Last week, we saw that the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society (GEBIS) in Montague offers free tours of their monastery every Sunday from 2pm - 4pm, so we signed-up for today's tour. But first, we had to eat!
We had a great lunch in Montague at Windows on the Water - Brad enjoyed chicken broccoli crepes with a side of the balsamic beet salad and Suzanne enjoyed the pasta primavera with a side Caesar salad - both were awesome!
We had some time before our tour, so we walked the Montague waterfront.....
...and a little bit of the Confederation Trail - this was some of the nicest section of the Confederation Trail that we have seen so far.
Then it was onto the monastery. We were met by about six monks and once all of the attendees arrived (there was about 20 of us), we started the tour in their dining hall.
We learned that the monks eat twice a day: 6:30am and 11:30am. Yup - that's it. Of course, there were questions about, "What if you get hungry in the afternoon?" or "What about when you first arrive and aren't used to eating just two meals a day?" Answers: hot water is good and it is part of learning to appreciate when one does have food - and - slowly one tapers from three meals to two. (Of course, children and the sick eat more meals.) This is what they had for lunch the day we visited:
.... so quite a lot of food. Yes, it is vegetarian and yes, they eat in silence.
We learned that every monk has chores and the food preparation is rotated throughout the year (as well as other chores such as cleaning and field work), and each monk spends one day a week in the kitchen cleaning the dishes after the meal.
This is pretty much their daily schedule:
- 4:50 am Wake-Up Call
- 5:20 am Morning Prayer
- 6:30 am Morning Meal
- 7:20 am Scripture Recitation
- 8:25 am Lectures
- 9:30 am Group Discussions
- 10:30 am Chores
- 11:30 am Mid-day Meal
- 1:45 pm Prostration
- 2:15 pm Scriptural Debate
- 4:30 pm Extracurricular Activities
- 7:00 pm Night Prayer and Daily Reflection
We then went to the Prayer Room....
.
.which was quite interesting. We learned some about their beliefs and experienced the gong....
There was a ton of pre-packaged food scattered around the prayer hall (which was sort of weird, to be honest)....
...which represented a sacrifice (though eventually it will be consumed at some later date).
We saw the books that they study over the 16 year course as part of their training, as well as learned about more rituals and customs. It was quite interesting and every monk who was part of the tour was open to answering questions from another, such as "How is all this financed?" (Yup - that came from Suzanne!😇)
We made our way to their 360-degree balcony area to see their vast amounts of land. They shared that they have 300 acres, but an AI search on the way home reveals much larger amounts of land and an amazing amount of revenue and cash reserves. They raise sunflowers and wheat - using the latter for bread that they themselves eat and that they share with various food pantries on PEI.
We made our way back inside where we were given snacks (packaged cookies) with coffee, tea, or water. (We had some tea but passed on the cookies - it felt kind of hypocritical to eat their food during their daily fast.) There was a presentation about monastic life and one of the monks shared his story about how and why he chose this life. (He is currently 24 and chose to become a monk after his required 2-year military service in Singapore.) We then (voluntarily) went to a meditation room for a short guided mediation (which was very nice) and then we were on our way home.
So with many things, while we got some questions answered, learning more about the life of a monk, and in particular this monastery, raised more questions for us. The monks did a great job explaining, teaching, and herding the group ~ we are very glad we went and would do it again.
Shanti. (Means: peace) ☮
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