Meeting Ming Hai, Abbot of Bai Lin Si, the temple of Zen Master Joshu

Minghai, the Abbot of Bailin Si, or Cypress Forest Temple. Perhaps Joshu, or Zhao Zhou had this in mind. “A monk asked Zhaozhou, “What is the living meaning of Zen?” Zhaozhou said, “The cypress tree in the yard.”

To my Zen and Chan brothers, sisters and friends,

As you may know, I spent about 6 months in China last year. I stayed at one particular temple for a two month stay in early spring and another 3 weeks in October. The monk is a Soto (Cao Dong) monk, and his favorite Zen text is the Blue Cliff Record. For one month, I did a pilgrimage through some of the temples and sites that we have all read and heard of through the years. There is a brief travelogue with some pictures on my website, http://www.bumbelbuddhist.wordpress.com.

I also have a much longer narrative that I will put online at some point.

However, I thought I would share the highlights of the conversation I had with Ming Hai, the abbot of Bailin Si, that is, Cypress Forest Temple, in September, 2013. You might find it useful or interesting.

First a little background. Minghai Da Hesheng (that means Big Monk, or Abbot in Chinese) is the disciple of Jing Hui Lao Hesheng (Jing Hui, the ‘old monk’–the equivalent of Roshi–an honorific title for a revered older teacher). Jing Hui, who died almost a year ago at about the age of 80, was very important in the recent history of Chinese Buddhism. He became a monk at the age of 13, and was the disciple and attendant of the legendary Chinese monk, Xu Yun “Empty Cloud”. Xu Yun lived from 1840 to 1959.

As I noted in my recent blogpost, Xu Yun lived through some of the most tumultuous and difficult times in Chinese history. Specifically, he lived through the 15 year long Taiping Rebellion of the 19th century, which resulted in at least 20 million deaths due to civil war and social chaos. Then again, with the collapse of Chinese society and the Qing Dynasty, in 1911, followed by the Japanese invasions and occupation of large areas of China between 1938-45, together with the civil war between the Communists and the Nationalists, China experienced the death of another 20 million people in WWII, as well as the terrible social disruptions that attended all that.

So Xu Yun, we might say, is a Holocaust Survivor of not one, but TWO Holocausts.

Following the Communist takeover in 1949, institutional Buddhism was suppressed, culminating in the Cultural Revolution between roughly 1966-75.He also was severely beaten by Red Guards, but somehow survived that.

Jing Hui was one of several important disciples of Xu Yun.
Hsuan ‘Hua, who founded City of 10,000 Buddhas, was another one you may have heard of.

During the Cultural Revolution, severe repression took place. Jing Hui had trained with Xu Yun, and I would imagine, it was his position within Chinese Buddhism as a notable monk, that resulted in his imprisonment for 15 years in a labor camp.

However, after the Cultural Revolution, and the rise of Deng Xiao Ping as the ideological successor to Mao, a major transformation began to occur, with religious freedom of expression allowed. One of Jing Hui’s first acts was to gather together overseas Buddhists from Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and Korea, to rebuild Bailin Si. That is the temple of Joshu, in English it is Cypress Forest Temple.

Following Joshu’s (Chinese: Zhao Zhou) death, over a long period of decline, Bailin Si, along with many other Buddhist monasteries, fell apart. By the 1970’s all that was left of Bailin Si was a pagoda tower, that had been severely damaged in an earthquake. All the other buildings were gone, leaving just vacant land.

So Jing Hui, prevailing on the desire to rebuild the temple of one of the most important Zen Masters, raised the funds to rebuild Bailin Si. It is now a very active temple in a smallish city outside the provincial capital of Hebei province. It is about two hours on the 180 mile per hour high speed train from Beijing to the provincial capital Shijiazhuang, and another hour by car from the train station to the temple.

Because of my previous trips to China, I had heard of Ming Hai, who has succeeded as abbot to Bailin Si. He had been in a 3 year solitary retreat, however, with the unexpected death of Jing Hui, he was asked to give up his retreat, to step into Jing Hui’s shoes.

