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success in life
Last summer, after having been living at home for nearly three years, I decided to try to push my life out a little more. Plenty of time, relatively tight financial conditions, the desire to stay away from home and the city as much as possible, and my belief in Buddhism made me finally target Mount Wutai, which I had visited before and had a good impression of. It is one of the world's Buddhist holy places. According to legend, it is the dojo of Manjushri Bodhisattva. There are hundreds of temples in it, large and small. It is also located in the Taihang Mountains of Shanxi Province. I am from Fujian, so this is a far enough distance. Temples have always had a tradition of recruiting volunteers to work. Generally, the requirements are not high and they take care of food, food and housing. I think there will definitely be a temporary place for me there.
I don’t know how many people regard monasteries as a place to escape, thinking that since they are not monks, losers come to such a “pure heart and few desires” place to do nothing but chant sutras and eat fast every day. In fact, to maintain the daily operation of an organization, there are many large and small tasks that need to be undertaken. Many temples are short of manpower and need volunteers all year round. All my work experience has been suspended for three years. In the social definition, I should be a loser, but the temple is a reassuring place for me in this stage of my life when I muster up the courage to take a step forward. , a place that can receive me.
Even so, I was so anxious that I had insomnia before departure. I was afraid of going to distant places, afraid of what would happen if I stayed for so long, afraid that I would not be able to find a monastery that wanted me and I would have to go home soon, and I was afraid that if I had not worked for so long, I would have lost touch with the world. Seriously out of touch… This uneasiness of scaring myself reached its peak on the day I arrived at Mount Wutai, because I contacted the temple I originally planned to visit and learned that their number of volunteers was saturated and no longer recruiting new ones. I suddenly lost my sense of control and suddenly Got nervous. I can only act as tourists with my friends who are traveling with me, and plan to visit other temples and ask questions.
The next day, we took a scenic minibus and circled around the five summits of Mount Wutai, namely the five peaks in the east, west, south, north and middle. The altitude also climbed from 1,500 meters in the center of the scenic town to 3,000 meters. This journey took nine hours to complete by car. It is also called “Dachaotai”.
In July, it was still hot summer in the town, and the top of the platform was destined to rain and fog that day. The temperature dropped very low, and each minibus carried shivering passengers bumping along the small dirt road with drizzle and poor visibility. When passing the temple on the road, the driver would stop the bus, and the passengers would get off and go to worship. Or sightseeing. The scenes of that day were full of incredible shock in my eyes, as someone who had first seen the vast mountains of North China. To this day, those scenes can give me a brief pause in the moment of remembrance.
As I said, it was destined to be a rainy and foggy day. When I reached a certain temple on the way, I also got out of the car to pay my respects, but at a corner, the goddesses appeared as if they had been waiting for me for a long time. That day was also because the weather was bad and there were few tourists. I had enough space to be alone in front of these statues and could not move. I feel in my heart that this is it.
Looking back, I saw an aunt in an apron sweeping the floor. I asked her about volunteering, and the aunt happily replied: “We're recruiting! Come on!” I was also very happy, as if I had taken reassurance into my mouth.
The next day, I dragged my suitcase and took the scenic bus again, but this time I didn’t follow the loop line down the mountain. The weather was completely different from the previous day. The clear, high-altitude sunshine shone directly on every corner. The parking lot on the Taipei line was once again bustling with people. I rushed straight to the mountain gate, found Master, and said, “Master! I want to do it.” Volunteer!”
The master was still busy with the work at hand, without raising his head or responding. I started to feel anxious. I remembered that I had forgotten to ask people yesterday if they had any requirements for volunteers, and my thoughts popped into my head. What if I don't meet the requirements? Is my hair dyed too yellow? Not suitable in a traditional temple? I'm not going down the mountain again, am I? …The silence lasted for a minute, and then the master slowly raised his head, pointed to a building in the distance and said, “Go to the living room and wait for me.”
My heart is lifted again!
After registering my information in the living room and putting my luggage away, I felt like the dust had settled. There was no work assigned to me at that time, so I walked around the temple first, feeling relaxed and excited. The first thing I did was to see the Saraswati goddesses on a sunny day.
The temple is much larger than I imagined. There is even one-third of the area that I ignored because of the fog that could not be seen the day before. That is the iconic big white pagoda. The temples on the mountain are separated by several kilometers. Every time you open a window or push a door, you can see the endless wilderness. The vast world has expanded since then, and the body and mind have become natural.
