Buddhist temple is a place for monks to live and pray. Furthermore, most Buddhists will go to the temple to pray and have lectures from an eminent monk every first day and every fifteenth day of month according to the ancient Lunar Calendar which is different from what we use in our daily life. Most Buddhist temples are located on a mountain or scenic area which is away from the noise of the city. Consequently, we cannot reach them by any means of transportation. This means it might take us more than an hour to climb the mountain to arrive at the temple.
The best known Buddhist temple in my living city is Xianyan Temple, which was founded during the Tang Dynasty (627-649). Most buildings in the temple is made of wood and painted yellow, which is different from the traditional Chinese building. As Xianyan Temple has more than 1000 years of history, the buildings in the temple look ancient and obsolete. However, there is a great diversity in the style of the building, especially the roof. Some roofs of the temple upturned flaring corners. Others are smoother and flatter. The most important building is Main Hall, where stores the Shakyamuni Buddha. Shakyamuni Buddha is the Supreme Buddha, who founded Buddhism.
The Buddhist temple is a sacred and holy place for Buddhists, just as the church to Christians, which is the reason why we cannot be loud. What’s more, all Buddhists are required to kneel down to worship Buddha and burn a joss stick. All of the monks are forbidden to eat any living things except vegetables which mean that all of the monks are vegetarians.
When I was a child, I had no idea about Buddhism or what it meant to me or why I was required to go to the Buddhist temple. My mother is a devout Buddhist and always took my sister and me to the Buddhist temple to pray when we were kids. However, I was not willing to go to the Buddhist temple because climbing the mountain made exhausted. I was rebuked by my mother due to complaining about Buddhism and told that I was prohibited to express any negative feelings related to Buddhism; otherwise I might be punished to clean the room. Another reason that I did not like the temple is that we cannot talk loudly, and we are not allowed to laugh wildly, especially when the monks and the Buddhists are chanting scriptures and praying.
As I grew older, I started to get more knowledge about Buddhism and understood why my mother treated me as they did when I was a child, especially when I experienced how Buddhism purified my inner world and changed my philosophy of life. Even now, I still remembered the talk with my master named Wangru in the Buddhism temple. At that time, I was confused about my future and whether I would study abroad. Actually, I was a college student in a Chinese university. After one year’s study and life in Chinese University, I found that the days in this university were not what I wanted. I had no passion in anything, even though I did a good job in the school work and social activities in the first year. My professor advised me to change the environment and try to search for some challenges. One of his suggestions was to study abroad to experience different culture and life.** It was a dilemma at that time. On one hand, I was a little afraid of traveling to another unknown country by myself even though the education in the US receives the highest reputation around the world. What’s more, I was worried that I would face the same situation in the US that I did in China during college. If I would have the same situation, what should I do? One the other hand, I would lose almost everything that I had achieved in China, like the bachelor degree in the Chinese University. At that time, I was struggling about which choice is better for me and how I could make the decision**.
I climbed the mountain to the Buddhist temple to meet with Master Wangru by myself. I poured out what I was struggling with and asked her what I should do. Master Wangru said nothing but a word “Follow me!” I knelt down to the Buddha and burned a joss stick following my master. After a few minutes, she said, “Forget everything, do not think about what you face now and try to be simple for a moment”. Both of us knelt to the Buddha in the temple with silence for around ten minutes. Finally, she said, “We are surrounded by colorful and unique opportunities all the time, but too often we miss out on them, especially when we are young and distracted. As I look around at the world, I see that there are two primary reasons why we miss out on opportunities. First, we may have trouble locating them as they are invisible to us without education or exposure. Second, even after we find the opportunities, we may lack the skills, strength and resources to capture them.” I became more confused after her expression about the opportunity. I asked my master that I did not get the answer about whether I should go to study abroad or not. She added,” Broadening your horizons and making the opportunities visible and accessible.” I stayed in the Buddhist temple overnight and decided to prepare the material and tests for applying to study in the US during the night in the temple. I gradually realized that my master never answered my question directly and she always gave us clues or philosophic expression to help us look for the answers by ourselves. Now, I start to understand why my mother goes to Buddhist temple and have lectures there.
After that, I started to feel that the Buddhist temple for me is a place to purify myself and help me calm down without any worries. I suppose this is the reason why almost all of the Buddhist temples are built on a mountain or some other place, which is away from the noise.