Jinghui Lao Hesheng and myself at Laozu Si

I had also had the great fortune to meet Jing Hui and have a dharma discussion with him in 2010, as noted at my website. Several people had urged me to meet Ming Hai as well. So, on my arrival at Bailin Si, I asked to see Ming Hai, but he was very busy. Finally, I got his phone number, and told him that several of our mutual friends had urged me to see him. However, he had left Bailin Si, to visit another temple, preparing for some special occasion, the dedication of a new temple. While Western news reports a lot about China’s economic rise, and building whole cities from scratch “Ghost cities”, what is not reported is a massive temple building program.

Incredibly, he arranged for a car to drive me the hour and a half ride to where he was staying. I was later to learn the good fortune of that trip too.

So that is the background for our meeting.

I started off, by telling him about my background in Zen training, both as a student at the San Francisco Zen Center, and currently as a student of Nelson Foster, who is a lineage holder of Robert Aitken Roshi, who had trained in the Sanbo Kyodan school in Japan.

I had several concerns that I wanted to share with him.
First, I wanted to see if there is some way for Americans and Chinese to meet and share their experiences. Having spent quite a lot of time with Chinese in mainland China since my first trip in 2007, I have observed a tendency for Americans and Chinese to have perceptions of each other that are somewhat skewed.

Because of the history of the past 200 years in China, I think most Americans assume that Buddhism in China is pretty much dead, and that there is little freedom of thought or speech. In the past Communist party members were forbidden to practice Buddhism, but now it is quite acceptable to, and while China has human rights issues, I sense that many Chinese are quite open to discussing these issues, more so than Americans are willing to discuss American political issues.

Second, Chinese think that there is very little Buddhism in America, and often express envy for the democratic processes we are all familiar with.

In fact, Buddhism is now a strong component (though not dominant) in contemporary China. Both educated classes and working class people have large populations that visit and support temples and monks and nuns. In fact, as a pilgrim, I have generally stayed at temples to practice Chan (Zen) for free–I simply make a donation. In only two of perhaps 15 temples I have stayed at, was I asked to pay money. Most temples charge a very nominal $5-10 a day for supervised retreats, and even then, many people who don’t have money stay for free. That is, by donations. Many temples are being built or rebuilt, due to the generosity of donors wealthy and not wealthy. I have observed a really remarkable cultural trait of generosity, and that is what supports not just temples, but friendships as well.

So my question to Ming Hai, was how to overcome these misperceptions of China. I also think it is important for Chinese to understand the political, social and economic issues facing the people of the USA .

Most of all, I wish for a peaceful, harmonious world, or as my Chinese friend Lily Lee says, “A world culture of harmony”. How can we do this?

His answer was that he has met a number of Americans who have come to visit China, and stayed at Bailin Si. For example, Andy Ferguson, who runs South Mountain Tours has brought a number of groups to visit Bailin Si as well as other temples.

Ming Hai noted that when Americans come to see China for themselves, and talk with Chinese Buddhists, they come away with a better understanding and good feeling. We both agreed that it would be good to encourage more Americans to spend time in China. Two of my American friends who went on the tours told me they enjoyed them too. So how can we create the possibility for more exchanges?

Another issue we discussed is Visas. Most people who come to China to see what is happening with Buddhism, stay for a relatively short time. But what about someone like me, who is retired and has more time to stay, or others who simply want to stay in China for a longer time, to go on pilgrimage, stay in temples for longer stay, and so on?

At that point, Ming Hai took out a note book and wrote something down. I asked what was he writing about?

He replied, “I am an Assemblyman (the Chinese equivalent a member of the US Congress), and I want to bring up the subject, of making it easier for people to stay in China, based on religious grounds”.

I was quite surprised. I replied, “Do you know, that in America, you would have to make a $5000 campaign contribution, to get a direct one on one interview with your Congressperson?” “And here I am having an extended talk with you”. Not to mention that he had arranged a car to drive me to meet him. I am not some special person, like a teacher or famous author, just a humble student of the Way.
For him to go out of his way to see me and to see what he could do about making it more possible for students of Chan–Zen–to stay in China, was really heartwarming.

Visas are not easy these days, regulations are tightening pretty much everywhere, but at least Ming Hai was making an effort to promote mutual understanding, and I deeply appreciate him for that.

Ming Hai also wanted to share some concerns he has about American Zen, which I think are worth noting.

First was the issue of ethics. As we all know, there have been a lot of problems in various Buddhist communities over the years.
He may not know of the progress that has been made in these areas, in both the Diamond Sangha as well as the Zen Center. His point is still well taken that there is more work to do, in view of issues with other Buddhist teachers in both Zen, Tibetan and Theravada lineages.

