. That day happened to be the fifteenth day of the lunar calendar, and the moon hung high in the sky, round and bright. However, the moon has been shrouded in heavy dark clouds, and only a little light can be revealed. Suddenly, a gust of wind blew through the sky and blew away the clouds that originally covered the moon. A bright moon slowly appeared in front of everyone's eyes. Many people who were circling the mandala stopped and looked excitedly at the beautiful scenery that suddenly appeared in front of them.

Maybe after living in the urban jungle for so long, even looking at the moon has become a luxurious and romantic thing, let alone on this plateau where there are no tall buildings to block the view and there is no smog. Looking at the night sky, I was stunned by the scene in front of me. I seemed to feel a little bit of enlightenment ecstasy at that moment, and I couldn't help but widen my eyes and open my mouth. I suddenly realized that the so-called self-sufficient and pure nature is like the bright and flawless moon, and the so-called worries and complicated worldly affairs are like layers of dark clouds. The dark clouds are always flowing and cannot be shrouded forever. bright moon. But we are immersed in the temporary darkness or lingering on the moonlight in front of us, holding on tightly and refusing to let go. It is so futile to pursue eternity in the constant change. The verses spoken by the Sixth Patriarch Hui Neng: "The Bodhi tree has no tree, and the mirror is not a stand. There is nothing in the first place, so where can it cause dust?" At that moment, it was no longer words to me but like a gentle petal. It fell into my heart.

The reason why this essay is called "The Story of the Buddha Country" is because I thought of Tao Yuanming's "The Peach Blossom Spring". I am like the fisherman who strayed into the Peach Blossom Spring, in a simple and uncontested country. I had many adventures and received many gifts. When I left, it became a pure land in my heart. At the end of "Peach Blossom Spring", the fisherman searched for it but found nothing, and no one cared about it. Today, as the tourism industry in Seda is becoming more and more prosperous, I hope that this Buddhist land can maintain its original appearance and not disappear from the world in another way because of too many visitors.