Vikingess Voyages: Buddhism

Showing posts with label Buddhism. Show all posts

Sunday, May 27, 2018

Chengdu: The Wenshu Yuan Monastery and Tea House

Anette 11:04:00 PM

Buddhazen Hotel — *On the inside of the Wenshu Yuan Monastery*
Photo: Anette

With a history stretching back more than 1000 years, the Wenshu Yuan Monastery (文殊院) is known as the best preserved ancient monastery in Chengdu. It also boasts of being Chengdu's largest temple complex, and if you're looking for things to do while visiting the capital of the Chinese Sichuan province you can easily spend a few hours here. During a recent layover in Chengdu my darling and I spent the night at BuddhaZen Hotel, and with only 2-3 minutes walk away from the monastery it was a natural place for us to spend the day.

Thursday, May 24, 2018

Travel

Chengdu: Getting the Zen Vibe at Buddhazen Hotel [Hotel Review]

Anette 6:02:00 PM

The capital of the Chinese Sichuan province, Chengdu, is a city that boasts not only of hovering skyscrapers but also of century-old temples and a small-townish atmosphere. If you're planning to stay in Chengdu and want accommodation that reflects the laidback atmosphere of the city, the Buddhazen Hotel will not disappoint. Located only a couple of minutes from a Buddhist monastery, the beautiful courtyard inside the hotel will make you feel like you're experiencing a temple stay, but with all the comfort and convenience of a modern hotel at your fingertip.

Friday, May 17, 2013

Temple

Celebrating Buddha's Birthday and Norway's Constitutional Day in Korea!

Anette 9:34:00 PM

Although most of the Korean citizens have a Christian background they still celebrate Buddha's birthday (부처님 오신 날) as a national holiday. This day is actually a big event in Korea, and temples all over the country has been decorated for the occasion. This year the celebration was held on the 17th May, which also happens to be Norway's Constitutional Day.

Celebrating Buddha's birthday at Bongsunsa Temple

The closest neighbor to our GIP-campus is the Buddhist temple Bongsunsa, and today it seems like a lot of visitors are taking the trip here to celebrate Buddha's birthday. As the temple is the head temple of the Jogye order it does attract quite a number of visitors regularly, and today they even had to utilize our campus to get enough parking space. Living in the middle of the forest it is kind of interesting having so many people taking the trip out here to visit our dear neighbor.. ^^

Anyway, it was quite nice to have this small celebration today as my family members and friends are celebrating Norway's constitutional day back home. Last year I celebrated the constitutional day at the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Tokyo, but since I left my bunad (Norwegian folk costume) in Japan I don't really had the chance to dress up for the national day this year.

Buddha-paintings for sale outside the Bongsunsa temple

Candles

A family enjoying the show at the temple

One of the main temple buildings

We went back to the temple in the evening, just in time for a long parade led by the temple's monks. Lucky! It might be quite different from the 17. May-parades from my home country, but it was still quite a nice experience. I like how the monks are chanting while they are walking around, it makes the atmosphere extra nice. Anyway, please enjoy my pictures! v(^_^)

Bongsunsa's monks parading

The temple and the forest

One of the statues in the temple

Lanterns

Pretty Buddha statues in the background

Soo many colorful lanterns..

Lanterns and the main temple building

Buddha

The main temple and lanterns

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Temple

Temple stay in Haeinsa Temple (海印寺・해인사)

Anette 3:41:00 PM

Haeinsa temple is one of the most famous temples in Korea, built in 802 and home to the Tripitaka Buddhist scriptures, which earned the temple a spot on UNESCO's world heritage list in 1995.
The temple is situated up in the Kaya mountain, and getting there can be a bit complicated, but it is definitively worth the trip.

Beautiful Haeinsa temple

In our case we traveled from Busan which turned out to be a better route than expected. From the Sasang terminal we took the bus to SeoDaegu in Daegu where we changed to a bus bound for Haeinsa. It couldn't have gone more smoothly. I think the trip all in all took around 3-4 hours.

The temple stay program starts at 4:30 in the afternoon during the spring and summer time, but since we got there early we also had the chance to walk a bit around the temple grounds. After all it is quite a big place, so it might be good to have some additional time to really explore the whole area.

The main hall of Haeinsa

Lanterns and the buddhist swastika, a 2500 year old symbol for luck.

The templestay practice hall

The temples with Kayasan mountain in the background

We met up again in the temple stay training hall at the designated time, and were met by a friendly lady who assisted the monks in explaining about the temple manners and translate between us and the monks. We were taught about temple manners and etiquette, which included things like how to arrange your shoes outside the entrance, how to hold your hands while walking in the temple grounds and so on.