The second issue is his concern about Chan Buddhism seeing itself as separate from Buddhism. In Japan, of course and then in the USA, we have seen differentiation of Zen, Jodo Shinshu, Nichiren, and so on. In China, from my observation, there seems to be less of that, although there are temples where Chan is practiced and others where it is not. I think if I understand him correctly he is concerned about a sort of sectarian elitism in Zen culture.

At Bailin Si, there is a large Dharma Hall and monks do a lot of chanting. Most temples are similar, with chanting and study being more prominent than sitting. I think it would be fair to say that Ming Hai thinks that Dharma study is important and should not be overlooked.

As for meditation, in some temples, monks have their own hall and laypeople sit in their own hall. That is the case at Bailin Si. However, at Yang Shan’s temple and Mazu’s temple, there is one meditation hall for everyone. Likewise, the temple where I have spent the most time, Tong Bo Yan Si, is headed by a Cao Dong monk, and monks and laypeople sit in the same hall. Likewise, at Nanputo, there is a large beautiful Chan Tang, or Meditation Hall, and both monastics and laypeople sit together.

I visited one nunnery, but didn’t stay there. I have heard that there are some nunneries where lay men can stay too. So there are no set rules, that I can see.

Both Yang Shan Xi Yin Si and Bao Feng Si where Mazu taught 1200 years ago, have been rebuilt and both hold meditation retreats. I have been invited to stay and do retreats at all these temples and certainly other Westerners are welcome to join in, too.

My sense is that in China, there seems to be a feeling of a need for preparation for sitting. In the West, and even in Thailand, meditation practice is fine for even rank beginners, like most of us were when we started. Many students practice by sutra chanting, and there are temples where students study the Vinaya assiduously. Or it may be that some Chinese themselves feel they are not ready to sit, and ask for preliminary practices.

One question that I did not ask was about the temple where I met Ming Hai. It had also been rebuilt by Jing Hui, and since I read only a smattering of Chinese, I didn’t know what some posters on the wall said. Later, I asked a monk about the temple. He explained that it was at this temple YuQuan Si, that Wansong, the great Soto Master, spent a lot of time writing the Shoyo Roku, that is, the Record of Ease, or Book of Serenity or Congrong Lu, the main koan collection of the Soto School. In fact that was one of the temples I had wanted to visit. I thought that I was going to miss it due to my travel schedule, and not really knowing how to get there.

So it was by accident, that Minghai happened to be there, and with his kind assistance, I was able to complete the pilgrimage of temples I had planned.

On the other hand, the Chinese say, there are no accidents.

That was how I got to meet Minghai, and see Wansong’s temple.

PS I am returning to China in two weeks and several of my Chinese friends have asked me, how can I help to open the doors to develop friendly relations with Americans. Especially American Buddhists. On possibility is to set up a website or maybe even a forum or organization. If any of you have any ideas, I would very much enjoy hearing from you.

Also, if you know of other people who would like to hear about this, please feel free to forward it.

How to Practice Chan in Daily Life

Last year, I had been invited to attend a conference on Chan, which I wrote about here in another entry. So this year, I felt that I would like to contribute something to the discussion. I wrote an article which a Chinese graduate student, Han Qing, translated into Chinese from English. Most of the people who attended were academics, who presented their papers. The main issue was the history of Chan in that area of China. It was in Hubei Province, where Dao Xin, the 4th Ancestor had the first temple devoted exclusively to the Chan school, since there were many other sects of Buddhism in China going back to the first century. His disciple, Hong Ren started another temple, now called Wu Zu Si, or 5th Ancestor Temple, and it was there that a young Hui Neng arrived, later to become the 6th Ancestor.  Now, in the same small city where Hui Neng gave many of his teachings,  the 3rd Annual Conference on Chan Culture took place, and I presented the following paper.

How to Practice Chan in Daily Life

1 Expression of Gratitude

I would like to thank Jing Hui Fashi, Ming Ji Fashi, and the organizers of this conference on Chan in daily Life for the chance to participate. I also want to thank all the many warmhearted Chinese people I have met who have made my practice of Buddhism in China possible. I would also like to send a long distance bow of gratitude to my teacher, Nelson Foster, for his kind instruction and support.

