After eating, the men still talk about women, talk about business and all kinds of beautiful women dealing with anecdotes, which is the best way to kill time.
Speaking of late night study, May's boyfriend called, and May put me on the phone. He warmly invited Mei and me to Yushu, promising first-class food and hospitality. May was somewhat tempted to go and asked my opinion. I thought about it for a while and thought it should be okay to go in. It would be dangerous to drive if it was snowing when we got out, so I decided to go back in the summer and fall.
The next day, I woke up naturally. First, I read a book. Today's task was light, take a rest and then go to Tal Temple. It is not too far from Xining. After breakfast, I took a taxi to the place Mei told me about. There are shuttles in the high tourist season, this is the low season. The shuttle had stopped and was at a fixed location where you could take a taxi.
I was the third person to get on the bus. There was already one person in the passenger seat and another in the driver's back seat. I sat in the middle of the back row and eventually a tall, strong, slightly older man came along. I suggested to the young lad (thinner) sitting in the passenger seat to give up his seat to this older man. The young lad agreed readily, the older man thanked me, then sat in front, the young lad next to me, and the driver set off.
The uncle knew from my attire and accent that I was traveling, and learned from me the general flow of the tour. When he learned that I was planning to go to Tibet, he talked about riding a bicycle to Tibet alone when he was young. Moreover, he wrote a book about it, which was really extraordinary and courageous!
The young man sitting on my left is a chef in a restaurant. This time, he went home to meet his parents.
The young man sitting on my right was performing Tibetan songs and dances at a famous hotel in Xining, introducing the hotel to me. I thought one day I could have dinner with Mei and watch the song and dance show.
Said so, it felt like we were about to go to the Tal Temple. Uncle asked the driver to stop at the side of the road for a while. I still don't know what Uncle is doing. After waiting for a while, uncle rushed up, holding a book in his hand, and gave it to me. I gladly accepted it and said, Thank you very much, please read it! Uncle said to me, "I hope this book will help you on your trip to Tibet." Farewell Uncle, be thankful!
We would soon arrive at the Thar Monastery. The Thar Monastery itself is open and does not require a ticket, but if you want to enter the specialized temples, you need to buy a separate ticket.
The origin of the Thar Monastery
Must begin with Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelugpa (Yellow) school of Tibetan Buddhism. According to legend, Tsongkhapa was born on October 10, 1357 in Tsongkhapa (now Huangzhong County, Qinghai Tal Temple), so people call him "Tsongkhapa".
Tsongkhapa was very intelligent from childhood. at the age of 3, he entered the temple of Xiazong and was warned by the recent events. at the age of 7, he entered the temple of Xiaqiong, and was taught Buddhist precepts, where he followed the monk Duan Zhiren for 9 years. at the age of 16, he left the temple of Xiaqiong to learn Buddhism on foot, and then went to the back of Tibet, visited the famous temples of various schools, visited the famous monks and masters, and diligently cultivated the Dharma. at the age of 29, he was awarded the Buddhist precepts by the temple of Namgayakang in the region of Yarlung River. Buddhist precepts.
At the age of 34, he gained an in-depth understanding of Buddhist tantra and initiation, and went around preaching and teaching the Dharma, increasing his status in the Buddhist community and even in society.
He wrote The General Commentary on the Bodhidharma Path and The General Commentary on the Tantric Path in 1401 and 1406, respectively, which laid the theoretical and ideological foundations for the establishment of his Gelugpa school. He wrote more than 170 volumes in his lifetime.
Trungpa left home to study Buddhism in Tibet for many years when her mother, Shanza Acheser, impatiently sent him a bunch of her own gray hair, telling him that her old mother had gone gray and wanted him to come back.
Determined not to return to Tsongkhapa's Buddhist endeavors, he sent his mother and sister a self-portrait painted in their nosebleeds and an image of the Lion's Roar Buddha, writing, "If I could build a stupa with 100,000 Lion's Roar Buddhas and Bodhi trees as fetuses in the place of my birth it would be just as it was when I met."
