Hezuo City & Langmu Monastery
cctv.com 09-09-2003 14:15
In Hezuo city, you can't miss Milariba Foge, or the Monastery for the Buddha Milaripa. It does not look like a monastery, more like a modern high-rise.
The nine-floor structure is reputed to be one of the tallest monasteries in the Tibetan region. Most of these kinds of centers have hall after hall set aside for worship but here there is just one building rising 40 meters into the sky.
Apart from its special structure, the monastery is distinctive in that the monks here pay homage on different floors to different spiritual teachers from different Tibetan Buddhist sects.
Because the Tibetans believe people are different, and different Buddhist sects are to help them to understand Buddhism, it's pretty rare that masters from so many sects are housed in one monastery.
From Hezuo you can go further south to Maqu, past even more grassland and herds of cattle. You can break up the trip by stopping for tea along the way. The Langmu Monastery is on the border between Gansu and Sichuan provinces.
The monastery has a history that can be traced back some 250 years. Buddhist pilgrims would stop here to say their prayers before continuing on their long pilgrimages.
The grand sutra hall is the center of the monastery. The hall is lavishly decorated but the paintings are not just for appearances 鈥 they're an important way conveying some of Buddhism's ideas. This one relates to a key concept in Tibetan Buddhism called Samsara. It's like the wheel of existence and symbolizes different divisions of life.
Buddhists believe life is forever turning through these six divisions. This represents the world of humans we are all familiar with. On top of the circle is the world of gods. Demi-gods are mischievous beings, who are like gods in every respect. Yi-dag, or Pretas are Living spirits who are afflicted constantly with the miseries of hunger and thirst. In the bottom of the circle is hell and lastly comes the world of animals.
Like many other monasteries, Longmu is also an important education centre. Here the monks still retain the traditional ways of teaching 鈥 ones that go back five centuries. The young monks go to their teacher's home and study in small groups. The students learn in a very relaxed and casual way. Just like in any other classroom, the teacher questions the students but their textbooks are very different.
Editor:Han Source:CCTV.com
