c. 1998 Religion News Service

CARMEL, N.Y. _ A nun in a long gray robe, her head shaved bare, leaned over a small girl clinging to her last moments of sleep. The nun rubbed the child’s shoulder in silence. And the girl opened her eyes and looked quizzically at the bald figure welcoming her to the day.

It was another morning at Buddhist summer camp, where the central teaching is compassion even if the first wake-up call is at 5 a.m.

While Christian children sing about Jesus at vacation Bible camps, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Zoroastrians and members of other immigrant and minority religious groups gather at camps of their own to mix age-old traditions with swimming and s’mores.

Such camps provide a rare opportunity for many children to be in the majority if only for a few days or weeks, and to learn the religious values their parents’ parents instilled in them.

A serene 37-foot Buddha overlooked 150 not-so-serene children and teens at the opening session of summer camp at the Chuang Yen Monastery on 225 grassy acres north of New York City. In his long yellow robe and slippers, the Rev. Ming-Kuang was part cheerleader, part ballet master as he coaxed rows of tired bodies into position.

“In this class we learn to show respect to the Buddha,” he said in Chinese while a counselor interpreted. When walking in the Buddha hall, he said, “We should be swift like the wind. When we stand, we should stand tall like a tree.”

The children were more like windblown saplings as they tried to stand, bow and prostrate themselves at the sound of bells. Still, by the evening service, even the youngest bowed on cue.

At the Chinmaya Hindu Camp, held in a Washington Hindu center, Swami Dheerananda began one day by teaching his two dozen young charges to chant a prayer in Sanskrit to inspire their intellects. They mimicked with surprising accuracy the long-haired man in the orange robe who told them stories and played “Swami Says.”

“If you chant, your memory will become very powerful like a computer,” he told the campers ranging in age from 5 to 10.

Young children, he said, can be expected to learn only by rote. “Once they’re 15, they can be taught the meaning.” And indeed, at the Hindu Heritage Summer Camp, held at a community center on 11 acres in Rochester, N.Y., teens study with scholars of Hindu philosophy and religion between games of basketball and ultimate Frisbee.

Gatka is the ultimate at Sikh summer camps, a form of martial arts using sticks. At the Buddhist Chuang Yen monastery, a master from China’s Shaolin monastery, famous for its kung fu, demonstrated complex combinations of kicks and lunges to groups of campers. While a nun accompanying the children followed the master’s moves with precision and grace, young boys and girls flailed their arms wildly, lost in kung fu fantasies.

The afternoon schedule at Chuang Yen includes meditation classes taught by monks and nuns who lament the pressured lives that children lead.

“Every day you should take time out for meditation,” the Rev. Chuen Yuan, a nun at Chuang Yen, urged a group of youths. “You can take the peace you get from this and give it to the world. Your personal relations will be better and better.”

While one girl said that sitting silently for 20 minutes “just about killed me,” others appreciated the respite.

“It’s a way to clear your heart and mind,” said Dannie Chang, 13, of Queens, N.Y. “When my mind is flying I try to stay calm.”

Some campers confess to dozing through meditation and lectures on the history and philosophy of religion. “Sometimes the lectures are boring and people disrespect the monks,” said Cherry Li, 14, a Buddhist from Queens.

And counselors aren’t always sure how much young campers comprehend higher truth. Still, sometimes even 10-year-olds find deeper meaning.

“Buddhism is a way to purify your mind and get rid of your bad habits and be kind,” said Gloria Lin, 10, of Chelmsford, Mass.

Older campers have 1990s rap sessions to discuss the difficulty of integrating religious teachings into their everyday lives.

At Sikh Youth Gurmat camp in Rockville, Md., where boys compete in turban-tying contests, last year’s campers discussed how to explain to classmates that Sikhism forbids cutting hair on the body. And the majority tried to convince the few Sikh campers who do get haircuts to grow their locks.

Harneep Kaur, 14, of Burtonsville, Md., was among the girls who said that while haircuts are a sacrilege, leg shaving is OK.

“I don’t think it’s a big deal,” she said. “Girls do it. It’s the ’90s.”

DEA END LIEBLICH