In 379, in accordance with Tsongkhapa's wishes, her mother and followers built a lotus-gathering stupa of stone, the earliest structure at Thar Monastery, and in 1577 an Amin-style Chinese Buddhist temple was built next to this stupa, known as the Hall of Maitreya. Because the pagoda came first and the temple came later, the Han Chinese in the Amdo area collectively called it Tal Temple.
Tal Temple was named after the pagoda first and the temple later. Tal Temple is a high school in Qinghai Province.
Northwest Buddhism center, the Yellow Religion shrine, its main buildings are located in the Lotus Hill, a ditch on both sides of the mountain slopes, there are large Jinhua Temple, the Great Sutra Hall, the Maitreya Hall, the nine temples, Hua Temple, the small Jinhua Temple, Jubazha field, Dinka Zakura, Mamba Zakura, Dala Lang, kitchens, Ruyi Pagoda and so on, more than 9,300 rooms (seat).
Tal Temple has a large Jinwa Temple small Jinwa Temple flower temple large scripture hall, Dala Ruyi Tower, Taiping Tower, Bodhi Tower, gatehouse and other nine halls. There are more than 1,000 courtyards and more than 4,500 temples on a grand scale. Lama resides in the palace, Buddhist temple, study, bedchamber, bondage building, compound complement each other, since ancient times is the center of the yellow religion and Buddhism's holy land.
The temple building covers the Han Palace, Tibetan flat roof style, skillfully will be the Han-style three-eaved hermitage and Tibetan-style eaves under the clever whip hemp wall, the middle of the Wheel of Time Vajra Sanskrit truth, the bottom of the copper mirror bricks combined to form a harmonious and perfect Chinese and Tibetan art styles of the architectural complex.
Tal Temple is not only the holy place of Lamaism in China, but also one of the institutions of higher learning that has cultivated a large number of Tibetan intellectuals. There are four major colleges in the temple, namely, Hinayana, Tantric Buddhism, Astronomy and Medicine.
The pagodas and halls of Ershi are staggered, complementing each other in a magnificent way.
Since the Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty, the imperial court has repeatedly sent gifts to the Thar Temple, including plaques, dharma vessels, statues, scriptures and stupas. The temple's system of living Buddhas, such as Aja, Sai Chi, Lako, Sedo, Shansa, Sina, Chashi, etc., were named Hutuktu or Nomenklatura Khan in the Qing Dynasty. Among them, Aja, Sai Chi and Lako were the Hutuketu of Beijing, and there were also those who had been handprint lamas in Yonghe Palace in Beijing and Wutai Mountain in Shanxi.
Because of these special reasons, the Thar Monastery has developed rapidly, the scale is getting bigger and bigger, and has become one of the six major monasteries of the Gelug sect of Tibetan Buddhism. Existing Tal monastery building more than 9300, covers an area of more than 600 acres, there are 25 halls. At its peak, there were more than 3600 monks, and there were still 1983 at the beginning of liberation.
Because of the accumulation of history, the temple is extremely rich in cultural relics, its buildings, utensils, statues, literature collection makes the temple become a treasure trove of art, the temple has a constitutional, tantric, wheel of the time, medical Ming, thousands of BaZaCang four colleges, the study of buddhism and the Tibetan language, text, astronomy, calendar, medicine, dance, sculpture, painting, architecture, etc. Daoguang seven years (A.D. 1827), the temple printing scripture institute was established, printed out the Tibetan scriptures and a variety of texts are sold throughout the Tibetan region.
The temple held four large-scale pujas in the first month of the lunar calendar, April, June, September, known as the "four great scriptures". On that occasion, people from all over the world will gather together on a grand scale. In addition, in late October of the lunar calendar, there is a commemoration of the death of Tsongkhapa "five lights festival", as well as send the plague of end-of-year activities.
