States of Transcendence in the Everyday World

The low, growling chants are otherworldly, eerie yet soothing, punctuated by bells, drums and cymbals.

These are the sounds of Tibetan Buddhist monks, the sounds of religious ritual, but in the U.S., they reverberate from a stage, or a CD player, not from a sanctuary or a monastery.

“We’re just doing part of the ritual[s], as a show, mainly vocalizing,” says Thupten Donyo, who performs with the touring Tibetan Tantric Choir. “Most of the time, life is devoted to spiritual practice instead of worldly activity, [but] as long as one has faith and devotion, it’s OK to offer a show to the West [about] the monks’ lifestyle.”

This month, in a coincidence of bookings, Los Angeles will be able to compare and contrast three sets of performing Buddhist monks. Each has added theatricality to ritual and created touring shows that bring Eastern traditions to Western audiences.

Donyo and 13 of his brethren from Gyuto monastery, headquartered in Dharamsala, India, make up the Tibetan Tantric Choir. They will perform at UCLA’s Royce Hall Saturday and at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts later in the month, and starting today, they will also be in residence at the Hammer Museum, creating an intricate sand mandala meant as a blessing as the museum embarks on a redesign later this year.

Then, in two separate productions, some 40 Shaolin monks from China--practitioners of kung fu--will perform martial arts demonstrations, choreographed, costumed and staged, in Cerritos and at the Universal Amphitheatre.

The Gyuto monks, performing under the auspices of the Dalai Lama and to benefit the monastery in India, have toured the world. Their music has proven so popular that the group has recorded a handful of CDs, joined on some tracks by such luminaries as composer Philip Glass and Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart, who also produces the discs. A new CD is slated for release next month.

What makes their sound so distinctive is that each of the monks vocalizes a chord--that is, each can sing two or three tones simultaneously. In Tibetan Buddhism, such sounds are thought to arise only from the throat of a person who has realized “selfless wisdom,” which emanates from the trancelike state of pure consciousness, Samadhi.

Donyo, 40, acts as a translator and spokesman for the choir. Shortly before the tour began, he talked by phone from San Jose, where he lives with three other monks in an offshoot of the Gyuto monastery that opened last year.

“In 1974, when I was 12, my parents sent me to India from Nepal to become a monk,” Donyo recalled. “Whenever we chant or do prayers in the monastery, we’re not supposed to use normal voice. All the monks have to use the deeper voice. You have to practice, try very hard. For me, it took a long time.”

Donyo is well aware that Buddhist monks are a little out of the ordinary as touring musicians in the West. They follow strict disciplines and diets, and after the tour, they will return to a relatively cloistered world. Still, the culture clash is negotiable.

“We are easygoing,” he says, laughing. Consider food. “Most of us are not vegetarians, although we’re not allowed to have ‘black’ foods--meat, alcohol, garlic, onions. On the road, I eat whatever is possible. This morning, I bought bagels from Costco. With cheese cream. We never had something like that in [India].”

Donyo even admits to trading his traditional robes for blue jeans from time to time, for tasks like driving. “They’re not very comfortable, though,” he says, laughing.

However adaptable the monks may try to be, Donyo says their staged rituals are little changed from what goes on in the monastery. The primary difference is time. If they were done at the usual length, people would get bored. “There is nothing to see, nothing exciting,” he says.

But the intention is the same:

“Our goal is to achieve enlightenment, to reach the Buddhist state,” Donyo says. “If I was enlightened, I wouldn’t be like this, talking with you. I wish I achieved enlightenment, but I think it’ll take another couple of lifetimes.”

The 1,500-year-old Shaolin tradition, now carried on by a temple in China’s central Henan province, expresses spirituality on a decidedly more physical plane. By meditating on movements of animals, the first Shaolin monks developed kung fu, a system of self-defense. While Buddhism is generally nonviolent, Shaolin monks continue to be trained in the use of 18 types of weaponry. Isn’t that at odds with their own philosophy?

No, says Xiugin Wang, an English-speaking promoter from Beijing, who is handling the 28-city tour of the Shaolin Warriors, a group of monks contracted from the main temple and sponsored by the Chinese government. Their appearance next week in Cerritos is already sold out.

“By practicing martial arts,” Wang explains by phone from a tour stop in Iowa, “they learn to concentrate. That kind of concentration purifies your mind [and] makes it peaceful.”

The 20-plus performers execute astonishing feats by any standards. Included is one performer who appears to break an iron bar with his head; another is able to put his feet behind his ears. Wang says the show is meant to represent temple life, where monks practice meditation as well as martial arts. “But mainly,” he adds, “the show is a demonstration of kung fu that has been [theatrically enhanced by] a choreographer, director, music composer and lighting designer.”

Reviews have been favorable. The Chicago Tribune wrote, “the show is fascinating ... because of the paradox of watching peaceful, serene men and boys move so quickly into fighting mode.” Notes Wang: “If we present the best part of Shaolin martial arts, we feel it is a further step for cooperation between the U.S. and China.”

Another Shaolin production lands here first on public TV, airing Thursday, and then arrives for one performance at the Universal Amphitheatre. “Wheel of Life” is the most lavish of the three monk productions. It began in London and has been touring for the past two years, a sort of “Riverdance” meets “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” spectacle in which an emperor, invading warlords and monks come together. Among the highlights: a monk who performs two-fingered handstands and a fearless soul who lies on a block of nails as another monk crushes a cement slab on his chest with an ax.

“Don’t try that at home,” says London-based producer Steve Nolan, who managed rock ‘n’ roll tours before he was asked by a Chinese entrepreneur to help produce a one-night benefit for the Shaolin temple. As Nolan researched the sect’s history, he realized he could fashion something more than a one-night stand. He put together a creative team, including a director and costume designer, then went to China to cast 25 monks under an agreement with the temple’s abbot--the temple, he says, gets one-third of the show’s gross profits.

“One of the reasons we tried to make this into a theatrical [event] is to explain why these monks do what they do,” says Nolan. “They’re human beings like you and I, and through dedication and a never-ending self-belief, you can achieve anything you want.”

Chungliang “Al” Huang, 65, who grew up in China, taught theater and dance at UCLA in the 1960s, and now heads a cross-cultural organization, the Living Tao Foundation, expects the Shaolin shows to do well. He hasn’t seen the Shaolin Warriors, but he recently watched “Wheel of Life” on TV.

“After the popularity of ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,’ Westerners are fascinated in this kind of spectacle. Because the [Shaolins] are trained as monks in a meditative way, they can attain high-skilled performances. The parallel would be a great athlete needing concentration. It’s theater, but based on sound spiritual tradition.”

For the Gyuto monks, that tradition is the key.

“We get worried and attached to possessions, but this is not important,” says Donyo. “What is important is to do something that is a benefit for others. If you did something good [during] the day, you rejoice and do more the next day.”

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Gyuto Monks, Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood. Today-Friday. Free. Call for times: (310) 443-7000. Royce Hall, UCLA campus, Saturday, 8 p.m., $14-$35. (310) 825-2101. Also, March 21, 8 p.m., Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive, Cerritos. $35-$45. (800) 300-4345.

Shaolin Warriors, Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, March 14, 8 p.m. $40-$50. (800) 300-4345.

“Wheel of Life” airs on KCET-TV, Thursday, 10 p.m. Also, Universal Amphitheatre, 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, March 20, 8:15 p.m. $23.50-$33.50. Tickets, (213) 252-8497; information, (818) 622-4440.