Wu Wei Zheng Dao 64
- What kind of prayer of the moon was here today? - Danish girl asked the novice of the Wu Wei zen temple, - Do Buddhists believe in the moon? What a strange paganism.
-Ha-ha-ha-ha, - the novice laughed at the seriousness of the foreigner face. - On the first and fifteenth lunar days all the Buddhist temples of China, and maybe the world, about this I am not sure, have prayers. And all over China the same time zone, so, at the same time all Chinese Buddhist temples begin the same ritual! It's hard to imagine! - novice paused for a moment, trying to imagine it.
-But it is not praying to the moon, - she said, - We don't pray to anything. Temple rituals are important both as the structuring of life and as a joint meditation practice. There are many meanings of it, I will not go into it now, I will just say that the main thing in the temple is work with consciousness.
But the moon affects our planet, the water on the planet, the water in human cells, so, it’s affects the body, and, indirectly, the consciousness.
-But today is not the first!? - The Danish girl frowned.
-According to the solar calendar is not the first, but by the moon calendar it is the first, the beginning of the new month, the new moon.
In Chinese solar calendar is called "public," "official," and the lunar - "peasant," "field" - all festivals in China is held by it, and all Buddhist dates too.
-What about Christmas? It is by what calendar? And it is holiday here? - The Danish girl remembered her favorite holiday.
-In China? Christ's Birthday? - the novice smiled, -No, it's not a day off here. But actually, in the temple it was celebrated once! - she laughed, remembering:
In that December, unusually many foreigners lived in the temple. There were people from Finland and Sweden, also Estonian, Irish, Dutch, a couple from Sri Lankans, and a guys from Colombia and Israel.
Usually in winter we having here just 1-2 guests, but that year came 15. Some were going to spend in the Wu Wei temple quite a long time, "winter" foreigners often stay for several weeks, even months, knowing that at this time of the year will not be an influx of tourists.
-Oh, 15 people in winter! Very unusual! – said French girl.
-And what is even more unusual, -smiled novice, - Christmas in a Buddhist temple!
The majority of the Chinese people do not go into the details of the Christmas. In Chinese characters it means "holy, sage" + "birth", and the evening celebration is called "Evening of Peace". On the play of a similar sound of the characters "peace" and "apple" it was customary among young people to give each other apples, wrapped in a beautiful paper, to wish peaceful life.
But foreigners decided to celebrate the evening of the birth of Jesus in the usual way.
The abbot of Wu Wei zen temple was not confused, when asked by the novice, whether foreign guests can be allowed to throw a Christmas party. Shifu smilingly allowed.
A novice from Guangzhou said that some of her Chinese friends and relatives are Christians, so for her this holiday was familiar. She knew which cake to buy for the occasion, she chose with sugar snowmen and the inscription in English "Merry Christmas". She did it as a gift from the temple to foreign guests.
And they already had pre-purchased ginger bread cookies, wiped cream, hot chocolate powder, and red caps with white edges, in which trained kung fu on December 24.
After the usual evening temple prayer, foreigners invited all the inhabitants of the temple, monks and the abbot into the room next to the dining room, where usually tables and benches were stored, but now it was equipped for the party. They put together several tables, prepared paper plates, plastic forks and poured hot chocolate in a small ceramic rice bowls.
Some of the cookies were already decorated with cream hearts, leaves, spirals and Yin-Yang signs. Seeing how they squeezing the cream from the tube, abbot also took a try, to the joyful laughter of everyone. Then he was asked to cut the cake. Everybody was filming it on phones and cameras, rejoicing in this adventure - the abbot of the Buddhist temple celebrates Christmas.
At some point they started singing.
The Estonian guy sang several Christmas songs in Estonian, German, Finnish, English and even tried in Russian, but nothing came to mind on this topic. After, he sang along with the Finnish girl, who looks like a snow flake, and a dark-skinned couple from Sri Lanka. Then the Swedish and the Dutch sang too. The Israeli guy said that he did not know the Christmas tunes, but took part in the party with interest. Like the abbot of a Buddhist temple and Chinese monks, he also "celebrated Christmas" for the first time in his life.
Picking up the singing mood, the Chinese novice performed several romances in the local language of the Bai people, unrelated to Christmas, but there were a little sad, for the foreigners’ taste.
Then he sang a song about Jesus in Chinese, and another song, corresponding to the celebrations, looking at the phone screen, finding the text online. He had a powerful baritone, which the temple’s inhabitants were unaware of, even Shifu was surprised, smiling and looking at the foreigners, he deflected a little away from the sound above his head - the novice sang standing, folded his hands in front of him. Foreigners filmed and applauded.
The evening ended with a choral rendition of "Jingle Bells", which Shifu conducted, first hearing this motif. And at the end he said: "Amituofo"!
Asked if it was strange to celebrate Christmas in a Buddhist temple, the abbot replied: "At the heart of the everything is Void. Everything is void at its core. Everything is relative. And benevolence is the strongest martial art. The wisest thing is the absence of disputes and contradictions."