The confession

After a lot of unnecessary wandering around, I finally found my way to the Wenshu temple, home to the Manjusri monastery. I was hoping this would be the highlight of my visit to Chengdu, which is pretty far to the west in China and has a sizable Tibetan community. In most taxi cabs hung golden medallions featuring some Buddhist deity or another, that's how poorly Mao failed at sterilizing a couple of millenia of old beliefs.

Purely by happenstance, I found the little hole in the wall dispensing entry tickets for 5 kwai. I quickly got inside and walked the corridors of this beautiful temple, stopping at each of the main halls (no photos allowed) to say hi to the various Buddhas they had - seating, reclined, etc. I might as well have been in Sikkim, Bhutan or even Tibet - close your eyes and imagine a bunch of Indians instead of Han Chinese, and the temples and their Tibetan-ness remain unchanged.

People were out in spades, it was a sunny morning. They dutifully filed in to the kneeling-stools in front of the deities, waving their joss sticks (provided free at the entrance) and very sincerely praying. An old man crossed a courtyard diagonally, sullen and smoking a cigarette. Kids were being kids, playing in the courtyards and taking pictures, running about holding hands and pulling hair. I was deeply engrossed in reading some old fables on a wall when from somewhere came a sound: "hello!" A quick look around, and nothing. A little later "How are you?" or something like that, and so on it went for a while. Little kids from around the corner were peeking out, shouting the English phrases they knew shyly - or mischievously - at me and receding back.

On the side of another open courtyard, I saw a ping pong table. I went and circumambulated it, thinking back to dorm days in high school that consisted mainly of useless TV sitcoms, late night ping pong with the highlight being a cold, frothy Coke. Occasionally, we mixed it up and had a root beer. Presently a young monk came by with a couple of paddles. He left one and went in through a door nearby. I held the paddle - it was good quality - and waited for him to emerge, giving up. A while later, I walked by and he was at it with a bunch of other monks. I should have joined them, but I walked on, taking pictures.

I bumped into the teahouse in the temple, which was an amazing cacophony. People were sitting around, sipping tea, and chatting in that loud Chinese fashion. It reminded me of the time my cabbie in Beijing missed a turn to the hotel and seemed to be yelling at me as he drove around back to it. Turned out he was just talking normally, possibly even apologizing, as he tried to give the doorman some money back for having driven me around unnecessarily. Anyway, families were sitting about, lots of peanut shells and shells of other seeds careless tossed all over the floor. I got some curious looks.

Finally, I entered one of the main halls - they had three or four - and went way back to see a beautiful reclining Buddha made of some white material - perhaps marble? It was quiet. I had had a long week and anyway was feeling like life ought to give me a break. I looked around and sank to the ground, kneeling on the stool. I stared at the Buddha, and a strange feeling engulfed me. I've always considered me a live-by-the-rules - man's rules - sort of guy, not so much into the divine. So, I was a little embarrassed of what I was about to do, and looked around again.

Then I took a picture.