How To Be a Buddhist Monk in 489 Steps

Rather than live like a monk when I was at the monastery, I lived like someone who was there to study Buddhism. The monks had their schedule and I had mine. Different groups of monks had different schedules. It was almost like working in an office building. Everyone was there at the same time, but not all doing the same things. My schedule was designed for students, but as far as I know, there were no other students there at the time.

05:00 Daban
At the crack of dawn, someone banged on the 起板 (qiban), which they called 打板 (daban), telling everyone it was time to wake up. There are no satisfying English translations for daban, anban or qiban. They are wooden boards that monks tap on to signal a specific time or event. As with anytime anyone rang a bell, there was a specific pattern that matched whatever was being announced. It was essentially a monastic alarm clock. Though there were computers and smartphones all over the place, they still followed the tradition of keeping time through chimes. Everyone knew what each pattern meant, and I knew that most of them had nothing to do with me. Daban meant it was time to wake up. Of course, people could and did wake up earlier. I always did. But tapping on the wooden board was the signal to all that the day had officially begun.

05:30 – 07:30 Morning meditation
Every morning, most of the monks went into the large Amitabha Chanting Hall to chant jing for two hours. Unlike meditation, chanting was done while standing. For two hours. Monks, in general, are not known as the most athletic people in the world. They spend a lot of time reading and meditating. I never saw any of them on an elliptical trainer. But every single one of them could stand still without straining and suffering. Or at least without showing it.

I was not unwelcome to participate, but told rather bluntly that this was a more advanced practice that I was simply not ready to learn. I was gradually taught some of the jing, but never expected to know any of them as well as the monks. Without knowing the jing, I would have simply stood there for two hours, which would have been pointless.

Instead, my morning meditation was scheduled during the morning chants. That meant Laoshi had to miss his chanting to teach me how to meditate, but he was happy to do it and I was glad he was there. I have been taught how to meditate by a few different people, and all of them taught me something different. The only real similarities were clearing the mind, controlling the breathing, and going full lotus. Different teachers will have different ideas about how to meditate, but everyone agrees that the lotus position is the only proper way to sit. Half lotus is only acceptable if you are just starting out or have joint issues, and no one approves of sitting criss-cross applesauce. Full lotus makes the most sense. If you can get yourself into position, it has to be one of the sturdiest ways to sit. You can knock over someone in a half lotus with a feather, but someone sitting full lotus could fall asleep during an earthquake and never fall down.

Fo Guang Shan practices Chan meditation, which has its own rules and regulations. You could fill a book with all the rules. In fact, people have. I read one of them. The main point is mostly about breathing and trying not to think about all of life's daily bullshit. I was given a personalized mantra, but my takeaway was that any mantra will do since repeatedly chanting pretty much anything will automatically shift your focus. But you don't want to chant jing because most of them are too long and you would find yourself concentrating on the jing rather than the meditation.

My morning meditation was not coincidentally scheduled during the sunrise, just as my evening meditation was during the sunset. On the first day, I wondered why we were doing it outdoors rather than in the giant Meditation Hall. I assumed it was because I was just learning while the monks in the hall were there for serious business. Teaching me would have been a distraction. But then the sun went down and I understood why Laoshi chose a spot uphill, facing west. It was one of those magical moments where you are relaxed and generally content and suddenly feel the sun's warmth on your face. I thought it was beautiful. Until Laoshi pointed out that if I was truly meditating, I would not have noticed the sun setting at all. The following morning was the same, except we were facing east instead of west. I felt the sun rise on my face, which is kind of hard not to notice, which only pointed out how much I was failing.

08:00 – 08:30 Breakfast
Breakfast was served in the dining hall; a large, open rectangle of a room with at least fifty long rows of folding tables placed end to end. All of the utilitarian seats faced in one direction so that no one sat with anyone facing them. Everyone sat side by side, in rows, facing the backs of the rows ahead. The reason immediately became clear. Meals were for eating, not talking. The oldest monks sat first, followed by the younger monks, then the novices, students, and miscellaneous laity. I was close enough to the end of the line where it never mattered what order anyone was in. After all the monks, it was first come, first served. Though there is a hierarchy at the monastery, seating was not about obedience to any chain of command. It was purely out of respect. In any situation where groups had to wait in a line, the oldest were always at the front.

For most of the monks, breakfast was the only meal of the day. They are strong believers in fasting throughout the day, but also recognize that people need to eat. In English, breakfast literally means break fast. That is exactly how the monks use it. But in Chinese, 早餐 simply means early meal. Some of the monks ate dinner, which was called the medicinal meal because it was for those who might have medical issues with only one meal a day. As a student, I was never expected to fast all day, and I am currently trying to gain weight, so fasting would not be ideal. In addition to breakfast and dinner, I was always free to eat at any time in any of the restaurants on or near campus. The museum down the hill has an entire food court. But I would have to pay for any unscheduled meals, and I wanted this experience to be as authentic as possible. Getting snacks from the 7-Eleven down the hill does not strike me as particularly monastic.

Breakfast was always rice porridge. Every single day. Just like dinner, for those who participated, it was quick. Everyone sat down, the monks did a quick chant, everyone ate without any conversation, there was another chant at the end of the meal, and everyone left the room in an orderly fashion. At the monastery, the purpose of a meal was to eat. Anything else was a distraction. Everyone had too many things to do.

They handed out a lot of wisdom nuggets in the monastery. Sometimes too many. It must take years just to remember all the aphorisms. But one that really stuck with me was the idea that food is medicine. You should only take what you need. In the monastery, no one lives to eat.