Tal Temple originally had a complete system of administrative and religious organizations. The highest authority of its administrative organization was the Sutra Council of all the monks, presided over by the General Law Office and consisting of the Karma Conference and the Dajiwa. The Karma Conference is a standing committee of all monks' sutras, consisting of the Rudra, the Great Xiangzuo, the Great Monk, and the Gampa of the six nationalities.
The Daji is the executive body of the Gark Conf
The overall head of the religious organization is still the General Law Office, which has a general director and monastic officers in charge of four colleges. Each college has its own Khenpo, who has his own Gegui (monk official) and head monk. The Prime Minister of the Temple Management Committee is now in charge of the whole temple. At present there are more than 800 monks in the temple (among them there are 11 living Buddhas, mainly Aga, Ch?zang, Shedo, Ch?si, Jaya, Mina, Zasi, Benbul, Yangjia, etc. And 63 people in Wande)
The pagoda temple has a collection of collections
A large number of gilt-bronze Buddha statues, gold and silver lamps, gold books and gold canons, wooden scriptures, documents, stupas, imperial plaques, murals, pile embroidery and other cultural relics. Among them, frescoes, embroidery, ghee carving is known as the three wonders of Tal Temple. Mural is mostly painted with mineral pigments on the cloth mantle, the content is mainly scriptures, time machine, Buddha and so on. Embroidery is a variety of colors of satin, sheepskin, cotton and other pile embroidery. The cloth mantle becomes Buddha, Bodhisattva, heavenly kings, Lohan, venerable figures, flowers, birds, animals and other patterns.
Sunburn Festival
In the morning of the "sunburn", the monks of the Tal Temple will focus on doing a good job of "sunburn" before the various preparations, and then carry a huge statue of the Buddha, along the mountain road next to the temple to the top of the mountain, and then a huge statue of the Buddha (the big Tang) from the hillside. Then the huge statue of Buddha (Datang) will be spread from the hillside to the foot of the mountain. At this point, the huge Buddha statue will be displayed in front of thousands of people who come to visit the temple.
After the "sunning of the Buddha", there will be a dance in the square inside the Thar Temple. The lamas wear various masks and dance various religious dances. Along with the dance, the lamas recite Buddhist scriptures, pray and perform Tibetan opera, which is the annual stage for performing religious arts in the temple.
In fact, the Buddha statue is a Datang special license, a rare treasure among scroll paintings. Buddha exhibition day, the first ray of sunshine in the east shining on the earth, is the best time to unfold the statue of Buddha, so the Buddha exhibition is also known as sunshine. Sun Buddha is held twice a year in April and June of the lunar calendar, which is meant to commemorate the births of Sakyamuni, Jowo, Nirvana_ and Maitreya, as well as the birth and Nirvana_ of Tsongkhapa.
Three wonders of art
Tal Temple butter sculpture, frescoes, embroidery is known as the "three wonders of art".
Mural
Mural is a variety of temple wall painting. Mostly painted on the cloth mantle, there are some painted directly on the walls and beams of the fresco pigments are made of stone minerals, bright colors, lasting. Mural style belongs to the Lamaism religious painting department, with a strong flavor of India and Tibet. Most of the frescoes are based on the Buddhist scriptures, the
Flower and padded satin motifs sewn onto a piece of silk or cloth
Stack embroidery is one of the original Tibetan art varieties of Thar Monastery. With various colors of satin cut into various shapes, such as Buddha, figures, flowers, birds and animals. It is enriched with wool or cotton and then embroidered on the cloth curtain. Because there is a protrusion in the center, it has a distinct three-dimensional effect. In the main hall of this temple, there are piles of embroidered works of art such as the "Eighteen Lohan". Embroidery consists of embroidery and cut velvet, and most of its contents and themes come from Buddhist stories and religious life, etc. It is a traditional art created in temples. It is a traditional art created in temples and a masterpiece of monks' art.
Colorful Butter Graphics
Ghee is a creamy food consumed by Tibetan herders on the Tibetan Plateau, a yellowish-white oily substance produced by repeated stirring of milk. This grease is congealed, soft, clean and highly malleable.