Later I realized how lucky I was that I came without thinking about anything except that I thought the statue of the Goddess was so beautiful. Grand Master is a person who values fate, and he doesn’t just need anyone to do his job. Next, the monastery where I live is considered to have very good conditions among the monasteries on the mountain. It has running water and electricity, there are bathrooms for volunteers to take baths, and the storage room is full of vegetables, noodles, and oil. In some other monasteries, food is a problem and there is no access to water. The masters live a very miserable life. This also made me feel a little awakened from the living conditions that were readily available and accustomed to me in the city.
On this day, I was sitting on the fence with the distant mountains just outside the kitchen, and I posted a message on Moments saying: Thinking of living here makes me laugh even in my dreams.
At this point, Mount Wutai has taught me two lessons. My tiny anxieties and fears have all surfaced and been illuminated; and my feelings of grace. I found that I had begun to stop thinking about the doubts I had. When you no longer need an answer, the question itself disappears.
This is the answer.
Qingdeng Ancient Buddha
Before this, I had never been away from home for more than half a month. I think I must be a spoiled only child to a lot of extent, but I adapted and integrated faster and smoother than I imagined.
There are not many rules in our temple. Usually the volunteers, regardless of age or gender, call each other “senior brother”, but sometimes I feel that this title is a little hard to express, and I often call everyone “aunt” or “brother”. I was assigned to work at the temple gate. My “leader” was a Jilin uncle, surnamed Zhao, who had been protecting the temple for more than 20 years. Everyone called him Zhao Benshan, but he didn't know what my name was, so he shouted in frustration. My “little doll”. At that time, there were many people from the Northeast in the temple, and the southernmost people besides me were from Henan. After a few days, my accent became crooked and smelled like southern Fujian. The great master questioned me several times about where I was from. . Sometimes the master of Tianwang Hall waved to the mountain gate, wanting to persuade people to go over to work. When he saw that it was me running away, he scratched his head and gave me a bag of red dates. Then he took me to Manjusri Hall, took out a big watermelon from behind the altar table, and asked me to I took it back to the mountain gate and ate it among others.
The temperature on the mountain is cold and it is easy for heavy snow to close the mountain. Every year, buses to the scenic area are only open for a few months in the summer, and during the summer vacation, there are tourists almost every day. Many people did not expect the huge temperature difference between the mountain and the bottom. They shivered from the cold when they arrived at our temple. At the same time, the Wutai Mountain Chaotai route is not only a journey to accumulate merit for Buddhists, but it is also a well-known hiking route in China because of its beautiful scenery. Among the people who walk there are believers who prostrate themselves towards the mountain, as well as hiking enthusiasts. These people walk You also need to rest while walking. The master then opened the gates of the mountain, and every day we delivered buckets of boiled porridge, so that thousands of tourists with an average daily flow could eat, drink, warm up and rest for free. Our job content is to clean the floor, tabletops and basins, update porridge buckets and vegetable basins, replenish bowls and chopsticks, maintain order when there are too many people, and guard against thieves.
However, I was also the one who had no expectations for the temperature difference. Wutai Mountain is also known as “Qingliang Mountain”. The top of the mountain in July and August is as cold as the winter in coastal Fujian. If you don't wear a mask when there is strong wind, the extremely dense wind will cause a solid blockage. Keep breathing. If you find the right outlet, open a water bottle and pour water down, the water will be blown away by the wind as soon as it leaves the mouth of the bottle, and will never fall to the ground or even into the cup. I only had a box of summer clothes and a thin velvet jacket I bought randomly from the supermarket in the center of town. During the days when I was waiting for my family to send me clothes, I yelled to the volunteer aunts in the kitchen every day that it was cold, and they asked me to find some for me. When I came to the library, I didn’t know which clothes were left by my predecessors. The top was a big pink color, and the legs of the trousers were frayed and white. My aunts kept saying they looked good when I put them on, and even took a picture of them for me.
