主题：【文摘】纽约时报登的承德山庄游记 -- 林小筑

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Near the Little Potala Palace are seven other major temples, all of them facing the emperor's summer resort in a show of carefully planned deference, and several are used for religious purposes. Tibetan and Mongolian monks live in the Temple of Sumeru, Happiness and Longevity, which was built for a visit of Tibet's sixth Panchen Lama in 1780, and the monks chant daily in its central Hall of Loftiness and Solemnity. Visitors are welcome, but are asked not to take pictures.

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Our itinerary directed us to the Temple of Universal Happiness, a tantric monastery that was said to be built in 1766 for a Mongolian official, a Buddhist named Bulu Ke. Inside the first hall, our guide described how pilgrims sometimes pray to three giant golden statues.

One of them, he said, can grant wealth. The second can cure illness. But the most important is of Siddhartha Gautama (Shakyamuni to the Chinese), the founder of Buddhism in the sixth century B.C. Buddhists believe that the man who became the Buddha, an Indian sage of the Shakya clan, reached nirvana when he realized that suffering is universal and that people achieve inner peace only by giving up worldly desires.

Though I have traveled in Tibet several times, nothing I had seen prepared me for the practices described in the temple's main building, a three-story hall with flamboyantly conical roofs and ornately carved marble balustrades. After we gazed at the Mountain Resort from a balcony on the building's top floor, our guide led us into the Pavilion of the Rising Sun. "This," he said, "is the feminine yin to balance the male yang of Sledgehammer Peak," which towered in the distance.

At the center of the room stood a giant wooden mandala, a design symbolic of the universe that is used as a meditation aid, and at the center of the mandala was a life-size copper statue of sexual congress.

The authenticity of a group of scriptures known as tantras are hotly debated within Buddhist circles, but Tibetans claim they are the most powerful tool monks have of reaching enlightenment. One of the methods suggested is sex, which, when practiced by a skilled monk, can induce what Shu called a state of "inner bliss that is free of desire." One of my classmates, a graduate student studying Chinese religion at Stanford University, clarified by explaining that before monks are allowed to engage in tantric practices, if they ever are, they must complete 24 years of monastic study.

Because it was getting late, we passed up hiking two miles from the temple to Sledgehammer Peak and instead took a chairlift that gave us stunning views of the spire and a bird's-eye look at farmers harvesting cabbages. According to legend, a dragon used Sledgehammer Peak to plug a hole that allowed the sea to flow into the valley. But local folklore offers another interpretation: it is said that if the rock falls, it would have a disastrous effect on the virility of local men.

On our second morning, after a delicious breakfast of fried dough and steamed bread stuffed with meat, we followed our guide's yellow flag through the main gates of the Mountain Resort and into China's largest imperial playground. The palace itself takes up only a small part of the 1,500-acre park, which is twice as large as Beijing's Summer Palace, but there is plenty to see.

We started in the Front Palace, in several small but fantastically furnished rooms built from an aromatic hardwood called nanmu where the emperors lived and worked. Beyond giant bronze lions were several rooms full of graceful furniture and ornaments - traditional ink brushes, fine silk screens, ornate fly whisks. Chengde's architecture largely survived the destruction of the Cultural Revolution, and the buildings have been well preserved.

Today many of the structures house small collections (with English explanations) of imperial odds and ends. There are exquisite porcelain containers, jade jewelry and fantastically embroidered clothing, all of it pointing to the opulent lives of the Qing dynasty rulers. Shu gestured to the door where eunuchs delivered concubines to the emperors each night. "The emperor made his choice by selecting a slip of white jade with the name of his choice on it," he said.