City of Ten Thousand Buddhas - Traditions Held at The Monastery

Traditions Held At The Monastery

Two distinguishing features of the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas are that unlike many other Chinese Buddhist monasteries, the monastics always wear their kasaya sashes (long sashes that are worn outside the monastic clothing), and they eat only one meal a day and only before noon.

At night most of them sit up and rest, not lying down to sleep. Monastics at the city do not have any social lives, nor do men and women intermingle. Whereas many ordinary Chinese monks go out to perform rituals for events such as weddings or funerals, none of these monks do so. Some monastics even choose to maintain a vow of silence, for varying periods of time. They wear a tag saying "No Talking" and do not speak with anyone.

There are monks and nuns who maintain the precept of not owning personal wealth and not touching money, thus eliminating the thought of money and increasing their purity of mind. Master Hua often reminded his disciples,

"In cultivation, we have to stick to our principles! We can't forget our principles. Our principles are our goal. Once we recognize our goal, forward we go! We've got to be brave and vigorous. We can't retreat. As long as we are vigorous and not lax in ordinary times, we could become enlightened any minute or any second. So by no means should we let ourselves be confused by thoughts, and miss the opportunity to get enlightened."