There are not many young people in the temple, and the main work force is the elder brothers and sisters. My little ability to do housework at home is really not enough. Two aunts are responsible for the pickles that go with the porridge at Shanmen. They mix them freshly every day and make hundreds of kilograms at a time. They cut, clean, blanch, and pickle them all in one go. The regular meal preparation capacity of the kitchen is for an average of 60 to 300 people a day. , three meals, and sometimes more generous offerings are needed for Dharma gatherings; the seventy-year-old monk uses a cart to exchange several large buckets of water every day and cleans the dry toilets; the uncle gets up early and cooks hundreds of kilograms of pots of water porridge; my brothers from the mountain gate shuttle between the fire house and the mountain gate more than ten times a day, carrying more than 20 buckets of 66-liter porridge buckets, and dumping garbage cans as tall as a person again and again; the driver's brother travels long distances On and off the mountain, sometimes emergencies occur in the middle of the night; the ecology of the mountain is fragile, and the nasturtiums in the temple were planted one by one by the masters. It is said that they are still quite sparse after several years, and tourists who do not know the truth try to step on them. Entering the nasturtium garden, the uncle was so angry that he threw the leftover watermelon rind over with a wave of his hand, hitting the man's feet and startling him. The most troublesome person was the senior master, who had to deal with all the big and small matters in the temple.
Before I came in, I had some doubts about “I can work”, but by the second day I didn't dare to say anything anymore, and I weakly accepted the disapproval of my senior brothers, for example, they asked me to go to the fire room to light a fire. Having never started firewood in my life, I put out the fire.
One night, I was chatting with my roommate, and I asked if I would attract many people to volunteer if I put articles about our temple online. My aunt loves me very much and always helps me bring food from the kitchen. But her answer to this question is: “If everyone here is like you, Master will be so angry…”
I laughed.
There is also a younger sister who is about the same age as me in the kitchen, and she has saved my life three times. She has a round face and round and big eyes. She looks clean. She is one year younger than me but ten times more reliable than me. She is unanimously praised by the aunts in the kitchen – she knows how to work. She is also the kind of person who suddenly and silently stretches out her hands to help you lift something when you are trying to lift something heavy by yourself. She talks little and always seems to look into her heart before speaking.
The first time she saved my life was when I lost my head from the cold and screamed at the kitchen door. She was silent and took the initiative to lend me her own woolen hat. She also said, “It's just a little dirty. I'm old.” It’s not washed, I don’t mind.” Then he handed me a snow-white hat. She added, “Keep warm, the wind on the mountain is very strong.” The second life was that one day I was wearing woolen pants alone. She touched my cold hand and asked me to follow her upstairs quickly, and took out another pair. The super thick long johns made me feel like a new person when I put them on. The third life was that one day I became addicted to junk food, which made me scratch my head. Not to mention the canteen on the mountain, the express delivery had to be concentrated for several days. My good sister scratched her head and took it after a while. A bottle of Jianlibao that she carried on her back appeared, like a fairy holding nectar.
One day at sunset, I was walking in the temple and met my good sister. She said she was going to circumambulate the pagoda. I asked her when she planned to leave. She said that as long as nothing happened to her parents' health, she could just stay there. I thought to myself, ah, are my parents in poor health? But I felt that this question was too private, so I didn’t continue. Then she walked toward the distant sky under the setting sun alone.
Another week passed, and one morning as soon as I stepped into the kitchen to prepare breakfast, I learned that my good sister had gone down the mountain in the early morning. The aunt said: Her father disappeared in the middle of the night. I could only make a sound, and the first thought I had was that the hat hadn't been returned to her yet. I want to say wash it and return it. The aunt added that her father was very old. So that’s it, I thought. It turns out that the questions in my heart can also be answered in this way. A cloud may seem difficult to detect when it floats into your sky, but when it leaves, everyone will know it.
Another job I had in the temple was cleaning the bell tower. The bell tower is not open to the public. It has four floors. Aunts will go in early in the morning to burn incense and pray. I need to go in in the afternoon to dust the Buddha statues and wipe off the incense ash. The floor of the whole building is mopped once a week or two, but it is located on the third floor. The floor of the Tara Hall on the first floor needs to be mopped every day. Female figures always prefer cleanliness, I guess.
Carrying buckets up and down stairs repeatedly at high altitudes is still a bit physically challenging. However, I still like to stay quietly in the clock tower with no one going up or down, quietly wiping the table, mopping the floor, and carrying the basin. After changing the water, I sat quietly for a while, my mind buzzing with thoughts about how the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas sat in silence every day in a deserted place, and why the Bodhisattvas could sit in one place for a year or ten years. Sit for a thousand years. Then with a creak again, the door of the Tara Hall was opened, and the mothers who remained calm and unchanging surrounded the only me and my rag.
Every night, the master would give lectures in a room. Those diligent and pious brothers would not give up. I was too playful. When I went to attend the class on the first day, I looked around and looked around. Next to me is a senior who works in the lamp room. She is a woman in her forties or fifties. She hardly talks to anyone. It feels like she has been here for a long time, because I marvel at her proficiency in chanting Dharma texts. I peek at her Her hands were quickly changing, and every fingerprint was filled with black kerosene – the traces of cleaning the lamp for a long time.