2 Disclaimer

Before continuing, please let me make a disclaimer, that I am presenting my own opinions, and am not a scholar or teacher,, just a student of the  Way, offering some observations that I have found useful.

3 Introduction

Of course, the topic of our conference is “Chan in Daily Life,”, and I was recently reminded of a talk given by a Korean Chan monk on the Diamond Sutra. He pointed out, that the Sutra’s first Chapter includes this passage:

One day before dawn, the Buddha clothed himself, and along with his disciples took up his alms bowl and entered the city to beg for food door to door, as was his custom.

After he had returned and eaten, he put away his bowl and cloak, bathed his feet, and then sat with his legs crossed and body upright upon the seat arranged for him.

He began mindfully fixing his attention in front of himself,

(http://www.diamond-sutra.com/diamond_sutra_text/page1.html)

The monk pointed out that this passage includes the entire sutra. Why? Because it states clearly and simply, how the Buddha conducted his daily activity.

It is said that there were, in the time of the Buddha, 500 Arhats, that is, people who had totally stopped the chain of karma, and would no longer be reborn. At that time there were not so many people in the world, so how could there be so many Enlightened Beings? Nowadays, with so many people practicing, there must be many hundreds or thousands of such beings, and also many Bodhisattvas. Yet, in response to a question about how many Buddhist practitioners have a real initial experience of Enlightenment, Kubota Roshi, a Japanese teacher said that only about 5-10 percent of people who attend Chan Qi have such an experience, and only 5% of those people can answer all the Gong An (Koans).

The probable reason for this is that life then, 2500 years ago, was a lot simpler.

The Diamond Sutra did not say, “The Buddha arose, turned on his Ipad, checked his email, checked his text messages and missed phone calls from his many disciples, then fired up his computer to check the latest news”! The Buddha did one thing at a time. He didn’t multitask!

His physical actions were all done mindfully, with awareness. And he was also aware of his emotional and mental activities. So nowadays, as we self cultivate, we too can be mindful, that is, we pay attention to our bodily actions. The first thing we do, hopefully, when we wake up is to immediately bring attention to our body, and our breathing. However, if we notice ourselves thinking, then we are mindful of the fact that we are thinking.

4 Mindful Arising and the Importance of Daily Sitting Chan

We go to the wash room, attend to our personal needs, and mindfully brush our teeth, wash our face, and then, perhaps do some mindful stretching to bring some flexibility to our body. Then, take some time to sit. Why is sitting so important in the development of Chan in daily life? Because it is so simple, that it frees us from the usual daily complications of talking, planning and so on. We pay attention to our breathing, or to our body, or perhaps to our Hua Tou or Gong An. Nowhere else to go, nothing else to do, Emptiness can arise and we can enjoy the simple joy of Chan, just as it is!

We try to set a regimen of time that we devote to sitting Chan, whatever we find works, be it 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, or perhaps longer.

5 Mindful Eating

Just before we eat, we can take a few seconds to be mindful of the fact that we are eating.

Most people notice if they are hungry, but few are willing to ‘feel’ hungry for the short time it takes to look at our food, and feel grateful for it! We may even say a short poem, such as my American teacher taught me, “We venerate the Three Treasures and are thankful for this food, the work of many people and the sharing of other forms of life”

Before we eat the rice, do we consider all the incredibly hard work of the farmers who planted the rice, took care of it, dug the fields to water it, and then harvest, thresh, dry bag, transport it so we could eat it? If we eat animal products, what about the life of the animal, what it went through, probably not a very easy life, penned in with thousands of other animals and then killed so that we will not go hungry and weak?

6 Cultivating the Social Emotions of Kindness, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy and Equanimity

We probably have interactions with family members or housemates. Do we pay attention as we busily prepare for our day, that they have their own life experiences that they are dealing with? Can we use the lens of Harmony as we conduct behavior?

We are not separate selves! When we act with Chan mind, we encourage others, whether they know it or not, to awaken their own Chan Mind!

