Ten weeks living and working in a Buddhist monastery school in Nepal
by Ian Hughson
I have only just set up the mobile phone selfie stand that I have searched all over Kathmandu for when a clutch of them bustle into the office and surround me, pushing and shoving each other – and me – playfully. Instantly robbed of control, I can only watch as eager hands snatch the tripod – from the table and each other – to inspect it from every possible angle. When I eventually get my own on it again, I use very deliberate movements to show them how, with my phone held facing directly downwards, it will help me to scan books from their library and so create digital versions of them. Seemingly satisfied, they bustle away, yelling, banging doors, and scraping tables and chairs across floors. I can continue working uninterrupted, if not in peace – for a while.
Now, here’s the thing. All of these young rascals are shaven bald and wearing maroon robes. They are monks. People often come here to make an offering of a meal and receive their blessings. Those same hands are just as eager to perform any number of small acts of thoughtful kindness: when I started using extra cushions to help me sit through pujas, they started putting them in place ready for me, and, when I gave up on cushions altogether, they started putting the stool out for me instead. How do I reconcile this with the constant poking and digging at each other, stealing of hats, chasing, and rough-and-tumble?
The rules for Buddhist monks, laid out in the Vinaya Pitaka, one of the three major divisions of the Pali canon that is Theravada Buddhism’s particular, self-imposed duty to preserve (I have learnt), forbid them from leaving the grounds of their monastery except on rare occasions. This monastery is only three years old and still in the process of construction: there are 28 monks here this year, but next year there are due to be 100 and the building that will house them is as yet just a six-storey concrete skeleton surrounded by mounds of bricks and cement. Although they have recently acquired two table tennis tables and a pair of basketball hoops, facilities are few and fairly basic. Within this limited physical environment every day is further circumscribed by ritual and routine. So, even as they are instilled with the precepts of Buddhism and the practice of meditation, their boisterousness is simply the expression of the need to relieve the monotony. They are, when it comes down to it, after all, just boys.
Curiously, one of those rare escapes from the monastery precincts was for the purpose of attending a ceremony at Swayambhu – the famous, so-called “Monkey Temple”. Kathina, or robe-offering, is a major occasion marking the end of the monsoon retreat season with hundreds of monks and nuns gathering to receive donations of clothes, food, and money from thousands – possibly tens of thousands – of devotees. The resident long-tailed macaques of Swayambhu scampered, stole food, and tussled across the roofs of the marquees while our little ‘monkeys’ sat placidly for hours receiving their gifts, although when they spotted me taking a vantage point for a photo they smiled and waved enthusiastically.
So, will I miss the school buzzer, gratingly heralding everything from morning puja at 5:30 a.m. to curfew at 9:30 p.m., via breakfast, classes, break times, lunch, more classes and break times, and evening puja at 6:30? No. Will I miss the pack of stray dogs that has made the territory of the school its own and makes the most unholy racket any number of times during the night? Hell, no. Will I miss those miniature, maroon-clad mischief makers who experience the present more within the confines of a building site than I who have travelled across continents? Yes, I think I will.