There are more teachings outside the sutra hall. One night, an old lady staying in the temple lost a bead by accident and believed it was stolen by two aunts. They happened to live in the house next to me. It was after nine o'clock when the lights should have been turned off. The old lady climbed up the stairs and stood at the door of the next room. She burst into tears and made a gesture of kneeling down. After a while, she uttered curses. The two aunts explained awkwardly to no avail. This movement finally caused When the Great Master came, he also climbed up the stairs and stood there holding a rosary. The old lady thought that the master had come to uphold justice, so she repeated the story from the beginning. The Great Master was indeed here to uphold justice – but it was more thorough and transcendent. The kind of justice that exists in the duality of life and death. He patiently listened to the general idea, and when the old lady said: “Without those beads, I would be dead…” he suddenly took action and hit the old lady's arm with the rosary beads in his hand. , shouted: “No life, no life! Who will not die? Do you still want to live for thousands of years?!”
It's really awesome. I was just secretly “eating melon” next to me, but I felt that this rosary suddenly hit my heart, and my eyes became brighter. This is probably a teaching about death that I have not been able to learn deeply under many opportunities. At the same time, my roommate who was eating melon with me happily gave her a thumbs up: “Our master is so courageous! This old lady is eighty years old, no one else would dare to hit her like this.”
Volunteers in the temple often come and go, some go up the mountain, some go down the mountain, some have a profound connection with you from then on, and some may have seen them for the last time in this life. About ten days after I arrived at the temple, the aunts who lived with me at that time were about to leave. I was speculating about who I might live with next, and then I realized that when you are greeted and sent to a place, you will have a sense of yourself. Already the illusion of being a local. In other words, it feels more like home.
After work every day, I would take a walk in and around the temple. Basically, after five o'clock in the afternoon, the top of the mountain would become quiet. There are no traces of hotels, restaurants, shops or other businesses here. Tour buses carry a large number of people down, and only occasionally some hikers and residents are active. It gets dark late in Shanxi, around 8pm. Just outside the low walls of the temple is a large alpine meadow. Often, after I finish work, I lie down on the grass and receive the treatment of the earth. When I lay here for the first time, I felt a soft and long surge in my heart, as if I had spent the first thirty years of my life waiting for this moment.
But in fact, this experience is not very quiet. Generally speaking, a nice afternoon when you can lie down also means relatively high temperature and relatively light wind, which makes many flies buzz around your head. . Once when I was lying down, I made a video call to my friend to show her the scenery. I said that it was too noisy to have flies. She said, if you think the flies are noisy, what should you do if you go back down the mountain? I said I didn't know either.
There may be snakes. There are many snake holes on the ground. The driver said that sometimes snakes are seen lying in the middle of the road basking in the sun, but I have not encountered any. Every day we encounter large areas of cattle and horses grazing. Cows are very timid and will usually run away within one meter of someone approaching. Horses are much better. Horse hair is thick, short and solid to the touch. Horses have long faces and feel good to the touch. Like hands sliding down a slide. There are curious pony babies who will walk behind my butt and chew on my clothes and camera.
My aunts are always worried that if I get so close to a horse, I will be kicked by their hind legs, saying that I can break my ribs with just one kick. However, this has never happened. This is probably due to my protective period as a newbie who has not had much contact with free-range animals. More horses and cows also means more excrement. Although that is also the nutrition of grass, and it looks beautiful when I lie on the grass, in fact, I often can't find a slightly cleaner human-shaped area. Sometimes I lie down with my eyes closed, and I don’t know if I’m lying on some old shit, until a familiar smell floats around my head.
Stormy weather
Every day when I am walking between buildings, I can't help but look up at the sky and the distance. It was the first time I saw the clear distinction between cloudy and sunny from the ground, the first time I learned that dark clouds can also be described as beautiful, the first time I saw the astronomical phenomenon of “22-degree sundog”, and the first time I saw heavy rain in the distance. Falling in the dark clouds, seeing countless rains and clear skies, and countless sunsets, when I looked up, I was suddenly hit by a distant idiom, which is “the glow is endless.” Under such a sunset, no one could hold back one exclamation after another.
