The amazing town home to thousands of Buddhist monks and nuns

PERCHED on a hillside 4000 metres above sea level thousands of log cabins are jammed together to house the world’s biggest population of monks and nuns. The pictures are incredible.

Photo: William Yu / Solent News

STACKED one on top of the other, thousands of red houses completely cover the hillside they are built on. At around 4000 metres above sea level, these log cabins are the homes of thousands of Buddhist monks and nuns.

Founded in 1980, the Seda Larong Wuming Buddhist Institute in the Larung valley, Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, China, is the largest centre for the study of Tibetan Buddhism in the world and is home to around 40,000 people. Photographer William Yu spent time with them and photographed their daily lives and their homes. He said, “It���s an awesome experience to photograph here, the landscape is shockingly beautiful and unique. The people, most of them monks and nuns, are friendly. “It’s a remote place and tough to get to, but worth all the efforts to be there. I wish I could have stayed there longer.” Mr Yu observed many of the monks’ and nuns’ daily rituals such as the need to remove shoes before entering a building. He said, “It’s unhygienic to wear shoes indoors and if everyone wears shoes in the hall, it quickly becomes dirty and it may damage or mark the floor coverings. Buddhists like to have things last for a long time. “While Buddhists are pretty easygoing and will let most things slide, you will simply not be allowed in wearing shoes. “It is also a mark of respect and simply a cultural and religious convention of etiquette. And it is in their monastic code for monks and nuns that they are not allowed to teach Buddhism to anyone wearing shoes. Although this technicality is widely ignored, it has influenced the practices of the devout.” All of the monks and nuns wear traditional Buddhist monastic robes. Mr Yu, from San Francisco, said: “The robe is so versatile that it can be used not just as clothing, but as things like a blanket and a groundsheet. It is easy to clean and repair and is perhaps the oldest style of dress still in fashion after 2,500 years.”