Butter sculpture is a sculpture art unique to Tibetans. It is made of white and delicate ghee as raw material, with a variety of mineral pigments. It is beautifully modeled, bright and tender color, full of auspicious and festive visual effects. Tibetan compatriots are convinced that all sincere love offerings ghee sculpture of Buddha, Bodhisattva, Dharma protector, will certainly be able to overcome disasters, happiness, great blessings and so on. And quickly achieve apudhara three monks and three bodhisattvas.
Legend has it that butter sculpture originated in Tibet. When Princess Wencheng of Tang married King Songtsen Gampo of Tufan, she
Tal Temple ghee sculpture production has a complete set of institutions and scientific procedures. There are two institutions specializing in the production of ghee sculpture in the temple, one is called 'Jie Zong Zeng Zha' and the other is called 'Gong Mang Zeng Zha', which is commonly known as the 'Upper Garden' and the ' Lower Garden'. These two gardens compete with each other.
There are about 20 art monks in each hospital. These art monks are usually admitted to the hospital at the age of 15 or 16 and practice art all their lives. The director (known as 'Zhang Chi') presides over the upper and lower flower gardens, deciding on the theme, composition and production division of labor for that year's butter sculpture.
The art of butter sculpture inherits the 'fine', 'complicated' and 'skillful' characteristics of Tibetan Buddhist art, and its design and production have been passed down from master to disciple since ancient times, and are generally crafted in a closed environment.
Because the two flower academies kept each other's disciplines and production techniques secret and blocked the news, each formed a certain independent school over time. They develop in competition, and every year they show their achievements with a new look and new skills. At present, the main inheritors of the ghee sculpture production skills of the Thar Monastery are Zhaxi Nyima, Luo Zang Longzhu, Ga Zang Gatso, Jiayang Xiejie, Zhihua Ruozi and so on.
Butter sculpture production cycle is long, complex process. It takes three months from preparation (October in the Tibetan calendar) to the official exhibition (January 15th). In order to make the ghee smooth and delicate, easy to operate, you must first soak the ghee in ice water, repeated rubbing, kneading, to remove impurities, increase the toughness, kneaded into a paste standby.
Before shaping an oil sculpture of a monk, it is necessary to take a bath and make a wish and perform a religious ceremony. After the ceremony, Lama Zhangchi discusses the theme of the butter sculpture with the other monks, then designs sketches, carefully conceives, plans and arranges them before assigning them to masters who specialize in figures, animals, flowers and architecture to lead their disciples and begin working individually in a cool room where the temperature is below freezing.
First the basic skeleton is carefully bound and tied into different shapes of 'skeletons', or basic models, with soft leather bundles, twine, bamboo sticks and other objects, according to the content of the proposed theme.
Second, shaping the model. The first raw material for molding is to mix the old butter sculpture and straw ash that was removed last year, and smash it with a stick into a hard and elastic black shaped clay, and use this black clay to mold different shapes on the skeleton. The molding method is similar to dough or clay molding. After the basic molding is completed, the shape, size, and overall structural proportions of the molding have to be modified and approved by the ruling lama before it can be finalized. The second raw material is a variety of mineral pigments kneaded into milky ghee, blended into colorful oil molding raw materials, carefully coated in the finished modeling, painted on the face, painting eyebrows, carving flowers and cores, with gold, silver and halo decorating some features.
Finally, in accordance with the overall requirements of the design, the molded ghee sculpture with wire installed in place one by one, that is, fixed on several large wooden boards or special pots, high and low levels, pieces hanging in the air, shaping the shape of different sizes, as large as pavilions, bodhisattvas, vajra, as small as three or five centimeters of flowers, birds, insects and fishes, to become a layout of a complete, realistic, lifelike three-dimensional picture.