Learning about temple manners

The dinner was served in the big dining hall alongside with the monks, which of course meant vegetarian food. After dinner we got to participate in the evening service at the main temple building, where we got to practice some of the bowing routines we had been practicing earlier that day.
With a group of around 11 participants it was a good opportunity to talk to the monks about their life in the temple as well, and in the evening we had a tea ceremony with one of the monks where all of us got to ask as many questions as we wanted.

Tea-time with one of the monks!

Ready for a night in Haeinsa

The first day ended early; we went to bed around 9 pm. But the second day started even earlier, as we had to meet up again at 3:20 am. The morning schedule included taking part in the Dawn Service inside the main temple building, and after that we went to the temple stay practice hall where we completed the 108 Prostrations.. This practice was quite interesting, and the focus of the prostrations gave me the impression that the practitioners of Buddhism seems to be a lot more focused on finding balance in life, with others and with nature than other big religions. On a side note I have to mention that I was quite impressed that my 68 year old grandmother managed to complete all the 108 Prostrations.
The next part of the program included a very, very long meditation. As we have meditation at school every morning at 7 am I wasn't too excited about meditating to be honest, but it is of course an interesting part of the culture experience too. One of the guys fell asleep during the meditation, so one of the monks punished him by hitting his back with a long stick. This is apparently quite common practice, and it does not really hurt.

Monks doing their morning chores at the temple

After the temple breakfast we had reached the last post on the program, which was a guided tour of the Haeinsa temple. This included a short visit to the two buildings containing the Tripitaka, where we unfortunately could not take any pictures. Anyway, it was interesting to here the guide explain about the buildings, and how they had been constructed to keep the temperature inside the buildings optimal for preserving the old heritage.
This was the last part of the temple stay, and after a short farewell it was time to say goodbye to the monks and our guide. I think the templestay program was a really unique and interesting experience which will stay in our minds for a long time.

Our final ceremony

If you are interested in doing a templestay in Korea, please check out this page.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Zazen

Ritsumeikan Field Trip: Zazen meditation

Anette 6:57:00 PM

About a month ago in the Japanese Research-class we had the chance apply for an upcoming field trip. We could choose between different themes like making Japanese paper, or going to an Emergency Management and Training center. But my first choice was the Zen Buddhism style meditation, and thats what I eventually got to do as well.

The Zen meditation (Zazen/座禅) were to take place at Myoushinji (妙心寺), which is a temple complex situated a little south of Ritsumeikan University, and the date was the 10th of November (in other words: today!).

Before the meditation class me and Alex wanted to take a closer look at Myoushinji, and we found a road leading to an area where they had tiny traditional Japanese houses and so on.

Detail from one of the roofs in Myoushinji. This is a Komainu guardian statue, which is said to be a mix between a dog and a lion. The tradition of Komainu originally came from China.

The area in Myoushinji is really large, and besides the temples there are houses there as well. The people working in the temple area lives here, and apparently they don´t pay any tax for it! Seems like a nice place to live..

The leaves are starting to turn red in Kyoto these days.

After some sightseeing it was time for our meditation class. We were about 20 exchange students taking part in the class, and most of us had never tried (at least this form of) meditation earlier.

For those of you readers who haven´t heard about Zen meditation before, I can tell you that the word in itself originally came from the Sanskrit word dhyana, which means "meditation". On the way from Sanskrit to Chinese, and eventually from Chinese to Japanese, its pronunciation changed quite a lot though.. Oh, an by the way Zen is a part of Mahayana Buddhism.

Our Zazen-teacher walked around the room while we were meditating.

Usually the monks slaps you with their sticks if you fall asleep during the meditation, but for this class only those who wanted to got slapped. I decided to try it out, and he hit me twice on each side of my back, between the spine and my shoulder blades. I don´t think it hurt at all actually, perhaps they usually slap Japanese people harder than exchange students..? Haha..

Some others students from class practicing meditation:)

When meditating you are supposed to sit up straight with crossed legs. Then you put your left hand on the top of your right hand, which is supposed to show to others that you only have peaceful intentions (while the right hand usually is the one being used for actions such as hitting etc..).

In Zen-meditation you don´t close your eyes, but look straight ahead of you or towards the floor in front of you without bowing your head.

The breathing is also important; you must control your breath and so on in order to relax.

First we meditated for 10 minutes, and after a little break we did another 20 minutes. It might have felt a bit long, but apparently the monks does this up to 18 hours a day with only small pauses every 25th minute, so.. Well.. I guess one gets used to it.

Our Zazen-sensei.

I must say that this was by far my most peaceful lesson here in Japan up till now. Since we have had, and are having, a great deal of tests in these days, it was quite alright to get the chance just to relax a bit as well.. I feel a bit more calmed than I did earlier today, so perhaps it is a good idea to do some meditation on my own when (if) I have time. But for now, it is time to do some more homework.