© Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – Malacca, MALAYSIA

The Daoist Nine Emperor Gods Festival or Kow Ong Yah, falls on the 9th day of the 9th moon in the Chinese lunar calendar. The festival is always a wet affair but don’t let that be a reason for you to stay away!

It is a major celebration in Penang, Malacca and pockets of Kuala Lumpur with devotees observing a strict nine-day vegetarian diet to purify themselves and to fulfill their vows to the Nine Emperors of Mankind (the Emperors are the sons of Thien Hou, the Queen Mother of Heaven).

Vegetarian food stalls with yellow banners line the streets, serving up a creative list of meatless dishes. Some of the stalls are open 24 hours and are a tourist attraction in itself.

The main highlight of the festival are the mediums who go into a deep trance and perform unbelievable feats. These include the mind-boggling act of immersing themselves in hot oil, piercing themselves with sharp, long spears and walking through fire unscathed!

Popular temples for the Nine Emperor devotees are located in Gat Lebuh Macallum (on the island) and Jalan Raja Uda, Butterworth (on the mainland) as well as Ampang.

Like other Chinese festivals, float processions are a norm. On the last day, a procession starting from the temple grounds to the nearby shore will be held to “send” the deities back to heaven in a boat decorated with gold paper. Amidst the sound of clashing cymbals and thumping drums, the boat is set ablaze as devotees watch it drift into the night.

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© Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – Lal Qila (Red Fort), Delhi, INDIA

The Azan (Arabic: أَذَان‎) which sums up the teachings of Islam:

there is no God but Allah; Muhammad is God’s Messenger; salvation is found through obedience to the Will of God, of which prayer is an important expression

is called out five times a day by the muezzin from the mosque or minarets, to summon Muslims for prayers – Salāt (Arabic: صلاة‎). The pronouncement is loud (usually via loudspeakers attached to minarets) with the intent to make available to everyone an easily intelligible summary of Islamic belief, intended to bring to the mind of every believer and non-believer the substance of Islamic beliefs, or its spiritual ideology.

The Sunnis opine that the Azan was neither written nor said by Prophet Muhammad, but by one of his companions, Umar. It is stated that Umar, a prominent companion of Muhammad had a revelation form God on the call for prayers. The news of this revelation by means of a dream was soon related to Muhammad who adopted the idea of a call to summon muslim for prayers and had  preferred the use of a call as the means rather than the bells or horns that were used by the Christians and Jews respectively.

At the sound of the first Azan, Muslims make haste for prayer – Hayya ‘ala-Salāt. By the second call, iqama, the Muslims are line up and ready for the beginning of the prayers (as shown in the photo above where two employees of Lal Qila abandoned their post hastily at the call of the first Azan to proceed to a clean, quiet and open space in the fort’s grounds).

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© Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – Sakon Nahon, Thailand

Present throughout Thailand, Burma and Sri Lanka, Theravada Buddhism is also known as the Southern School of Buddhism, whose tradition is grounded in the discourses recorded in the Pali Canon – the oldest Buddhist scripture known.

Theravada literally means the Way of the Elders, and is named so due to its strict adherence to the original teachings and rules of monastic discipline expounded by the Buddha. The Thai Forest tradition is one branch of the Theravada Buddhist tradition which upholds the original monastic rules of discipline laid down by the Buddha in its strictest form.

The Theravada Forest tradition strongly emphasizes meditative practice and the realisation of enlightenment as the focus of monastic life. As such, forest monasteries are primarily oriented around practicing the Buddha’s path of contemplative insight, including living a life of austerity and frugality with few possessions.

Despite being located in remote areas of Thailand, forest monastics continue to live in daily interaction with and dependence upon the lay community who provides  material support such as alms food and cloth for robes in exchange for spiritual teachings.

Unlike laypeople, the forest monks follow an extensive 227 rules of conduct. They are required to be celibate, to eat only between dawn and noon, and not to handle money. They also commonly engage in a practice known as “tudong” in which they wander on foot through the countryside either on pilgrimage or in search of solitary retreat places in nature, where they are one with nature – eating and lying where able.

The forest tradition pre-dates Buddha, whom at the age of twenty nine, giving up his palace life in search of the way beyond birth, sickness, aging and death joined the Brahmins and other spiritual seekers in ancient India in the wilderness and mountains.

Buddha: Born in the forest . Enlightened in the forest . Taught in the forest . Died in the forest.

Theravada forest monks continues the practice, teachings and codes of monastic conduct expounded by Buddha 2,500 years ago, introduced by Ajahn Sao and Ajahn Mun; popularised by Ajahn Chah where to date there are more than 200 forest branch monasteries in Ajahn Chah’s lineage spreading throughout Thailand and the West, notably in England, France, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Italy, Canada and the United States.

