TRANQUIL RETREAT: Located in a northwestern suburb of Beijing, Longquan Monastery is an entry point for people seeking spiritual purification (YUAN YUAN)

Ding Ji, a sophomore student from Tsinghua University in Beijing, frequently joins the group. "I take classes on Buddhism in the monastery every weekend and help with the future animations, too," Ding said. "The tranquil atmosphere in the monastery always gives me fresh inspiration."

The animation production team also organizes activities for animation enthusiasts at weekends.

Yang Yazheng, a 7-year-old girl from Haidian Elementary School, is a frequent visitor and comes with her parents. She loves to learn about making clay figurines. "I love animations. I think they are very funny," Yang said.

Master Xianshu revealed that the team makes animations of different lengths—one minute, 18 minutes and 40 minutes. The one-minute presentations, which are based on the quotes of Master Xuecheng, are the most popular.

The team set up a public account on WeChat—a multimedia app combining instant messaging, content sharing and payment services with more than 350 million monthly active users which they use to post the animations they make every day. A QR code for the account is on display at the entrance of the monastery for visitors to scan so they can access all of the animations. Currently, the account has more than 3,000 followers.

"When I made my decision to stay at the monastery as a long-term volunteer, my classmates thought I was crazy," Xu said. "But after they visited me a few times, many have also become volunteers and come to work with us in their spare time."

Modern monks

Longquan Monastery has a history of more than 1,000 years but the name became widely known in 2011 after a student from China's prestigious Peking University rejected a coveted full scholarship offered by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and decided to take renunciation there.

People later found more than one of the monastery's monks graduated from the country's top higher learning institutions, including Peking or Tsinghua universities.

Here, the stereotype of the poor, elderly monk no longer exists. Many of the monks and Buddhists there are young and some even have come from as far away as Europe and the United States.

The abbot Xuecheng opened a microblog account and posts in eight languages with the help of the Translation Center at the monastery. The monastery's Dharma assemblies have been made available in different languages as well.

The IT team at the monastery uses the software they develop on their own to organize activities in the monastery. The Department of Publicity makes documentaries and videos about Buddhism, some of which have even been broadcasted by major TV stations in China.

All this has attracted popularity as well as criticism.

"I feel weird every time I see monks using smart phones," one visitor said to Master Xuecheng.

"I think you would feel even stranger if we still wrote in oracles," Xuecheng replied. "I believe if they still lived now, ancient monks would open microblog accounts too."

"Monks here in the monastery still chant and learn Buddhist knowledge, but we set up a platform that is open to everybody from society," said Master Xianshu. "We can connect Buddhism with modern society and help people learn its values."

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