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Taro's Travels

Wheels Within Wheels

CHINA | Thursday, 19 October 2006 | Views [1197] | Comments [1]

The Wheel of Dharma

The Wheel of Dharma is one of the eight auspicious symbols in Tibetan Buddhism. Present in many religious artworks, as well as underlying some Tibetan Buddhist rituals, it signifies the cycle of death and rebirth.


Into Thin Air

Trekking in the Himalayas can be perilous as landslides, avalanches, heavy snowfalls, gale-force winds, and other more-local factors can block passes and trap or kill unlucky travellers. Up until 1990 there was a 37% fatality rate for Everest summiteers, and there's still an average of 4-5 percent chance you'll die if you try. Even lower altitudes are not without their hazards. Just a few weeks back while we were still on tour, reports filtered through to us of a party of Tibetan expeditioners who'd run into some difficulties while crossing the Nangpa pass west of Cho Oyu on their way to Nepal. According to eyewitnesses, a number of them, including a 17 year old Buddhist Nun, were blown away as they attempted the treacherous crossing, with only 43 of the original party of 70+ completing their trek. I don't think that exact figures of how many were picked off up up off the slopes by Chinese searchers in the area have yet been published.


Basic Training

At the base of a mountain on the northern outskirts of Lhasa lies the Sera Monastery. It's one of the key monasteries of the Gelugpa sect, and is a centre of teaching and learning, housing three monastic colleges. In a courtyard within the compound, monks gather each afternoon at 3pm to debate on religious matters. To debate, the monks split up into pairs (or small groups). One monk (or a small group), standing, asks questions; the other (or a small group), seated, responds. The technique used by interrogating monks is well worth a watch - they clap as they ask their questions, with a backhand being brought down into an awaiting palm if the answer is incorrect. There was even one interesting technique only used by what seemed to be the most stylish and proficient of debaters: the monk performs a well-balanced 360 degree turn while his right hand circles anticlockwise around his head. It's all not entirely unreminiscent of 15th century African-Brazilian dance. The dop dop of the monks' clapping can be heard from quite a distance, by the way; it's audible hundreds of metres up the mountain, at the top of the gully that lies behind the monastery.


Mark well the nation's Houses of Prayer

Whether it's the Catholic Church's historic sale of indulgences, the prosperity theology of modern Pentecostalism, or the karma-improving release of purchased birds in Southeast Asian temples, there's few things that go together so doubleplusgoodwise as religion and commerce. Temples and monasteries within Chinese borders are no stranger to the spiritually uplifting power of cash, and it's rare to find one -- of whatever denomination -- without clusters of shops or stalls selling incense, books, prayers, statues, charms, trinkets, beads, cards, services, and other essentials mandated for proper reverential worship.

Lamaseries, however, have raised the enabling of donations to a fine art, and the Tibetan faithful repay their efforts by donating with fervent regularity. Other temples provide donation boxes at important locations; Tibetan lamaseries provide opportunities to donate every few steps. Devotees clutching wads of low-denomination notes scurry from one location to another on their circuit, making their offerings. There are donation boxes, true, but also plates and dishes overflowing with takings, notes crammed into every available crack, and statues whose laps and hands spill forth notes. With such a plastering of donations, it can be hard at times to see the subject of photographs and the contents of cabinets and cases - Buddha figurines, statues of buddhas, boddhisattvas, and high lamas, religious art, and scriptures.

The seat of the Panchen Lamas is Tashilhungpo monastery in Shigatse, and in at least a couple of major shrines there are table piled with amulets and other mementos. For a minor fee you can purchase some from one of the monks manning these posts; I'm not sure how much haggling is considered polite. Photos of the late 10th Panchen Lama, a beloved figure among Tibetan Buddhists, can be seen all over Tibet both within monasteries and without, by the way. For one reason or another, no other Tibetan Buddhist figure has a tenth as many pictures on public display, and some don't even have any.


The Modern World

Such a outpouring of generosity by Tibetans (many extremely poor) is to improve their Karma, and increase their station and opportunities in their next life. Standard prayer also works to purify negative karma, but it's less efficient than the mechanical solution known as a prayer wheel, a cylinder containing or bearing one or more prayers. Every time a prayer wheel is turned one revolution clockwise, it has the same benefit as though its prayers were said once. There are portable prayer wheels on spindles which Tibetans keep in rotation as they walk, and larger prayer wheels to be turned at fixed points inside and outside monastery buildings and grounds. Prayer wheels don't even require conscious action to be effective - there are prayer wheels that function by convection as hot air rises from butter lamps, and others from the flow of water downstream, all equally efficacious per revolution.

There are Tibetan Monks who have been enthusiastic adopters of technology. It's common to see them using their mobile phones, and it was refreshing to see one particularly progressive young monk playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City at the small Internet Cafe in Langmusi. As modern hard drives reach 12000 RPM or more, for really good Karma improvement a computer might be most suitable.


Wheels

A number of Tibetan Buddhists, particularly pilgrims, will prostrate themselves in-place repeatedly outside a temple; the Jokhong in Lhasa sees quite a lot, for instance. More widespread is the kora, which is the performance of one or more circuits around a particular holy site. As prayer wheels are placed around monastery walls, etc, they are turned by those walking koras. Some will prostrate themselves at each pace, which vastly increases the amount of time required. The particularly devout will perform their prostrations facing the monastery, which increases the number of prostrations that they need to do.

Holy sites are not limited to the man-made. Mount Kailash in western Tibet has a 53 km kora around it. There are those who do their koras with prostration. There are those whose prostrations face the mountain. Once is not enough for those doing it. Three is the standard minimum, thirteen is better, and one hundred and eight koras supposedly lets you escape the Wheel of Dharma.

Tags: General

Comments

1

Nice post Taro, Tibet is the world's most exciting destination.

  Buddha Sep 21, 2007 11:26 PM

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