7 The Challenge of Mindful Chan Living in Modern Society

One of the biggest challenges nowadays in maintaining mindfulness is the use of mass media and mass marketing, which is specifically designed to make us think or do or feel or buy what other people want us to, So, as we walk down the street, look straight ahead, and don’t get too distracted by the billboards and other enticements. When we are in the shop or supermarket, when something catches our eye, ask the simple question, “Do I need this? Do I want this?” We can then avoid impulsive, thoughtless purchases of stuff that is often useless. When we spend money, what are we spending it on? Is it useful, will it support life or is it wasteful?

Cooking our own food is a healthy alternative to eating fast food, especially from the big name popular chains. Their meals are designed to taste good, but not for good nutrition, regardless of what they may want you to think. So eat healthy food,

These are just some of many examples of how we can practice mindful awareness in our daily life. Chan is the cultivation of conscious living, these are some suggestions.

Buddhism is wonderful because it provides so many useful tools to hone our mindfulness.

8 Importance of the Precepts

One of the best is the 5 precepts.

One list of the 5 precepts is as follows:

 

http://www.leighb.com/listlist.htm

 5 Precepts

• To not kill living beings
• To not take what is not given
• To not act sexually in a way that is harmful
• To not lie, slander, use harsh words, or gossip
• To not partake of drugs and alcohol
  which lead to further confusion

It is unfortunately true that people break the precepts for personal gain at the expense of others. While the precepts are short and to the point, they can be interpreted broadly. For example, speaking harshly can kill a relationship. Using the work of another person without giving due credit is a form of stealing. Cheating on a spouse or using power as a means of seduction are both forms of misusing sex. Speaking untruthfully, or slandering others can destroy the trust which holds a group of people together in harmony. And it is not just drugs or alcohol, but addiction in all its forms—gambling, watching too much television, shopping for things one really doesn’t need, even working compulsively as a ‘Workaholic’—all these take us away from our true selves.

http://www.leighb.com/listlist.htm

But we can be sure that breaking the precepts will usually result in lots of thinking, often negative thinking, such as guilt. That doesn’t even include illegal actions that can result in jail time, or worse! It’s been noted that the soldiers who commit suicide were those who often killed others, often innocent people, and later feel tremendous guilt.

We humans are hardwired to do Good, and sooner or later, face the ill effects of our bad actions. So let’s use the Precepts to guide our mindful actions!

9 The Importance of Critical Thinking

In our complex world, we are faced with many difficult decisions, yet this too is an opportunity for us to practice Chan in Daily Life. During the time of the Buddha, he once met some villagers from the place called Kalama. They approached him with the following problem. On successive days, various teachers would visit their village, praise their own teaching while deprecating others’. Confused, they asked the Buddha for his advice. Perhaps we would have expected the Buddha to say, “well of course, I am the Buddha, and I have the perfect teaching!”

That is not what happened. He sympathized with their dilemma, and advised them the following:

Do not blindly believe what is written in your holy books, or spoken by Authority, or what you hear rumored, or take for granted any other form of external advice, but on your own observation and analysis, if what is said conforms with reality and benefits all, then follow that approach. And if, on observation and analysis, something does not appear to be true, and appears to harm others, then reject that approach.

(http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/soma/wheel008.html)

Buddhism is sometimes criticized as being simplistic, with the recitation of a mantra, or simply going to a temple and making offerings. However, a most important component of Buddhist practice, and Chan practice in daily life, is to constantly use our intelligence and critical thinking skill, to thoughtfully and mindfully make wise decisions. When you are at the supermarket, read the label. When you listen to some one, it is OK to respectfully ask questions.

If someone appears to be giving bad, or worse, fraudulent advice, trust yourself! They may not have your best interest in mind, but rather theirs. It is for this reason why our great Chan Teachers like Bodhidharma, or 6^th Patriarch Hui Neng, and many others became our great teachers.

10 Conclusion

Finally, we must be patient with our selves, but not too lazy!  We will falter, we will make mistakes, as we go through our daily life, but we will remember that it is our aspiration to be bodhisattvas, even if it takes eons, and regardless the obstacles, that slowly, slowly we vow to refine our life, and face the Present Moment, Here and Now, with courage, honesty and good intention.

One of my great American teachers, Robert Aitken used to say, ‘We are all in this together… and we don’t have a lot of time.” To which I will close by saying, “let us all enjoy practicing Chan together, support each other, as we find our own way, to avoid doing harm, practice all good, and purify our minds.

