Serene abode hidden from the world of mundane worries, immersed in silence, contemplation and prayer... I used to imagine monks sitting in meditation for hours whispering mantras and solemnly surcumambulating big white stupas ( Buddhist architectural symbol of enlightenment the stupa is usually filled with auspicious objects, relics, prayer scrolls and mantras).
Tibetan Buddhism is anything but quiet. A Tibetan gompa (temple) is inevitably furnished with drums of enormous size and cymbals to match the drums. And boy, the get used! The communication with the deities, be that a call to a protector or a destroyer, is lead on high decibels. Add to this Orf-like percussion group the conshells, the monstrous rodons and smaller racket making instruments and you've got the full picture of the Tibetan "orchestra" - sparkling bright, pompous, almost like the improbable intricate and ravishing wall paintings.
No wonder that the singing follows the same art technique. The vocal "training" in the monasteries starts early. Boy's are admitted in their 6th year. All prayers and texts are chanted out loud (not necessarily in a chorus!) and memorized. Buddhists do not practise silent prayers - a prayer begins its life in the sound of it!
My frst encounter with monastic chanting happened in Ladakh. We were attending a puja (service) at Tiksey Gompa. The young monks were gathering at the entrance and were divided to two groups by thir master , a monk in his mid thirties.j Soon it became clear that to be transferred from one group to the other the boys had to let the master smack their palms with a stick. I was terrified and ready to close my eyes so that I don't have to witness this cruelty when my attention was drawn to the face of the punisher. There was no trace of malice, annoyance, irritation or any similar emotion I thought necessary for such atrocious act. He appear5ed to be performing a mundane task, a duty, and was busy with calculating the intensity of the blow - it was obvious that the younger "culprits" were punished much gentler than the older ones.
Once on the safe side, the boys began to chant. The sound was so open, free and powerful that it felt it came from their entire bodies. It was not a cultivated, shaped and channeled voice we teach our kids to sing with (NOT that I suggest to start smacking our choristers!). The sound was raw but sung with abandon, almost like a rebellious, revolutionary song. I thought it quite appropriate for the occasion, until a friendly Tibetan translated it for us as " I am sorry I did not come to puja yesterday"...
We are staying at Kopan Monastery near Kathmandu. The boys undergoing monastic training co live here with the young and elderly monks. We often hear them chant together, children's voices and octave higher the deep baritones. Too often to call it an accident they break into perfect fifths and carry them with gusto and abandon. The harmonization proved again how natural the overtone scale is to the human voices (I don't think that the monks are thought how to harmonize).
I love walking around the grounds of the monastery during the study periods. Then, one can hear the monks reading their texts, the monotony interrupted by a wave in the intonation, a breath, or just another splash of free sound. They all recite on their own, so the result is a pollyrythmic, atonal and stereo beehive effect. Amazing!
Yesterday was Saturday, what it seems, the only weekend for Nepalis. In a couple of hours the monastery was transformed into a family entertainment park. Hundreds of people flooded the monastery grounds: the elders rushed to the temple to prostrate in front of the statue of Buddha, than to circumambulate the stupa in their brisk and busy manner.
Young people gallivated in groups or couples, invariable wearing jeans and talking on cell phones.
Somebody had brought their goats to graze on holly grass. The goats waring saffron ties they did look more enlightened and ha d a certain opinion about the garden design.
The children formed a second circle around the elders while chasing each other adding up to the jolly chaos. It was interesting that no adult tried to discipline them - this was a place of joy and the reverence would come with years of rituals and family tradition. Meanwhile, they hurled themselves down the mild slopes around the retreat area where we were trying to have a silent retreat, and I had one more chance to practise non separateness, and happiness for others.
The crowds retreated in the afternoon and the last sounds of the day were the lonely cricket in the bush, a crow, and two eight year old monks almost hopping around the stupa and stuttering in the evening cold : " Om Mane Pad-d-d-d-d-dme Hum! Om, Mane Pad-d-d-d-dd-........."