08:45 – 10:45 Reading
After breakfast, my reading time was pure independent study. Most of my day was spent with at least one other person, guiding me or watching to make sure I did not break anything, but when it was time to read, I was on my own. They gave me books and told me I could sit anywhere, indoors or outdoors. Sometimes I would find a quiet nook in one hall or another, but most of the time I read outdoors. A few of the gardens were on the side of a hill and not the worst place in the world to read.

11:00 – 13:00 Lecture
The daily lecture was exactly how it sounds. One laoshi or another spoke for two hours on subjects ranging from meditation to jing to Dharma to the difference between Humanistic Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism to the Buddha's life and a lot of what he said. The lesson plan was whatever that particular laoshi wanted to talk about on that particular day. I would have preferred to know what the lecture was going to be so I could read up on that subject beforehand, but that was not the way they wanted to do it. I was not arrogant enough to tell them that my way was better than what they had been doing for two thousand years. Even so, the lectures were highly educational and entirely too much to absorb in such a short period of time.

13:15 – 14:15 Gardening
Just after what would have been lunchtime, I worked in one of the gardens. I was there to study rather than work, but manual labor is a routine part of any monk's day. There are a few gardens throughout the monastery, mostly maintained by a combination of monks and civilian professionals. Somewhere on site was a vegetable garden that provided most of the food eaten in the monastery and the museum. I never saw that one, but I walked through several gardens and worked in an herb garden. I think they had me working with the herbs because they were easier and safer. Had I killed all the basil, meals would taste slightly different for a little while. Killing an entire crop of vegetables would be disastrous. I also doubt it was a coincidence that I was working around food at the same time my mind was supposed to be thinking about lunch. Buddhist monks are big fans of denying pleasure, and for a lot of people, eating is one of life's greatest joys. What the monks never knew was that I have no appetite and can easily go all day without eating.

14:30 – 15:45 Free time
The monks were encouraged to take a nap in the afternoon. The Meditation Hall had alcoves to sit and meditate or take a nap in between all that meditating. There was always someone in the Meditation Hall, and I'm pretty sure a few monks spent the entire day inside, napping in between meditating. There is a strong work ethic at the monastery. Everyone pulls their weight and everyone does some kind of labor that people in business suits would deem beneath them. But when you wake up at dawn and work all day, you need the occasional nap. The older monks generally stayed awake all day, doing all their monk business. At nap time, I could always find younger monks sleeping here and there.

I spent nap time jogging around the monastery, or last least the parts less frequented by the public. My exercise routine was neither encouraged nor discouraged. The monks believe in staying healthy, but prefer to do so through meditation. As long as my afternoon run did not get in anyone's way, no one had a problem with it. Nap time seemed like the perfect time since most of the monks were indoors for an hour or two. Afternoons are not the ideal time to exercise in the heat and humidity of Kaohsiung, but my mornings were pretty busy.

16:00 – 18:00 Evening meditation
Evening meditation was just like morning meditation, only facing west in an attempt to block out the sunset. It took a long time, but I could eventually reach the point where I never noticed the change of light and heat. I even had a time or two where everything around me just faded away. I think that is at least mildly impressive since I was surrounded by nature, which is often hard to ignore. Birds especially have a way of mocking your meditation. I could only get to that point with a teacher. Try as I might, it never happened on my own. I never learned how to levitate or do anything crazy, and I was nowhere near the on-ramp to the freeway that eventually leads to the neighborhood next to Nirvana. At best, I would say that what I experienced was piece of mind.

18:30 – 19:00 Medicinal meal
Dinner, the optional medicinal meal, was as organized as breakfast, but with a wider variety of food. There was a different dish each day, either at random or in a pattern that I never recognized. There was usually rice, but sometimes noodles, with vegetables and a variety of soy products. There was almost always soup. The evening tea was noticeably different from the morning tea, but no one told me what it was and I never bothered to ask. At this point in my life, tea is tea. As long as it has no caffeine.

19:30 – 21:30 Dharma lesson
The evening's Dharma lesson was just like a regular class. Rather than a private lesson, like my lecture time, it was a class full of monks taught by a senior shifu. Just like in school, we were all expected to take notes, and there were periodic tests. Oddly enough, it was the most informal time of the day. The monks were always serious when it came to meditating and chanting, but they smiled and laughed in the classroom, even though everyone was expected to learn every ounce of the lessons.

Afterward, I was free to do whatever I wanted for the rest of the night. Some of my favorite time at the monastery was walking around after dark. The tourist side closed at 17:00 and that was when the spirit of the place really came to life. After the sun went down, the grounds were lit up with lanterns and more than enough electric light. It is almost a shame that the monastery is not open at night, but the lack of tourists made it far more beautiful. Monasteries are not natural tourist attractions.

22:00 Anban
At ten o'clock on the dot, someone hit the anban, which was just like the daban, only a different pattern. All the monks knew what it meant, and I figured out the difference right away. Of course, it helped that one was in the morning and the other was at night. That made it a little obvious.

Once the day was officially over, the monastery fell silent. It was never a particularly loud place to begin with, but in the dead of night, even the crickets kept it down. I went for a few walks after anban, which were always interesting. If you want solitude in the city, early morning is always better than late at night. Taiwanese generally stay up late, and the only people out before dawn are going to work. It was the exact opposite in the monastery. While I always saw at least one other person out and about at night, the place was deserted compared to the mass of motion during the day.

This was a unique experience that I can always repeat, but probably never will. Getting the most out of it requires spending more time in the monastery. If I have the time, I am more likely to travel somewhere. Studying in the monastery is a great way to learn a great deal in a short amount of time, but it is far from a vacation. While my brain was flooded with all things Buddhist, I doubt I will retain most of it. Sooner or later, I will forget most of the jing. And as much as I think meditation is helpful, there are never enough hours in the day.