Ringing in the New Year

As 2006 drew to a close, I found I was in a fairly contemplative mood, and wondering how to spend New Year’s Eve. I didn’t really fancy battling through the crowds at the Esplanade or Orchard Road, and wasn’t in the mood to go down to Boat Quay or other bar areas. Then, in Saturday’s Straits Times, I saw in the the ‘What’s On‘ section that the Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery was organising a “Spiritual Countdown“.

That, I thought, would be just the ticket. Not only would it suit my mood, and be a good way to start the new year in a right frame of mind, it would be an interesting cultural experience to see how a Buddhist temple welcomed 2007.

The advertised start time was 10pm, and I got there in very good time – about 9, having expected more traffic delays than there were. The event was in the Pagoda of 10,000 Buddhas, where I also attended Dharma classes last year. The hall didn’t really start to fill up until about 10:20 or so, and things got rolling about 40 minutes late. The crowd was mostly made up of young families, with a smattering of grannies and maids. There were a handful of waiguoren / ang moh there; probably 5 or so, including myself.

I can’t really say what I expected; probably something involving monks and chanting. It quickly turned out that this English-language event wasn’t going to be that; I hadn’t realized that it was organised by the Monastery’s youth outreach group, so I guess I wasn’t really in their target demographic! It reminded me very much of the Christian youth groups that I occasionally attended when I was a teenager.

I still found it very interesting; the Abbot, Venerable Kwang Sheng, gave a talk on approaching 2007 with the aim of being “more kind, more simple, less ‘prefabricated’”, to have “childlike simplicity” and be “more grounded”. This is good Zen Buddhist advice, and I hope to follow it! Someone else gave a Dharma talk, encouraging us to look back at what we had done in 2006, and I did actually find that this put me into a useful and rewarding train of thought.

Around these talks were some live performances and singers; while I appreciate their earnestness, and not meaning to say that they weren’t good, it wasn’t really what I was looking for, I guess. However, shortly before midnight, we all left the Pagoda and moved down to the main temple building. This is where the Chinese-language event was taking place, with an older crowd, and where the monks were gathered to chant. At midnight, a monk began stiking a bell 108 times, symbolising the deletion of the 108 defilements. Listening to each toll of the bell is meant to delete one defilement, and earn the listener one karmic merit, by allowing him or her to become more centred and return to their true self. It was a moving experience, especially as the bell began vibrating steadily, emitting a steady, booming hum in addition to the noise of each strike.

After this, we returned to the Pagoda, circling the Kwan Yin pavilion on the way. At this point, a lot of the audience left, and the evening really became a youth event. As enthusiastic teams began performing hip-hop, rock, etc on stage, I decided that it wasn’t going to be for me and went back to the main temple, where the monks continued their chanting, accompanied by the crowd, for another hour. Of course, I don’t know what they were saying! So many things I want to do involve gettingmy Mandarin up to a much better level… Anyhow, once the chanting ended and the monks had made their departure in procession, I spent some time in quiet contemplation in the temple grounds, and then made my way home. Luckily – and somewhat to my surprise – taxis were plentiful, and I didn’t have to wait long to get one.

So that was my New Year’s Eve; not entirely what I expected, but rewarding and interesting none the less. Once again, happy new year to you all!