 

 

The Loi Kraton Festival in Chiang Mai

On November 19th, 2012, I came back to Thailand from Beijing, where the temperature was about 3 degrees Celsius, or 37 Fahrenheit when I left in the early morning. Took a flight to Kunming in Southwest China, and, although the city is 5000 feet high, or about 1600 meters, the weather was a comfortable 22 Celsius, or 70 Fahrenheit. In the evening took a flight back to Chiang Mai, where, at 9 PM, it was still 28 celsius, or 82 Fahrenheit.

Every year around this time is a special festival to mark the Full Moon. It’s called Loi Kraton. This year, based on the Lunar Calendar, it was on November 28.  I think there is also a holiday based on the Lunar Calendar in China, too. Anyway, it is marked by three different kinds of quite beautiful offerings.

First, are the beautiful floats, mounted on trucks, with lovely Thai girls and some young Thai men, dressed it appears as either Royalty, or more likely, as Goddesses and Gods.

Second, there are small hot air balloons, made from paper, with a small burner at the bottom. The burner is lighted, the hot air fills the paper balloons, which then rise to the night sky by the dozens, sending the good wishes off to Heaven.

Third, there are many small boats, not more than a few centimeters or inches across, decorated with flowers and other small items. A Thai girl told me that the boats are an offering to the River Ping (that is the river that runs by Chiang Mai), asking the river to forgive anything the person has done wrong to the river, and I suppose, extending into the person’s life.

Right now, the weather in Chiang Mai is perfect, clear blue sky, about 28 degrees, or into the mid 80’s Fahrenheit. A lot more comfortable than Beijing, at least as far as the weather is concerned!!  This time of year, especially with the Loi Kraton Festival, is the best time of year to visit Chiang Mai.

Apparently, the young Chinese folks are finding out about it. I met a lot of Chinese both last year and this year as well. This is something that was not so when I first came to Chiang Mai, and it always give me smile when I see Chinese people here, joining the many others from Western countries.

Coming back to China, June 2012

Here is a quick update, so sorry for any typos!

So here I am back in China. This time, I started out  with the idea of going overland. I wanted to take a slow boat to China, but there is no  slow boat all the way. I could have taken a bus to the Thai Lao border on the famous Mekong River, and taken the slow boat to Luang Prabang, in North Laos, but decided to just take a bus. A highway has been built in recent years, so that, once you cross the Mekong River by ferry, it’s possible to avoid airplanes completely. 

So for $60 or so, I got a travel package that included a bus to the Thai  border, dinner, an overnight stay in a guest house in Chiang Khong, a ferry to the opposite side of he river, and then a minivan from the Thai Lao border to the Lao/Chinese border. Then I took a walk across the border, and was taken by a taxi to the Chinese immigration office. Unlike the busy and intrusive airport security, there was hardly anyone there. They had an Xray machine for baggage, but hardly bothered with a body scan with one of those wand things to check for who knows what.

So there I was in Mohan, China, and I really wanted to get to Xiamen, through Guangzhou, where I had a friend to meet. But first, there was Pu’Er. Anytime you drink tea in China,  you’d be unlikely to Not be offered some tea from the area around the smallish city of Pu’er, in Yunnan, China’s southwest province. Some of the tea plants are reportedly hundreds of years old, and tea is aged just like fine wines in the West, sometimes selling for prices comparable to the finest wines. They even had a Tea Bubble in 2007, where tea prices and land prices went out of control and then crashed. But of course, in China, Pu’er tea will always be deeply valued, the influx of 1000 Starbucks shops notwithstanding.

I was told that I would have to wait in Mohan for an hour to get a bus to Jing Hong, and then wait further for a bus to Pu’er. But suddenly, a man pointed to a bus that was headed to some town that passes through Jing Hong, so I got a bus in ten minutes, About twenty minutes into the ride, at a different small town  named Mengla, I got off the bus for a toilet break, and as I returned a man rushed towards me, and with my bad Chinese figured out that they wanted me to switch buses and for an extra fee, about $10, get a ride all the way to Pu’er. So I got to Pu’er from the Thai Lao border, starting at 8 AM, and arriving in Pu’er at 8 PM. However, I had no info at all about Pu’er, my guide book doesn’t even mention this most important city of the tea trade. I grabbed a city bus from the long distance bus station, and in my subsurvival Chinese said, “Where’s there a cheap hotel”. A couple of guys motioned to me when to get off, and then another fellow, named Zhao Wei, showed up and in broken English asked what I needed. ” Wo zhao pianyi de lueguan” I am looking for a cheap motel. He led me to a large, somewhat shabby hotel, and for about $9, I got a reasonably decent room with TV bath and shower.