The weather is also very bad sometimes. First of all, coldness that goes against biological seasons is the norm. During the forty-seven days of summer in the mountains, I only wore short-sleeves for two days. Although I was initially attracted by the scene on the mountain top in the fog, I discovered after a week or two that rain and fog here are the most normal thing, unlike the common dryness in the north. Perhaps because the “Roof of North China” is within Wutai Mountain, which is the highest point in North China, and our temple is also on this ridge, there is no obstruction from higher terrain around it. When the clouds drift here, they are caught by the mountain.
Walking in the clouds means walking in the fog. I have seen from a distance how the moving clouds climbed over the top of the mountain; and on the grassland illuminated by the sun, I saw the light gray smoke covering the sky and covering the whole world, and a trace of cloud passed by where I stretched my hand. . I also went for walks on foggy days. Unfortunately, I never thought I would live in such a place. I wore a pair of very thin sneakers, my feet were dry in a few days, and I only wore three pairs of socks. Can delay soaking.
The fog is sometimes so thick that the visibility is only two meters around, making it difficult to focus if you want to take pictures. One day I was on the grass behind the temple. When I looked up, I couldn't even see any of the tall and eye-catching colored temples in the temple. They didn't even have any outlines at all. This was still within the walls of the temple, 500 meters away from the dormitory. I was already lost. I walked for a few minutes in the direction I thought I came from and felt something was wrong. I took out the map on my phone and realized that I had gone in the opposite direction. Fortunately, the mobile phone had signal that day, and fortunately, even if the situation was bad, I could still walk around the wall by touching it – a small safety hazard.
Later, I heard from the driver that in winter, the entire top of Mount Wutai is covered with huge snowfall, and the snow is piled higher than a person. If you have to walk, you have to shovel a narrow path that only one person can pass, and the snow is piled so much that you can't even see the temple. Once you lose direction, you will only go farther and farther until you lose your temperature.
The texture of time has changed. Every four or five days of rain and fog are so long that it feels like a whole season has passed. When the rain is over and the sky is clear, I feel like I want to keep watching and see the next and the next season of the Taihang Mountains. , you can see the green grass radiating withered yellow from the top of the mountain, a thin layer of residual snow accumulating on each hilltop, and then from this point, the white color radiates to the whole world.
At the end of July, I heard that a huge typhoon was blowing in my hometown of Fujian. This is not unusual for coastal people, but this time it was a bit strange. The typhoon went all the way north and blew directly into the Taihang Mountains, causing a mudslide in the center of the town. , the scenic spot was closed for several days. The shape of the strong wind is visualized through the heavy rain, and it is also true nature that I have never seen before. All the hikers were forced to rest where they were, all vehicle traffic was stopped, and there was no one at the mountain gate.
And my already poor mobile phone signal was completely offline in those few days, and there was only a little signal in a place about two meters in diameter by the fence. I ran there despite the wind and rain, loaded some articles, and then carefully ran back to the dormitory. Afraid of accidentally clicking close. I suspect that I must be addicted to the Internet.
On the afternoon of the last day of the typhoon day, the sky suddenly cleared up, but traffic had not yet resumed. My senior brother and I were allowed to take a short outing and went to the nearest monastery, which is said to be the place where Manjushri Bodhisattva once bathed. The round trip took a total of four hours. The winding path leading to the temple is a place I often admire. I didn't expect it to take so long.
There was another time before such a short outing. After a half-day vacation in the afternoon, my two senior brothers and I excitedly went to a temple in another direction. According to my theory, we could catch up with the meal after going back and forth. A senior brother recommended a spring to us, saying that we would pass by it on the way so we could stop by and have a look. But I felt that I was starting to get tired after going around for a long time. My senior brother kept urging me: “Hurry up, hurry up. The front is right ahead.” After walking around for a dozen times, we finally arrived.
It is said that this spring is the only spring water that flows from heaven to the human world. Drinking it can obtain eight kinds of merits. But he said that this spring has become very small now. It used to be a big pool. Maybe it is because the merits of the human world are increasing. It will gradually shrink and may disappear in a few years. I quickly drank several sips.
After resting by the spring, we officially started on the way to today's destination temple. It was already evening. In order to save time, we chose to climb the shortest straight line – a slope with a huge angle. The road was full of thorns and other small thorns. Grass. I don't know if it saved time, because my poor physical strength and cardiopulmonary function “came into play” at this time. I felt that I couldn't walk up at all. I took a break every step, and at the same time, my heart began to be filled with complaints. Why did my senior brother do that in front of me? He lied to me to go to the spring water, saying “I'll be there soon”, but ended up spending more than two hours extra. I only thought about what he thought was good there, and didn't he consider the physical condition of the people traveling with him? If I had known that I would have to go around so far today, I would not have gone. My old sneakers are also slippery and now I don’t know if I can go back.
