Wu Wei Zheng Dao 65
Tonight China celebrates new year ’s eve. Tomorrow by the Lunar calendar comes the first day of the first month, the onset of spring. This is the main family holiday of the year, but if you happen to be in China without a family, it is interesting to celebrate the new year at the Wu Wei Zen temple.
Foreign guests noted the uniqueness of this evening, everyone admitted that they did not expect such an amazing event, which will be surely remembered for life. And many were planning to come to the temple again to celebrate the Chinese New Year.
This is a lively and noisy event, although firecrackers and fireworks are not used in the temple for fire safety, but guests are served wine, that called "temple grape juice", it was made in the temple. Boxes of fresh grapes every summer were donated to the temple by the owner of vineyards near Kunming, one of the disciple of the abbot. Guests say that the wine turns out quite strong, but the abbot, monks and some disciples have never tried it, following the Buddhist charter.
There are quite a lot of guests in the New Year period in the Wu Wei temple, Shifu’s disciples from different cities come to visit the Master, as well as their children, who would spend the winter holidays there.
And although Christmas trees are not in the Chinese tradition, green needles in this holiday quite a lot. A few days before the celebration, the inhabitants of the temple - novices, disciples, monks, and sometimes foreign guests wander through the surrounding forest collecting pines needles, then putting it on the floor in the temple dining room.
Pines in the Cangshan Mountains grow with long soft needles, it’s not prickly, and a thick layer of them on the floor forms a soft scented carpet. Tables and benches are taken out of the hall to cover the entire floor with bright green needles, turning the room into a fragrant cozy space, where the New Year's picnic dinner takes place in the evening with the candle light.
Foreigners, seeing such a delight for the first time, call it a "paradise room".
On this pine meadow guests sit in a circle of 10 people, forming a 5-6 cheerful companies, in some years even more. Foreigners in this period in the temple usually not many, almost all the guests are Chinese disciples of the Master.
In the midst of the picnic shifu passes over to everyone "red envelopes" as a gift, with a 101 yuan in each, which means 一心一意 the meaning can be translated as a wish to be focused on one thing that you are doing at the moment.
In some years, the New Year picnic consisted of 15-20 festive dishes placed in the middle of each circle, but sometimes there was a "Hot Pot" - in the middle of each circle on the floor is a vessel of unusual shape with a shifu's recipe-cooked soup, which shifu pours over each vessel in the kitchen, blessing it.
There are hot coals in the central cylindrical part of this vessel, and on the sides is hot soup, in which each of the guests puts raw vegetables, mushrooms, tofu, greens, and then takes out as they are cooked.
In winter at night in the mountains is quite chilly, and guests are happy to have such a hot treat, but for the foreigners who are not accustomed to sit cross-legged at the floor for a long time, and prepare their own food, it can be a little uncomfortable, but the holiday does not spoil. Everyone rejoices in such an unusual adventure.
The feast continues until 11 o'clock in the evening, and then, after little rest, the inhabitants of the temple gather in the main hall for a prayer, at the end of which everyone takes turns to come to the bell outside of the hall, and with the blessing of Shifu, hits the bell for three times. Many make wishes during ringing.
The next morning, as if there was no festive night, temple life begins at 5:20 .
At breakfast of the first day of the first month always have small rice balls with sweet filling, and guests again sit on the floor on spruce needles. But by lunchtime tables are brought back into the dining room, placing them on the slightly faded conifer carpet, which is swept out on the third day of the new year.
- The bad energy and mental pollution goes down from you to the pine needles, - explain temple novice, – It is believed that when meeting the new year sitting on the needles is helping to do a "cleansing". Spruce needles has the ability to free people from accumulated undesirable consequences of thoughts, absorbing it in themselves, refreshing and healing.
This green needles on the floor can be found not only on New Year's holidays, in Buddhist temples they cover the halls and courtyards for important events in any season. And outside the religious institution needles on the floor can be seen at the opening of a restaurant or a shopping hall and even in a bank branch.