Woodenfish 2007: My life in a Buddhist Monastery

My freshman year of college, I attempted to plan out what I would do during the summers of my undergraduate career, as I knew this was the best time to have new experiences. Due to an advertisement in a class I took on Buddhism, I came across the "Woodenfish programme": a month-long programme in Southern Taiwan meant to immerse us in monastic life and teach us about Chinese culture and humanistic Buddhism worldwide.

The programme was through Fo Guang Shan, one of the leaders in Humanstic Buddhism, or living Buddhism, in which there is a stress on being involved personally with the community. This monastery, both wealthy and powerful, has influence all around the world. They have hundreds of monasteries world wide in many different countries including Taiwan, Hong Kong, America, South Africa, Australia, and Europe. They also have many universities, including one in the United States, a television station, newspaper, health center, high schools, and various other service organizations worldwide. This programme, apart from the flight, was completely free; in fact, to make up for our travel costs, they gave more than half of us 500 USD scholarships to compensate. We were very well fed, and very well taken care of; I have more trinkets and souveniers than I know what to do with.

I learned a lot more than I expected to learn, both intellectually and personally. In this introduction, therefore, I would like to tell you about the key lessons that sum up my experience at Fo Guang Shan monastery. Furthermore, since Buddhists like to use parabales, symbols, and cute anecdotes to make key points, I would like to do the same.

One of the key phrases I learned during this programme was a sanskrit phrase "upayah" which translates literally as "half truth." However, this translation brings negative connotations that don't necessarily exist. This theme of "upayah" will be mentioned heavily throughout this blog, as it is key to underestanding how Buddhism has spread worldwide. The idea is to tell people "half truths" to get them in the door, believing that if they begin to practice Buddhism with half the knowledge, they will cultivate enough good karma so they will be ready to accept the full truth. This, however, has lead to differences in Buddhism worldwide. It explains why Southeast Asian Buddhism is so meditation intense, why Tibetan Buddhism is so esoteric, why Chinese Buddhism is so ritualistic and festival centered, and why American Buddhism rejetcs the more "religious" aspects of Buddhism.

Upayah, however, also explained how I came to woodenfish. I came expecting an intellectually based programme which WOULD be an immersion into monastic life, but would NOT be focused on individual religious cultivation. I was under this impression because of the way it was presented to me in my class. However, we soon came to realize that there was a bit of a dichotomy of students: those who came for intellectual purposes, and those who came for spiritual cultivation. In the end however, we got a little bit of both, and our reasons for coming changed throughout the programme. Thus, the upayah worked: it got me in the door, and once I was there, I was ready to accept more Buddhist practise.

When we first arrived at the programme, our progamme director Venerable Yifa told us a story. She said "A famed scholar came to visit a Zen master in order to critically look at Buddhism and point out it's flaws. When he arrived, the Zen master began to serve tea. However, as he was pouring the tea, once the cup was full, he did not stop pouring, and the tea spilled everywhere; the scholar watched the Zen master continue to pour tea into the full cup. Finally, the scholar said 'why do you continue to pour into a full cup?' The Zen master replied, 'how can we have a discussion if you will not empty your cup?'"

This theme of the "empty cup" continued throughout my woodenfish experience. It was about not judging monastic life, but experiencing it, and attempting to understand it. The same goes for people. I came to the programme with certain stereotypes about Americans who claim to be Buddhist. But in the end, I learned there are advantages to Buddhism that I didn't expect, and furthermore, that there are logical and thoughtful Buddhists from the international community. This allowed me not only to understand more Buddhism and religion worldwide, but also make new unforgettable friends that I probably would not have made otherwise.

The final point I would like to make is a quote from one of the directors of Beautiful Life Television, Fo Guang Shan's television station. He told us he was not a Buddhist, but followed advise from Master Xing Yun, the founder of Fo Guang Shan: "You don't have to be Buddhist, but you should always practice Buddhism." This summed up my emotions towards what I learned while I was there. There were many religious concepts in Buddhism that I didn't feel I believed or accepted; however, there were many practical lifestyle choices that Buddhism promotes that I had never really thought of before, and I already feel a change in myself because of them.

This programme, I feel, has changed me in many ways. I'm so happy to have had the opportunity to participate. Thus, I would like to share my experiences with you. This journal is broken down into several parts. The first part is of my first week at Fo Guang Shan, where I was bombarded, it seemed, with an understanding of monastic life. The second part is my second week, which will not be put day by day, but instead just some particular stories. The third is of my week of silent intensive meditation. And then the few parts after that outline our cultural tour of Taiwan.

Omituofo!