He then took me to a China Mobile Shop, since I needed to reactivate my phone. Early the next day, I went to a big tea shop, ordered, with the help of my tea literate friend Xiaowu, in Xiamen translating for me, a heavy box full of different kinds of Pu’er black tea. A guy on a bicycle rickshaw took me to the post office, so I could send them to my friend Paco’s place in Xiamen, saving myself carrying the extra weight. I got a bus to my next big destination, Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province. I had hoped to go to Yangshuo, with its beautiful river landscapes so reminiscent of Chinese paintings, however, since my friend in Guangzhou had only a small window when she’d be free, I had to pass and go directly to Guangzhou. As soon as I got off the bus from Pu’er, in Kunming, somehow, some guy approached me and asked if I wanted to go to Guangzhou.

For about $26 I could get a sleeper bus (smallish narrow mattress with reasonably clean bedding), bodies packed in with about a foot between bunk beds, and get to Guangzhou in 18 hours. I wasn’t sure of this deal, but a phone call to one of my English speaking Chinese friends confirmed that I could use this way, not a formal bus company. If you sleep on your valuables, and keep big bags in the storage compartment, it will all work out. And sure enough I got to Guangzhou by about 6 PM the next day. The next day, with the help of my friend Yolanda (her English name) I visited the Bodhidharma temple, with its hall of 500 Arhats (not Buddhas, but totally purified beings who are bound for Nirvana), followed by two temples dedicated to Hui Neng, the 6th great Ancestor of Chan, or Zen. I told his story in my piece about my visit to the 5th Ancestor’s Temple, Wu Zu Si.

 

Yolanda is typical of modern young Chinese, eager to succeed in life, yet feeling the pressure of work. We had a wonderful long talk about what we hope to find in life, and with her help, I got an overnight bus ticket to Xiamen.

She had set up a guest house for me to stay in, with a better rate than most tourists get. So when I arrived in Xiamen at about 8 AM, tired from the overnight ride, and damp from walking in a drizzle with my 40 pounds of baggage to last me 6 months, I got to the bus stop for the guest house, but couldn’t find it. So I stopped in to ask directions from another guest house on the street. The owner took one look at me and said, ‘you look so tired’ and you need to take a rest and a shower”. I assured her that I only needed to get to my guest house, but would rest for a bit before proceeding. I told her of my interest in Buddhism and Chan, and how I enjoy helping Chinese with their English, both by teaching, as well as editing Chinese speakers’ translations, which often range from cute, to unintelligible.

She showed me a brochure for the company she owns in Shanghai, and so, here I am staying at her charming guest house at the rear of the beautiful Zhong Shan (Sun Yat Sen) park, teaching her assistant English, and planning to edit her brochure.

Meanwhile, my good friend Lily in Beijing, let me know that an artist friend had written comments to her paintings and needed a translation. So Yolanda and I have worked the past few days preparing that. Aside from the translation, the artist’s ideas and paintings, which are distinctly modern, while reflecting Buddhist and Daiost themes, have been quite interesting and enjoyable to reflect on.

While Chinese are sometimes the ‘inscrutable orientals’ we often have heard of, my experience at least is someone who has had my path smoothed by many Chinese, many of whom were total strangers, and many more who have become wonderful friends.

I am hearing of more and more places where there is serious meditation practice going on, including a 100 day winter retreat. I don’t do well in cold weather, usually getting a bad case of bronchitis, but I do hope to revisit Xue Feng’s temple in early September, and the just mentioned temple, as well as friends in Beijing before the weather gets too cold. Before then, though, I intend to stay at a temple outside Xiamen, where I stayed last summer.

Sesshin in Singapore

Note: photos courtesy of Wah Keong

Since I practice Zen, I am interested in seeing what is going on in the Zen world throughout Asia.
In 2010,  I spent time at Bodhizendo, a meditation center in India, founded by Father Ama Sami, a Jesuit priest, who studied Zen in Japan. His teacher was Yamada Koun Roshi, of the Sanbo Kyodan lineage.