In almost all Buddhist lists of virtues, dana (donation) is always the first one. Many literature argues that dana is one of the central practices in early Buddhism for, without it, Buddhism would not have survived and flourished in the many centuries of its development and expansion.

The Buddhist relationship between donors and renunciants is built on interdependence where householders give according to the teachings on donation called danadhamma, and renunciants returns the householders’ offerings with a gift of teaching called dhammadana.

A Buddhist would say that dana goes beyond an exchange between a monastic or spiritually-developed person and a layman, in that, the act of dana has the effect of purifying and transforming the mind of the giver where generosity arising for the act of giving leads to being reborn in happy states and the availability of material wealth. Stretching the argument further, some believe that giving without seeking anything in return leads to greater spiritual wealth and reduces sufferings.

When presented conversely – that the lack of giving leads to unhappy states and poverty – it is of no surprise that monasteries attracts thousands of devotees weekly, with trays laden with food and pockets weighing down with donations.

Larger and more popular monasteries, that are known to collect in access of USD 50,000 in hard cash donations per dana session that last 3 hours at most, have also developed varying and complex art of giving, where the ritual form of exchange dictates how to properly acquire and use wealth, how to properly give and receive individual and communal gifts, how to think about using and transferring merit, and what constitutes proper food, robes, lodging, and medicine.

Passing the complex web of rituals as teachings in themselves that is central to the “dana contract”, my personal observation tends to defer with the ‘teachings’; having performed dana and pilgrimages under the Theravada Buddhism school over the past 3 years.

With Luang Phos heavily guarded by armed body guards; escorted by politicians, the rich and the famous; driven around in X5s; blessing those with pockets that hangs the lowest; and having pre-recorded chanting and dhamma being replayed, I can’t help but wonder if modernisation, crowd-control and  refinement of knowledge in finances have overtaken Shakyamuni Buddha’s ‘art of giving’ in his bodhisattva phase (before the final culmination into Nirvana) which was symbolised by the sacrifice of his own body when he has nothing else to offer an unexpected guest in the Jataka folktale where Shakyamuni Buddha is born as a rabbit, and unable to present any other food to a Brahmin, roasted himself in a fire*.

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* as illustrated by Osamu Tezuka in his graphic novel Buddha Vol 1: Kapilavastu

© Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – Nakonratchasima, THAILAND

Look closer. This is not Sak Yant – the protective tattoos believed to not only ward off evil but have abilities to even stop bullets. Nor was this taken at Wat Bang (Buddhist Temple) Phra – the place flocked by thousands of people from Thailand and beyond to have their bodies inked with powerful designs.

This is an elaborate Harley Davidson-heavy metal-rock-coke sniffing-grunge skull tattoo on the arm of a novice monk in Wat Ban Rai…. and he’s just one of the many, many novices scattered all over Thailand spotting body art and nicotine fixes… having a second shot at life.

Having countless of such novices in Wat Ban Rai does not make it unique nor does it’s location in Nakonratchasima – some 5 hours drive from Bangkok – or the monk’s Thevarada Forest tradition of living in makeshift huts without electricity or flowing water existence juxtaposed against the grandiose temple structure makes Wat Ban Rai worth a visit let alone a mention.

Like Wat Bang Phra, Wat Ban Rai shot to fame for it’s ‘notoriety’ – a nationally prominent monk who embraces commercialism wholeheartedly. Visiting Wat Ban Rai is akin to visiting a spiritual-one-stop-for-all-cures mall; selling a variety of religious merchandise and good luck tokens such as Luang Phor (Reverend) Khoon bumper stickers, blessed amulets to fake bank notes with Luang Phor Khoon’s face in place of the Thai King’s! which resulted in a brief conflict in 1994 that was purportedly smoothed over when Luang Phor Khoon made a generous donation to Thailand’s national welfare budget in honour of the King.

Said to possess magical powers and blessed with the name “Khoon” that means “to multiply”, devotees links this grandfatherly figure monk with good luck and the ability to multiply one’s wealth and success. It is no wonder than, Luang Phor Khoon became one of the most loved and powerful monk in Thailand, in charge of a monastery which generates an estimated US$20 million (prior to Baht devaluation) per annum in sales and donations, and counts government leaders and the Thai royal family among his followers.

Unlike his many followers, I was not fortunate to meet Luang Phor Khoon during my recent trip as he had passed on 3 weeks prior to my arrival. As a consolation, I was being treated to some amusement when I sighted a car ornament dangling from the rear view mirror of my coach that read “ruay.ruay.ruay” (rich.rich.rich) beneath Luang Phor Khoon’s smiling face – definitely not one of the millions of articles blessed by him (I hope)!