The finished picture of the butter sculpture should have a slant of about 20 degrees forward. First, it is convenient for the viewer to look up slightly to see the panorama. The second is for fear that the butter sculpture will melt from the top down, and the melted liquid above will accomplish the shape below. Generally, the finished butter sculpture is reworked every one or two years due to the temperature.
Because butter sculptures have a very low melting point, they deform at 15 degrees and melt around 25 degrees. To prevent body heat from affecting the ghee sculptures, the monks soak their hands in bone-chilling snow water before kneading. To prevent their hands from getting warm, they have to soak them in ice water and grab ice cubes from time to time to keep their fingers cold. As a result, every monk suffers from varying degrees of arthrosis and even disability.
It is difficult to do this without devotion to Buddha and dedication to religious art. Year after year, in the dark gre
The butter sculptures, although named 'flowers', are diverse and rich in subject matter. Mainly consists of a variety of storylines, such as the Buddha, civil servants and military generals, birds and animals, flowers, birds, fish and insects, forests, flowers and plants bonsai, pavilions and so on. Simple and handy, large layout scattered perspective, local focus perspective, clever use of three-dimensional sense, to form a complete three-dimensional picture.
Because it is not limited by time and space, butter sculpture colorful plastic is especially good at showing complex plots in large scenes, inheriting the treatment of 'different time and place' in Buddhist murals. In a limited space, dozens of storylines can be crisscrossed in a single picture in the form of a comic strip, which looks complex but not chaotic and integrated.
The Pagoda Temple Debate
Debate is a Buddhist term for a debate on Buddhist theories. That is to say, after studying the Buddhist scriptures, the monks, in order to strengthen the true understanding of the scriptures, exchange the experience they have learned and the Buddhist teachings they have learned through questions and answers or multiple questions and answers, just like our academic discussions. It is a way for lamas to study Buddhist scriptures.
Debate at Thar Monastery meets every day from 3pm to 4pm.
When I arrived at the place where the debate was held, I saw that most of the people had finished debating, and there was only one place where it was still going on intensely. Two people were debating fiercely and getting into it, and the monks watching next to them were listening intently. It felt like they were discussing the issues in depth, and the monks listening next to them were also listening and thinking at the same pace. Although I couldn't understand what they were saying, their aura made me feel that they were very wise and very different from the average monk, so to speak.
After watching the debate on the sutra, I went up the hill to see the small temples with Buddha statues inside, many of which were closing. The monk on duty extinguished the ghee lamps in the temples and locked the doors.
The Panchen Lama's residence was also on the hill. He didn't go in, just looked out. It was getting dark. In the photo I'm standing on this platform, looking down at the Thar Monastery.
At that moment came a young lama, about 12 or 13 years old. We smiled at each other and started talking.
The little monk had come in when he was six years old and had been studying, and his homework was getting harder. However, his Chinese wasn't very good. When I asked him some complicated questions, he didn't understand. Just then, a young adult lama came over and translated for us so we could communicate. Afterward, I talked to him. His name is Ruzang Samdan and he is the highest grade student here. The temperament was very different from ordinary lamas, generous and wise.
Luzang Sandan had a Japanese study book in his hand. He learned English well and now teaches himself Japanese.
I was curious to ask him about his studies here, and I didn't expect to find a little story.
Lu Sandan, originally born in a small temple in the countryside, has always been a good student. When the knowledge of the temple was not enough, he wanted to go to the Thar temple to study. So with the support provided by some of the temple visitors, he went to study at the Thar Monastery. He did not realize that Thar Monastery had a strict system of recruiting monks. A person like him with no background and no access would not be accepted at all.
Zang Sandan has been meditating and chanting in front of the Thar Monastery, continuing every day without a single day's delay. It never stopped, rain or shine. Every day monks from the temple would pass by the entrance. After a long time, everyone knew him, and a few lamas in the temple who had the power to make decisions also noticed him.
Then the money for the offerings ran out, and Luzang Sandan often went hungry and had to rely on relief from his family or untimely offerings from others. Speaking of this part, I can feel that he was still very sad in his heart.
