I was still in my dream when someone slapped so hard on my door to wake me up. I knew it is 430am, the last time I woke up was 12am in the midnight. This is the typical way I behaved when I need to wake up early, yet without an alarm clock or simply too anxious if I missed the time.
It is strange that I was still practicing Vipassana somewhere in front of Begnas Lake a few days ago on the mountain, and today I am chanting in another Japanese temple, on another mountain. Both acts related to Buddhism, but they are totally different. One is meditating in total silence, another one is chanting by hitting the drum as loud as possible. Nevertheless, there are still some similarity between two, both locations are facing the lake, the first one is Begnas Lake and the second one is Phewa Lake. The second similarity is, in both activities, one need to start by 430am.
I remembered my dream was about my secondary school friends. I remembered two of them by their name clearly, one is ShuJing and another one is YoonChee, in fact YoonChee is my primary school friend. There is another secondary school friends which I have forgotten her name, she is hiding in the room of ShuJing for long time avoiding somebody. And I remembered I took a plane in my dream, not seeing myself in the plane but knowing I have taken or going to take a plane, to somewhere I assumed. And I remembered I saw another primary school friend in the dream, before I departed to the mountain, I read in Facebook that she lost everything of hers after touched down in Barcelona to fake polices. I saw a helicopter, yes I dream about taking a plane but I saw a helicopter, resting on the roof of a ruined building, something like the building in Sarajevo, emptied with no windows but inside grown with vegetation. Just like forest, somebody I met in Ohrid said, this is not in the dream.
I shouted, yes yes I am coming. The sound of the door slapping was so irritating. It was like someone not trying to wake you up, but asked for a fight. I quickly change my clothes and put on the scarf. Without washing up myself, I walked to the temple. It was exactly 430am. The monk gave me a drum, it looks like a Chinese fan in shape, but it is much heavier than the fan. On the drum it was written the temple name and the mantra. Na Mo Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo. This is how we chant, hit the drum and chant the mantra at the same time, Na Mo Myo shall be faster follow by the slower Ren Ge Kyo. The beating of drum shall be faster too in the beginning and follow by the slower end.
I think I have done quite a good job. The monk told me we will only chant for half and hour, but by the clock showing 5am, there is no sign to stop. At first I do think of some other things, for example my dream. I tried to recall all the details in my dream. But you have certainly noticed that I failed to do so when I rephrase the content of the dream as above, they have lost the content and the sequence. I swear that right after I woke up, I did remember why one friend is hiding and the other friend's name and the whole story line.
We kept chanting. Slightly after 5am, I suddenly realized that the chanting is actually another kind of meditation. I tried to imagine my surrounding is fading off and I am covered by a warm light, or stuff like that. I think may be it is better than meditation, as my voice blended in so peacefully and perfectly with the drums and voices of the other two monks. We are like singing in a choir now, both playing the instrument and singing at the same time.
I noticed myself never can play and sing at the same time. As I have learned piano since young age but I quit before I can play a song that I can sing. I am sure that I played some songs that I can sing but I never thought of playing while singing, or singing while playing. And by the time I learned harmonica, one definitely cannot sing when play.
And I quit as well after I learned Home on the Range. I love the song after watching Song Dynasty, while I was 17, if I remembered correctly. I watched this movie in the cinema with my mother, and my favorite scene is when the glass dropped on the floor and shattered.
Months later I decided to buy a copy of the movie because I like it so much, my mother did tell me it is useless to keep a copy, just a waste of money. As stubborn as I never take the advise. It was my money and I am the one to decide how to spend it. Later on it proved that she is right. The copy of Song Dynasty that I have is an old recoded tape, not in CD, and soon the tape player get replaced by the CD player, before I have the chance to even revised once of my kept copy. After I quit harmonica, I forgot how to play the song all together. It doesn't surprise me or my mother because both of us know how not persistent my character is.
But now, I am playing and singing at the same time. The chanting is beautiful, our voices overlapped each other but the drums always has the same rhythm. Another wonderful thing I observed, is I have not changed my posture since 430am. I am doing much better than Vipassana, when one need to consciously observed all the sensation that arise from ever single part in your body. The fascinating thing I observed during my this time Vipassana practice is, I have no problem in maintaining a same posture with eyes closing for an hour already. But hey, I don't even think of changing posture when I am chanting Na Mo Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo. And it was 6am.
I wasn't happy when it was 6am and I found myself still chanting. The sky look brighter now, there must be sunrise already. I am here not for chanting but to view the full range of the Himalaya on top of the mountain. To avoid paying for hotel, I asked the monks if I can stay here. The monk said, this is not my place, this is Buddha's place.
Everyone can stay in Buddha's place, the only condition is you have to chant early in the morning. I knew about the rules because I met a Japanese girl who was also overnight here. She told me about the chanting, but she never said it will lasted so long. May be I shall lower my voice to show that I have enough of it, if it ends earlier, may be I still have chance for the sunrise.
And when the monk told me this isn't his place but Buddha's, I mean he told me last night, it too reminded me about standing in a church asking a priest if I can overnight in the church. It was in Tyre, Lebanon, sometime early January 2010. The priest gave me a negative answer. When I further asked him if he knows where can I stay, he said 'I don't know' in impatience. At the same time, it too reminded me about a night when I still traveled with Gabor Csonka, we ended up in a mosque asking to overnight. We later get invited to a local's house.
'Because you are woman, that's why we are not allowed to overnight in the mosque', this is how Gabor put it. For whatever he said, I will believe half of it, the other half usually need time to prove to be true.
The ritual in the temple ended after 6am, may be 630am, after we have some more chanting other than the Na Mo Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo. I was given a book and I thought we have something like bible reading, but it turned out to be more chanting without drum. By the time I have the chance to look at the sky, it was already morning, but with heavy cloud. There is no green mountain view, not to say Himalaya. You are not lucky, one of the monk said.
So this is my brief experience overnight in a Japanese temple. Which surprisingly, has certain significant impact on how I view Buddhism. For the past, I always insisted that Buddhism is a philosophy rather than a religion, shared the same opinion with certain group of people.
First encountering of Tibetan Buddhism did confused me, and Japanese Buddhism is another kind of it. Last night during the dinner, I decided to accept that Buddhism is a religion. not a philosophy. It is like Christianity with Orthodox Protestant Catholic, or Islam with Sunni Shiaa Sufism. They are the same. And the triggering point that make me have the decision, was during the dinner, we were putting a small portion of our rice into a cup, for the animal or the hungry ghost; and sharing a portion of rice from another bowl that had been offered to Buddha. With his blessing, the monk said. I don't want to eat Buddha's saliva, I think. It is interesting to see how things revolved, or to see how oneself revolved.
'We see the Himalaya every morning, you are so unlucky that it is cloudy today' The workers who maintain and repair the stupa for the upcoming festival told me. And after the breakfast, it started to rain. A monk gave me a ride since he is going to town, save me from walking in the heavy rain down the mountain. And I wanted to share the story as fast as possible, so I asked him to drop me in front of the internet cafe.
I think I have no luck with the Himalaya, so might as well leave Pokhara tomorrow without climbing Sarangkot. Perhaps to Lumbini.
http://tham-ontheroad.blogspot.com/Tham Ontheroad Penang, Malaysia
24/09/2010