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© Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – Zang Dhok Palro Phodong Monastery – Kalimpong, INDIA

He kicked at the pebbles and chased a cat along the way, like any young boy would do, creating a brief moment of uneasiness for me. But the moment he arrived at the monastery, he suddenly turned sullen – quiet, distant and serious.

Traditionally, the eldest son of a Tibetan family would stay on with the family and the second male child will be sent to the monastery. These children generally fell into three categories: pious believers, children of poor serfs* who entered the monastery to make a living and those sent to temples to meet a quota.

Life in the monastery is difficult with many rules to follow. There is a regular pattern. Apprentices rises at 5:30 a.m. in the summer and 6 a.m. in the winter, amid the sounds of mantra chanting. Breakfast is zanba, a traditional dish made of barley flour, washed down by ghee tea. After lunch, there’s a two-hour rest period. Afternoon study starts at 3:30 p.m., when they learn politics, laws and the religion, culture and history of Tibet.

Although it might sound dull to many young men and children, these apprentices says that their life is not all that different from that of their peers. Watching TV, listening to pop music, playing games are part and parcel of their routine.

* Temples had quotas for the serfs, and those who joined for this reason were called zunzhas. Among the ranks of lamas, generally 70 percent were from impoverished families.

© Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – Rohtang Pass, Himachal Pradesh, INDIA

Luang Ta. It ‘carries’ the ‘Wish Fulfilling Jewel of Enlightenment’. Hence, it is the most prevalent prayer flag flown.

Found strung along mountain ridges and peaks high in the Himalayas to bless the surroundings, prayer flags is apparently unknown in other branches of Buddhism and thus is believed to have originated with Bon, which predates Buddhism in Tibet.

Traditionally, flown to promote peace, compassion, strength and wisdom, these plain coloured plain cloth flags were also used by Shamanistic Bonpo priests in healing ceremonies with each colour corresponding to different primary element of earth, water, fire and space – the fundamental building blocks of both our physical bodies and our environment.

Coloured flags were also used to help appease the local gods and spirits of mountains, valleys, lakes, streams and sea, which when provoked were thought to cause natural disaster and disease. It was said that by balancing the outer elements and propitiating the elemental spirits with rituals and offerings, the Bonpo were able to pacify mother nature and invoke the blessings of the Gods.

Although no records are available to ascertain if the Bonpos ever wrote words on their coloured flags, as the pre-Buddhist religion was of oral traditions and writing was limited to government affairs, it is believed that the Bonpos painted sacred symbols of them; some of which are present on today’s Tibetan coloured prayer flags that has been enhanced with deeper significance of the Vajrayana Buddhist philosophy.

However, since China’s Cultural Revolution and its invasion of Tibet which saw the destruction of pretty much everything related to Tibetan religion and culture, many traditional designs, like the solid wooden woodblocks of designs that weighed many pounds were turned into firewood by the Chinese troops. Relying on designs etched in their minds of the refugees that made it across the Himalayas, most of the traditional prayer flags today are made in Nepal or India by Tibetans refugees or Nepali  Buddhist who resides at the Tibetan border regions.

The centre of a prayer flag typically features a ‘Ta‘ (powerful or strong horse) bearing three flaming jewels on its back. The ‘Ta‘ is said to be a symbol of speed and transformation of bad fortune to good fortune. The three flaming jewels symbolises Buddha, the Dharma (Buddhist teachings) and the Sangha (Buddhist community), which is the three pillars of Tibetan philosophical tradition. Around the ‘Ta’ are a few hundred mantras (religious utterances), with each mantra dedicated to a particular deity. The mantras will vary and are from three great Buddhist Bodhisattvas: Avalokitesvara(the bodhisattva of compassion and the patron of the Tibetans), Padmasambhava and Manjusri.

Other than mantras, some prayer flags include prayers for long life and food fortune of the person who mounts the flag; slightly deviating from its original tradition of promoting peace, compassion, strength and wisdom for the collective whole rather than ‘carrying’ prayers to the Gods for oneself.

{shrug}

Just as life renews and reinvent itself, so too must religion with the focus of ‘continuity’… for those that continues to raise the wind horse, they renew their hopes while acknowledging their existence as part of a greater ongoing cycle.

