A leisurely life that begins with the possession of a game character

Going to a temple to practice or stay for a period of time, the daily routine alone is enough for ordinary people to endure. Generally, they get up around 4: in the morning and simply tidy up their house.

At 5am, you have to attend the morning class in the main hall, which is mostly chanting. You have breakfast at around 7am, and after breakfast, you can listen to the master's lecture or start working, such as cleaning or helping in the kitchen. Most temples where you can stay and stay are very busy, and there is a lot of work to do at any time and anywhere.

Have lunch around noon, and then before 2pm, you can choose to go back to your own meditation room for lunch.

From 2 to 5, we listen to the master's lectures or do some labor, such as cleaning or helping in the kitchen.

After that, it was dinner and evening classes. Basically, it was pretty much the same as Zhang Lan's life in high school.

Liu Xiaoyu once lived in a temple for a period of time and learned about the life of some practitioners in the temple. How should I put it? Some temples are like a small society. If the money is small, the work can drive people crazy.

If you don't have money, sooner or later you will be unable to stay.

The reason why I can't stay here is not the food and accommodation, which are secondary. Because in large temples, food and accommodation are easy to solve.

The food and other offerings from the lay Buddhists alone cannot be eaten up. There are boxes of milk powder, piles of rice, flour and oil. The monks and lay Buddhists in the temples simply cannot finish them all. So some temples will hold activities to distribute porridge for free.

Accommodation is free, and there are plenty of rooms. The abbot has his own room, which has a TV, a large wardrobe, and a computer. Lay Buddhists usually stay in large guest rooms, which can accommodate 6, 8, 12, or 24 people.

There are also single rooms for lay Buddhists to stay in, but they have to pay extra. If you can't stand the food and drink, you can choose to stay in a nearby hotel or villager's home.

In short, if you have money, everything is easy, but if you don’t have money, you just have to follow the crowd.

Liu Xiaoyu lived in a single room at the time. Originally, she wanted to live in a room with twelve or twenty-four people. She felt that that might be more suitable for her spiritual cultivation.

As a result, Liu Xiaoyu was in a hurry to change rooms after staying for half a night because she was not used to it. The most important thing was that there was no privacy. In a room with 24 people, the snoring and farting sounds became a sea at night.

Washing your face, brushing your teeth, taking a shower and doing clothes are all done in the public toilet. The shower is done with a shower head installed above the squat toilet. You should take advantage of the few people using the toilet and be careful not to step your feet into the squat toilet.

In this kind of environment, unless one is really broke, or comes here just for spiritual practice, it would be difficult for someone like Liu Xiaoyu to adapt.

I woke up at 4 to 4:30 every morning to do morning prayers, which consisted of chanting sutras and circumambulating the ground. The first three days of waking up were like a death sentence, as I woke up at 4 a.m. every day. I never woke up so early.

This early rising time applies every day, without weekends or holidays. As long as you are there, you can never think of sleeping in.

The ritual Liu Xiaoyu attended at that time was chanting sutras every day. There were chanting parts in both the morning and afternoon classes. In addition to chanting sutras and worshipping Buddha, daily chores included washing dishes, mopping the floor, burning incense, and placing offerings. Her hands turned white from washing dishes. There were no rubber gloves for washing dishes there. Liu Xiaoyu had to apply hand cream many times a day, but her hands were still dry. Even the work Liu Xiaoyu did was nothing. The Buddhists who cooked were particularly tired. The Buddhist sisters who made breakfast had to get up at 3 a.m. to prepare meals. There was also an old Buddhist sister, 72 years old, who had to go to the fields to pick vegetables, wash vegetables, and clean the toilet. Sometimes she couldn't finish the work and was very worried.

After Liu Xiaoyu finished her work, she went to see her and helped her. The old lady was so tired that she said to her with tears in her eyes: I want to rest at home, but the abbot always calls me and asks me to come to the temple to sweep the toilet, saying that I owe him.

Liu Xiaoyu couldn't understand what was going on. If she didn't want to come, then don't come. If the host called her, she had to come. But everyone has their own fate, and helping the elder sister was within her physical endurance.

But these are easy to say, the real work is the kind of farm work. Liu Xiaoyu remembers that the first time she worked for a whole day, this kind of monotonous and repetitive pure physical activity under the scorching sun, it was her first time to do it, and at night she had to make up for the chanting homework that she missed during the daytime work. When Liu Xiaoyu heard the news, she collapsed.

Other Buddhists asked her, "You haven't suffered much, are you okay?" Liu Xiaoyu said, "I'm fine, but I suddenly don't want to live anymore."

Later, when there were various kinds of work, such as taking down a bunch of door curtains, cleaning them, and mending them, or going up the mountain to pick fruits from the trees, and then picking out the good ones, some of which were packed into boxes to be sold, some were eaten, and some were used as fertilizer.

There are also pickled vegetables. You have to pick out radishes, ginger and other things, wash, cut and pickle them in baskets. Basically, you have to work for several hours and straighten your back from time to time, otherwise it will be really sour.

Liu Xiaoyu would push off these tasks if she could, and would go back to rest if she said she didn't want to do them. The reason was that Liu Xiaoyu later paid for the memorial tablet and burned incense.

It is said that food and accommodation are provided free of charge, but during the period of management, they will promote religious ceremonies and let lay Buddhists perform rituals. Liu Xiaoyu offered tablets and incense in the morning, and later paid extra money, so she is basically a transcendent existence in the temple.

But sometimes it’s different. Some lay Buddhists in the temple don’t have tablets to offer, so the person in charge will ask them to perform rituals. The person in charge will tell everyone that they have to offer incense, and everyone has to offer it. It’s not me who asks for the money, nor am I the one to collect it.

Liu Xiaoyu couldn't remember the exact words, but her tone was very unfriendly and angry towards those who didn't pay. But for people like Liu Xiaoyu, the manager was always friendly to her.

The temple where Liu Xiaoyu was at the time was surrounded by mountains and rivers, with beautiful scenery. The overall cultural environment was also good, and the lay Buddhists were very comfortable to get along with. Perhaps because everyone had no vested interests and all had faith and were willing to do good, they were in a relatively happy mood most of the time.

But there are exceptions. The female laywoman who is the chef is a disciple of the abbot. She has a lot of work to do and is also very irritable. She often orders others around and speaks harshly. Once, she ordered Liu Xiaoyu around with a condescending and scolding attitude. Liu Xiaoyu did not tolerate her and told her directly: I won’t do it.

She was stunned and asked: Why don’t you do it?
I don't want to do it. I'm going to sleep now. Liu Xiaoyu said this casually and left.

When she tried to order Liu Xiaoyu around again, Liu Xiaoyu was washing dishes. She just waved her hand, glanced at her coldly, and left. She didn't even wash the dishes.

I had already spent money on incense offerings, and washing dishes and sweeping the floor were just for the purpose of fitting in and chatting with other lay Buddhists. Do you really think Liu Xiaoyu would do these things?

Later, his attitude changed. Perhaps he knew that Liu Xiaoyu had paid a lot of money, so he became cautious in his words. After a few times, Liu Xiaoyu felt that since he had begun to respect her, she would back down and stop giving him a hard time. (End of this chapter)