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Original Film Title: Monastic Life
Director’s Name: Ling Wang
Writer’s Name: Ling Wang
Producer: Ling Wang
Country of Origin: China
Country of Filming: China
Language: Chinese
Runtime: 1 hour 27 minutes 56 seconds
Film Description:
Monastic Life, fully funded by director Ling Wang, was filmed over 4 years inside Baita Temple in Chengdu, Sichuan—a women’s monastic community with a history of more than 1,700 years. Inside the temple, the ordained women follow a calm and steady daily rhythm—morning and evening practice, communal work, and quiet meditation. Rather than presenting monastic life as remote or mystical, the documentary shows how their spiritual practice is woven into simple, continuous routines.
During the extended period of filming, the director heard the female monastics talk candidly about life and death, about money, about everyday worries, and about why they chose the monastic path. Three senior female practitioners passed away over the course of filming and post-production. The awareness of their passing becomes a quiet backdrop for the documentary’s deeper reflection on Buddhist views of impermanence—how they look at aging and illness, how they face the limits of the body, and how they understand leaving ordinary life behind. These conversations form the core of the documentary.
The documentary uses no music and very little narration. Almost everything is heard as it happens: the wind in the courtyard, the bells, footsteps on stone, and the voices of the female monastics. This unobtrusive approach lets viewers ease into the rhythm of temple life, where questions about life and death.
Monastic Life is neither religious instruction nor abstract theory. It looks at birth, aging, sickness, and death through the everyday lives of women monastics. Using a quiet and restrained visual approach, the director offers a different way of seeing—one that relies not on explanation, but on watching how the weight and lightness of life gradually show themselves in the steadiness of daily practice.