The Cult of Tara

WORSHIP
in actuality the young monk began learning these skills long before
his formal course, for he sat in the assembly hall with the older
monks, desperately trying to get his voice low enough to chant with
them, trying to keep his place in the text he had perhaps not yet
memorized quite well enough, and simultaneously attempting to
follow the monks across from him in their rapid sequences of hand
gestures and the manipulation of their vajras and bells. His reward
might be an approving glance from an older monk or perhaps from
the head monk himself, of whom the young monks stood in great
awe; and his punishment for losing his place in the midst of all this
might be a reproof from the disciplinarian, whose fierce glance was
backed up by the threat of corporal punishment. I have heard him
yell at the young monks, in the middle of a ritual, "Pay attention to
your books!" and create thereby a flurry of page-flipping and attention;
he has been known to fling his vajra the length of the
assembly hall to fall like the thunderbolt it represents upon the head
of a dozing monk. Yet to be allowed to blow the conch shells or beat
the drums during the ritual was a treat relished by a young monk,
given as a reward for good behavior or offered as an inducement for
wakefulness during a long ritual, which might last fourteen hours a
day for nine days; and it was a treat despite the fact that it might
earn him a pulled ear if he did not pay attention to what he was doing.
This process of ritualization thus worked upon the young monk in
many ways; the most important factor was that he and his elders
actually enjoyed the monastic rituals, for they provided an outlet
for his creative talents in the manufacture of their accessories, the
mandalas and tormas, as well as in the chanting, the music, and
the occasional dancing of their actual performance. From the very
beginning of a monk's monastic career the rituals provided him, in
the assemblies, with a feeling of communal support and common
effort, they challenged his capabilities, and they provided, in their
administrative structure, clearly defined and possibly attainable
goals for his endeavors. He could look forward to the day when he
had learned the procedures and cultivated his talents well enough
to be himself appointed the head monk.
CONTEMPLATIVE TRAINING: THE PRELIMINARY PRACTICES
As early as possible every monk was expected to spend some part
of his life in solitary contemplation at the hermitage associated with
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