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In the wake of the failure of the Lhasa Uprising, Khampas (Eastern Tibetans) who did not take to the hills to join the Chushi Kangdruk guerrillas left for exile in India in 1959. Amongst the eighty thousand Tibetans that left their homeland in exodus between 1959-1960, were the 14th Dalai Lama himself, a large part of the Lhasa government, the abbots and many monks from the great Lhasa and provincial gompas, land-owners of Central Tibet, and the faithful from all walks of life who headed the Dalai Lama’s warning of dire times ahead, under the heel of the Chinese Communists.

Continued flights, estimated in the numbers of 1,000 to 2,500 a year (with survival rates that ranges from 10-40% depending on the time of the year, where many died from starvation, disease and the vagaries of climate and landscape), and a second exodus of 25,000 between 1986-1996, have resulted in small but flourishing Tibetan communities totaling to 220,000 Tibetans dispersed in most large cities of America, Europe and East Asia. With hundreds of Tibetan gompas and temples being built, Tibetan Buddhism has been dubbed as one of the fastest growing religions in the world.

The success of the Tibetan diaspora and establishment in both the Indian sub-continent and the West has much to do with being blessed by the right spiritual leader of that era:

• The 16th Karmapa (the spiritual leader of the Kagyu order) through his foresight had prepared a sanctuary and a cache of treasure in Sikkim way before the 14th Dalai Lama’s flight. A wealthy and powerful order, his pre-planning and influence had enabled the Kagyu order to establish an independent foothold in exile.

• Similarly, Dudjom Rimpoche (head of the Nyingma order), had the support of the natives of the border community who were Nyingma devotees in Darjeeling during the exodus, and has remained independent to date.

• The 14th Dalai Lama on the other hand has won himself the repute of being a politician and spiritual man of rare integrity, acceptance and openness. Capitalising on his Tibetan devotees that provided the structure and a conduit for Western devotees, the 14th Dalai Lama had assumed a high media profile to further his crusade for the survival of Tibetan culture and the oppression of Tibetans in Tibet.

Non-Tibetan devotees in the heydays were diverse in personality, nationality, motive and intent; popular ones includes a French film-maker, an Indian Parsee grande dame, a Canadian ambassador, American and Scottish anthropologists and old-style hippie travelers who later established Tibetan Buddhist centres of their own in the West; all of which efforts have contributed towards the popular support for Tibetan Buddhism, the 14th Dalai Lama, the Tibetan government in exile’s political agenda and private promotion of numerous lamas who would continue to travel to the West.

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50 years on, there is a new generation of lamas educated in India, Nepal and the West, who never knew the rigours of Tibet and has been surrounded by a contemporary materialistic social environment.

50 years on, funds have poured into the lama’s coffers from across the world, extending to the new raising economies of North East and South East Asia whose practices and demands varies; giving rise to psycho-magical rites for devotees longevity, wealth, health and success – a concept where conspicuous consumption and Buddhism in one is loath by Tibetans, Indian sub-continent and post-Christian West.

50 years on, accusations of charlatanism, commercialism, power-politicking, exploitation of the naive (and weak – psycho-sexual training methods with female disciples by unscrupulous gurus), primitive shamanic practices, immoral behaviour and radically different teachings has crept in *.

Despite all of this and the evolution of the religion, Tibetan Buddhism in ‘borrowed lands’ has culminated in more followers than the population of Tibet.

But more heart retching is: despite all of the media attention, global acceptance and international endorsement of the Tibetan government in exile (with 10 Central Tibetan Administration offices in the world: New Delhi, India; New York, USA; Geneva, Switzerland; Tokyo, Japan; London, UK; Canberra, Australia; Paris, France; Moscow, Russia; Pretoria, South Africa; and Taipei, Taiwan) the disproportionately high numbers of women (lamas aside) who had survived the first exodus and had spent half a century or so in secluded refugee centres in the Himalayan plains knows only of one Tibetan culture and one  spiritual leader whom they rest their hopes on for a better Tibet and a return trip to Tibet, their homeland.

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* ‘Dance of 17 Lives’ by Mick Brown – a good, light read that provides a broad overview of Tibetan Buddhism and in-depth account of the Kagyu school, the 16th and 17th Karmapa, and a colourful in-sights of the charlatanism, commercialism, power-politicking, exploitation, primitive shamanic practices, immoral behaviour (drugs and sex) and radically different teachings.

The 4 Schools of Tibetan Buddhism : (1) The Nyingma School – the ‘old school’ (2) The Kagyu School - ‘teaching lineage’ (3) The Sakya School – ‘gray earth’ (4) The Gelugpa School – ‘virtuous school’. The 14th Dalai Lama is from the Gelugpa school.

Click HERE for a summary of the differences in the 4 Schools of Tibetan Buddhism.

