Seeking Peace in Chuang Yen Monastery

Last weekend, I went to Chuang Yen Monastery with an Asian American friend. Chuang Yen Monastery is a Buddhist temple situated in Kent, New York. It’s about two hours driving from New York City, but it seems to be a totally different world. My Asian friend and I don’t have religion but we often go to Chuang Yen Monastery to seek a little peace.

New York City is a fast-paced city. Every day we are busy carrying the early subway, running to class, and staying up late to finish all the work. Sometimes, I feel life doesn’t give me a chance to breathe. Also, with the development of technology, people in this city are more distant from each other. Most of the time we talk to people through the phone. The other day when I was replying a friend’s text, a woman shouted at me “God bless you but you spend too much time on your phone”. I was shocked not because this strange woman shouted at me in the street but because I reflected on myself and realized that I did spent more time on my phone and laptop than with my parents and friends. There was an imbalance between the material world and my spiritual world, so I decided to visit Chuang Yen Monastery again.

The first time I went to Chuang Yen Monastery was the beginning of this year. I was so impressed by its tranquility and beautiful sceneries. It seemed to be a world outside of the secular world. I wouldn’t hear the noise of construction and smell the gas of cars. All I can hear is sometimes the birds’ singing and the Sanskrit. My heart automatically calmed down when I came here. Maybe as Kerouac points out in The Dharma Bums, merging into nature is the best way of living in the moment and enjoying the life.

It was the time of New Year prayer when I first visited there. Under the sculpture of Goddess of Mercy, there are words saying “interfaith prayer”. It shows the tolerance and compassion of Buddhism. No matter what religion you have or whether you have religion or not, you can always pray to the Buddha and Buddha will accept you. Buddhism seems to be incompatible with the mainstream values in America but its core value of inner peace attracts those who are struggling in this material world. This is why those American poets in The Dharma Bums turn to Buddhism to seek a balance between material world and spiritual world.

Last week was my third-time visiting Chuang Yen Monastery. I liked walking in the woods and doing meditation in those pavilions. I thought of a poet wrote by Han Shan: Jagged scarps forever snowed in/ Woods in the dark ravines spitting mist/ Grass is still sprouting at the end of June/ Leaves begin to fall in early August. Suddenly, I felt the scenery in front of me was real and the secular world out there was just an illusion. Money and all the materials are emptiness. Buddhism believes that everybody is born with Buddha Nature. Through meditation, we see ourselves more clearly.