Finally, one day, the lama in charge of the temple came to inform him that he could officially enter the temple to study.
It turned out that a few lamas in charge of the temple felt that Ruzang Sandan could be so persistent and so passionate about studying Buddhism, and were touched by his perseverance and determination. When someone objected, the leading lama of the temple made it clear that those who had the opportunity to study in the temple did not cherish it and did not study well. Ruzang Sandan is so good at learning and so persistent, of course we should give him a chance to learn, I believe he will be able to
Chatting with Ruzang Sandan about what he had just seen and the process of debating the sutra, he said that those two people were his classmates. He had something to do today, so he didn't participate. Usually, they debate scriptures together. No wonder, I thought he had the same aura as them and looked familiar.
As he spoke, Ruzang Sandan still felt a little unbalanced when everyone else was able to learn through many informal channels, such as various connections, but he was so hard-working and tired. He felt very sorry and hard for the unequal treatment and delays he had suffered over the past six months.
Ruzangsandan and I saw things quite differently. I thought for a while and said to him, "It seems that you have suffered a lot to get the opportunity to study, but you got it all on your own. These hardships have also tempered your mind and become your wealth." Only what you get through your own efforts is truly yours and truly valuable. Those people can learn in a more convenient way that seems easy, but is actually not good for their growth.
It felt like these words were still heard and accepted by Luzang Sandan. Afterward Luzang Sandan invited me to visit the residence his family had bought. It turns out that there are some open spaces in the Thar Monastery where monks' families build some houses, which can be used as a place to live when visiting monks or as a place for friends to live. They are usually bought and sold amongst the monks' families. I went there with a 12 year old monk. I saw a nice house that could accommodate several people. Luzang Sandan said I could live here if I wanted to.
After thinking about it for a while, I was a little scared to live here alone, and thought that if May would like to come along, we could all feel what it would be like to live together in the Thar Monastery. I told Ruzangsandan that I hadn't told my friend, so I'd better go back to my friend's house or my friend would worry. If my friend can come with me tomorrow, we'll stay together for one night.
Seeing that it was getting late, I proposed to go back. Ruzang Sandan saw that I was interested in the row of books he had placed there. He took out one book and said he would give it to me. I asked him to write his name on the book. He wrote down his Chinese and Tibetan names, and his mailing address, saying that if there was anything he didn't understand, he could write and discuss it with him.
It has his Japanese name on it.
It was pitch black. I don't know how I'm going to get out of here if they don't give me a ride. Zang Sandan and the young monk walked me to the door and watched me walk away before leaving in peace.
Mei had been waiting for me for a long time. She was really worried. Fortunately, I came back in time. Otherwise she was already wondering if she should ask her friends to inquire about my situation in Tal Temple. I told her about staying at the temple at night and she seemed quite distrustful and relieved. I still don't feel safe staying there alone, so I forgot about the idea of staying there.
This book was written by Tsongkhapa and is dedicated to the "wisdom of the middle ground" in Buddhism. The "Middle Way" is an important concept in Buddhism. This book is very helpful in helping us to understand this concept in depth. Thanks to Gatso, this book has opened a window to Tibetan Buddhism. Tsongkhapa has studied Buddhism y and his book can help us to understand Tibetan Buddhism y. By reading this little book, I feel that the Buddha founded Buddhism with great wisdom, and it seems very much like philosophy to me.
This was a brand new discovery. From then on, I became very interested in Tibetan Buddhism.
My trip to Tibet is destined to be an in-depth understanding of Tibetan Buddhism. Looking forward to my trip to Tibet.
Since then, I have had a firm idea in my mind that I will try to overcome the difficulties, even if there are great difficulties, I will finish the trip!
I enjoyed my trip today, met two exceptionally genuine friends, and got two very meaningful books. Both books are still on my bookshelf!
For the Buddhist-loving traveler, this is the ultimate adventure, the ultimate baptism for your soul. It's all very strange and subtle, and will bring shocks and confidence to your life.