The largest Buddhist settlement
in the world is in China
By Becky Pemberton, The Daily Mail, 19
April 2015
Inside the
village where 40,000 monks and nuns are segregated and televisions
are banned... but iPhones are allowed
Larung Gar,
China -- Among the green rolling
hills in the Larung Gar Valley in China, the last thing you would
expect to see in the countryside are thousands of red wooden huts
that have been built in a massive cluster.
Despite its secluded
location it is home to the Larung Gar Buddhist Academy, the world's
largest Buddhist settlement.
A vibrant splash of
red, this colourful settlement has sprung up in the 1980s and is
now a haven for over 40,000 monks and nuns.
The sprawling
settlement, Sertar, sits on elevations of 12,500ft, and the
religious devotees battle harsh climates to study at the remote
dwelling.
The wooden huts are
built so closely together, they look like a red sea spreading up
the hilly terrain.
Conditions
are basic, with residents having to share communal toilets, and
each unheated hut ranging from one to three rooms in
size.
An isolated
religious haven, Sertar is located around 370 miles from Chengdu,
and those wishing to visit have to travel by coach for a gruelling
20 hours.
TVs are prohibited
at the picturesque retreat, with monks and nuns flocking to benefit
from the studies, prayers and lectures ran at the
academy.
Photographer Wanson
Luk journeyed to the secluded location from Chengdu on a 20-hour
bumpy coach ride.
The 34-year-old
Buddhist said the Larung Area has two small guest houses, but as
these were occupied, he had to stay near the entrance.
He stayed two days
at the Buddhist centre, taking part in ceremonies.
Luk said that the
settlement welcomes everyone, and they maintain their life in the
hills from donations and by small businesses like the guest house
or small grocery store.
'I was most
surprised about how people feel about death,' Luk said.
'I took part in the
sky burial ceremony where there were hundreds or thousands of
condors waiting quietly. There were 7 corpses on that day...one of
them was a child.
'During the ceremony
a monk will pray then the "sky burial master" will start cutting
the corpses. When he is done, the condors will all fly to the
corpses
'They believe the
more the condors eat, the better it is and they will not eat bad
people's body.'
One encounter which
struck a chord for Luk was the meeting of a nun who was on her 'no
speech day'.
When the
photographer was asking how to get to the top of the hill for night
shots she resorted to all forms of gestures to try to
assist.
She ended up taking
him around the whole monastery, showing him how to spin the prayer
wheels and teaching him how to pray.
Although TVs are
prohibited in the monastery, iPhones strangely are permitted, with
her typing words to instruct him as they went.
Many of the
Buddhists own second-hand iPhone 4s.
The incredible
academy was established in 1980 in the uninhabited valley by Jigme
Phuntsok, an influential lama of the Nyingma tradition.
Despite its remote
situation, Larung Gar evolved from a handful of disciples to be the
largest Buddhist settlement in the world.
It attracts a mix of
students from ethnic Chinese students to pupils from Taiwan, Hong
Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia, who attend separate classes taught
in Mandarin, while larger classes are taught in
Tibetan.