Largest Lamasery in N China begins "summer retreat"

　　BEIJING, Aug. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- The Puning Monastery in Chengde, Hebei Province, the largest Tibetan Buddhism monastery in northern China, has just begun a 45-day "summer retreat".

　　"Summer retreat" means that in summer when insects and birds begin incubation, monks are forbidden to go out of their monasteries to avoid walking on the emerging summer insects and birds.

　　Photo shows the Puning Monastery outside the Chengde Imperial Summer Resort in north China‘s Hebei Province. (Photo: tibetcul.com)

　　According to related regulations, all monks should sit in meditation and learn Buddhist scriptures in the monastery. After 45 days, a ceremony will be held to mark the lifting of the ban.

　　As the ban-lifting ceremony will coincide with the 60th anniversary of the founding of New China, all monks of the Puning Monastery will chant sutras together to wish China prosperity, social harmony and solidarity of all ethnic groups.

　　The Puning Monastery, a lamasery with the combination of Han and Tibetan architectural styles, was built in 1755 imitating Sangyuan Monastery, Tibet‘s oldest one.

　　It is the most distinctive one in the "Eight Outer Temples" outside the Chengde Imperial Summer Resort. In 1994, the Chengde Summer Resort and its surrounding temples were designated as the World Cultural Heritage Site.