]]> http://penelopegan.com/photoblog/2010/01/the-tibetan-diaspora-50-years-on/feed/ 0 http://penelopegan.com/photoblog/2010/01/14th-dalai-lama/ http://penelopegan.com/photoblog/2010/01/14th-dalai-lama/#comments Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:18:05 +0000 ganpenelope http://penelopegan.com/photoblog/?p=329 © Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – Tibetan Refugee Self Help Centre (TRSHC), Darjeeling, INDIA

Being an inspiration for 6 million Tibetans, and the approximate 100,000 impoverished Tibetan refugees in India and Nepal who had followed his lead into exile, it is no surprised that photos and newspaper cuttings (in various languages) of the 72*-year-old Buddhist monk, the 14th Dalai Lama (or Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso (born Lhamo Döndrub)) is seen every where at TRSHC.

The 14th Dalai Lama is not only revered as a spiritual leader, but that of a subtly, passive defiant monk whom they place their hopes for a free Tibet and reunification with love ones.

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On hearing that the Chinese Communist had invaded Tibet in 1950, the 14th Dalai Lama’s advisers purportedly placed two balls of kneaded tsamba (barley flour) in a golden bowl filled with water to seek divine confirmation if the Dalai Lama should leave Lhasa. With the affirmation received, cups of buttered tea was set out for good luck and a troop made their way over mountain passes in freezing 24° C below zero weather to a monastery at the Indian border, marking his first trip to India.

Returning seven months later, the 14th Dalai Lama’s political and religious position and power had shifted; the Chinese gave him 10 yellow limousines, a telephone that connects with Peking (Beijing), a household full of Communists and in 1954 an ‘invitation’ to Peking (Beijing) for ’special tutoring’. With time and under suppression, more and more of his duties were passed on to the Panchen Lama, then a 21-year-old ‘puppet’ to the Chinese Communist.

Set against the backdrop of the Chinese Communist’s aim to gain legitimacy of its existence by carrying out what it regarded as the reunification of China, oppression and erosion of the Tibetan’s uniqueness (i.e. the Buddhist religion and culture), on 17th March 1959, the 14th Dalai Lama set off to India once again on an epic 15-day journey on foot with an entourage of 20, including 6 cabinet ministers.

Crossing the 500-yard wide Brahmaputra river, enduring harsh climate, extreme heights and avoiding Chinese sentry guards, the 14th Dalai Lama finally crossed the Indian border at Khenzimana Pass, taking refuge at the Tawang Monastery, 50 miles inside the Indian border. Offered asylum in India and settling in Dharamsala, in Northern India, his exile to India was followed by about 100,000 Tibetans, most of whom settled in the same area – making it known as ‘Little Lhasa’ and is currently the center of the Tibetan government in exile.

Despite half-a-century has gone by and the destruction of hundreds of gompa’s across Tibet,  Beijing continues to crack down harshly religion and Buddhist tradition and brutally ‘crushes’ any oppositions leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of death through starvation, torture and execution.

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* By the Gelugpa Buddhist reckoning, the 14th Dalai Lama is 572 years old, since he is the reincarnation of all his predecessors.

]]> http://penelopegan.com/photoblog/2010/01/14th-dalai-lama/feed/ 0 http://penelopegan.com/photoblog/2009/12/chaam-atsaras/ http://penelopegan.com/photoblog/2009/12/chaam-atsaras/#comments Wed, 30 Dec 2009 00:18:17 +0000 ganpenelope http://penelopegan.com/photoblog/?p=424 © Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – Phodong Monastery – Sikkim, INDIA

Similar to other religious theatrical performances in other parts of the world,  Atsaras (jokers) plays an important part in Chaams. Their movement in the dance are not governed by any religious rule but rather they are granted considerable freedom of movement up to the degree where there is even no restriction against them from mimicking the dancers personifying deities of the highest rank. The persona or characteristic they put on not only entertains the spectators but is often a counteract to a certain degree the sinister, oppressing, impressions created by the numerous wrathful, threatening deities and their attendants.

Atsaras is an adaptation from the Hindu word ācārya (Sanskrit: आचार्य; Pali: acariya) that means ’spiritual teacher’. Accordingly, the masks of Atsaras are usually dark brown or black, with prominent noses, often bearded, and with long hair or with a hair knot at the top, as customarily worn by Indian mendicants. Female Atsaras evolved much later followed by others taking on different characterization. Nonetheless, Ha Zhang – dressed in a huge, bald-headed mask showing a fat smiling face with Chinese features – and ‘the white old man’ remains as the principal Atsaras of the Chaam.

In addition to entertaining the public with their mimics, the Atsaras have the tasks of readjusting the masks and costumes of the dancers which might get into disorder in the course of the dance.

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