The scenery on the road changed and was still full of beauty that I had never seen before, but as my physical fitness declined more and more, my resentment enveloped me more and more. On the way back, the red-orange sunset filled the sky. I couldn't take a single photo, and the night followed. It was dark, and our only light was a mobile phone. We walked on the mountain top in the dark, silently, and the distant wind brought the long neighing of the horses. The wilderness at night speaks another language. This may be a rare scene in my life. To be honest, looking back now, I feel a little regretful. Why did I only remember being angry at that time?
The sky was pitch black, but there was still a slight light between the sky and the earth and in the air. I didn't notice it. It was the reflection of the stars. When we were five hundred meters away from our temple, I really couldn't walk. They dragged me and I couldn't walk anymore. I still had a strong sense of anger and thought that I would be here today and give up without any care. He sat on the grass and lay down with his bag on his back. I was so tired that I could only walk with my head down. At that moment I saw the cosmic curtain decorated with diamonds, the moon had a very bright iridescence, and the cotton-wool torn clouds floated much slower than during the day. The grass was so wet that I could feel my clothes soaking through. I think it’s okay to just never get up again.
Until a hiking man with a headlamp suddenly passed by. He saw me lying on the grass and the helpless senior brother next to me, and persuaded us to walk with him. I climbed up with difficulty, and the strong light of my uncle's headlamp illuminated the way back to the temple. On the way, my uncle said that he was a hiker who liked to walk at night, and there was no one there at night. When I walked into the temple gate and saw the uncle's hut, I suddenly thought, ah, I wouldn't have died today. Started crying on the spot. It was already half past nine in the evening, the time when I would usually be ready to go to bed.
Thinking about it later, I probably can't blame the two senior brothers. They were very young and didn't expect that my physical fitness would be so poor. And I was in a cage for a long time and had two impotences in half a year. I also forgot about the way my body works. Feel.
I have met quite a few people like me. If you take the North Korea-Taiwan route and just walk, the whole journey will take about three to five days. Some people are wearing professional equipment that is armed to the teeth, but they can’t resist grinning when they sit down slowly with their knees on their hands. ;On the contrary, I was stunned by some inconspicuous people. An aunt from Henan who lived in the same room with me for a few days wore a pile of cotton-padded clothes on top of a red sweater and a small backpack. She said that she started in the scenic town and ended up there. I walked for more than ten hours a day and walked more than 50,000 steps. When I encountered a temple, I stayed and worked and volunteered until the entire route was completed. She has completed this journey to the imperial court seven or eight times in the past few years, and she complained that she was in poor health because she snored while sleeping. I stood by and felt silently ashamed.
The pilgrims who prostrate themselves with long heads are the ones I admire the most. This group is also the smallest in number. Buddhists believe that this process of three steps and one prostration is more pious and has greater blessings than walking to the mountain. However, I think that during this journey, what they can obtain and perceive at the moment should be more vast and profound than the blessings of unknown exchange rates. Or is this the greater blessing? Their faces are usually red or dark, and they have bumps or forehead protectors on their foreheads. They don't speak much, perhaps because they are concentrating on kowtowing, or perhaps because they are tired. The time required to kowtow to the stage will be doubled. If you have some luggage, carrying it on your back while kowtowing for a long time will cause greater physical exertion. Usually they have to walk to the next accommodation, put away the luggage, and then turn back. When you reach the starting point where you haven't kowtowed too much, start over and finish with long kowtows. If it gets dark and you haven't kowtowed to today's accommodation point, then go back to rest first and start from here the next day.
I met two Aba monks who were kowtowing to the mountains together. Their luggage was a folding bag the size of a supermarket plastic bag. They were wearing a single layer of monk robes, kneepads on their knees, and two gloves on their hands. That was all. They used these to complete the pilgrimage for nearly a month, and then returned to their monastery. The two young seniors mentioned earlier were out on spring outings like students. They didn’t have hiking poles or shoes. They wore one set of clothes for half a month, carried a bag, and left. They made all kinds of trails and wild roads up and down the mountain. I walked to the Taiwan Line intermittently two or three times a month. When I see these people, I feel deeply the stupidity and failure of sophisticated consumerism, and I feel ashamed of my shallow understanding of the world.
dreamlike
I went down the mountain at the end of August. When I left, I looked back at the big white pagoda in the temple. I couldn't tell whether I was going back to another dream or whether I had just come out of this dream.
Or maybe both?
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