Robert Aitken Roshi , whom I sat several sesshin with, was the teacher of Nelson Foster, my teacher at  Ring of Bone Zendo, my ‘home Sangha’ which is a part of the Diamond Sangha network of Zen practitioners.  Aitken Roshi had likewise studied with Yamada Koun Roshi. So, if we think in familial terms, Nelson is my ‘Dharma Father’. Aitken Roshi was  my ‘Dharma Grandfather’. Yamada Koun Roshi was my ‘Dharma Great Grandfather’. That makes Ama Sami my Dharma Grand Uncle.

And it turns out that there are teachers in Singapore who also trained with Yamada Koun Roshi, as well as one of his key successors, Kubota Roshi. Kubota Roshi would also be considered my Dharma Grand Uncle.
So, when I told Nelson of my plan to sit sesshin, an intensive Zen Meditation retreat, he was supportive of the idea, especially since he has met Kubota Roshi. I decided to contact Wah Keong, a new Sanbo Kyodan teacher, who studied with both Yamada Koun as well as Kubota Roshi. Wah Keong, then, is my Dharma Cousin.  Wah Keong and Nelson have also met. So this sesshin was really a family affair for me.

Wah Keong graciously let me stay at his house, my having arrived a day early from Chiang Mai. I had been able to arrange a direct flight from Chiang Mai to Singapore, but flights are only twice a week. So staying with Wah Keong was convenient and helpful.

Singapore is an unusual city. It had been a British colony for many years, but as part of Malaysia. However, it separated from Malaysia, maybe because it was in a seriously impoverished condition at the time, maybe because its population is mainly Chinese, rather than Malayan. I am not sure of the details. In any case, in the last 30-40 years, it has made really amazing strides. It is a very clean modern city state of about 4.5 million people, with good infrastructure, safe streets, an excellent bus and train system, that is reasonably priced. It also has an excellent education and health care system, and many employees from what I could determine have pensions.The government also runs a Sovereign Wealth fund, which invests widely and is run for the benefit of the people. Kind of like a big trust fund. (Norway and other countries have one too.) Sometimes, nowadays, Singapore is referred to as ‘the Switzerland of Asia’.

It took about an hour and a half to get from the airport to Wah Keong’s place by bus. English is a major, though not the only language spoken. Many people speak a form of Chinese.  There are also  Malaysians, who speak Malay, as well as those of Indian descent, who speak Tamil ( a south Indian language).  Enough people speak English, though, so getting around was pretty easy.

The sesshin was held at his large flat in a condominium complex in Singapore. This was a really international group. The main teacher was Kubota Roshi, who is Japanese.  Wah Keong also gave  daily talks as well as dokusan (private interview with the teacher) the first day (while Kubota Roshi was en route from Japan.)

Wah Keong is of course Singaporean Chinese, with a full time practice as an anesthesiologist. The fact that he could go through his medical training, raise a family and become a successful doctor plus pursue his Zen study so assiduously is amazing  to me. Add to that his warm hearted and disciplined practice, and he is as good a “Dharma cousin” as one could wish for.

Along with the two teachers, were,  I think, 4 Germans, long time Zen practitioners, two Indian Singaporeans, several other Chinese Singaporeans, two Japanese fellows who came all the way from Japan to practice with Kubota Roshi, and myself, from America. There was a  total of about 11 students during the week and another 7 or so who had time on the weekend. This was a very seasoned group of Zen students.

Most of the chanting and Zendo etiquette were the same as with the Diamond Sangha. We even chanted the same translation of the Shodoka, Song of Realizing the Way, and Hakuin Zenji’s Song of Zazen.  Kubota Roshi and Wah Keong both gave excellent talks on Koans (Dialogues or stories with a subtle meaning), which I especially enjoyed, having spent much of my time practicing with no dharma talks, either in Thailand or in China. Kubota Roshi was the first Japanese teacher I had practiced with since my earliest days in San Francisco. He is an excellent teacher, both strict and warm. I also very much appreciated Wah Keong’s suggestions and support. Dokusan took place three times a day, quite unusual for me.
The schedule of sitting and length of the periods was also pretty much the same as with Ring of Bone Zendo, my ‘home zendo’ in California.Twenty five minutes of sitting, and 5 minutes of walking.

The sesshin even ended the same as Ring of Bone, with a circle of sharing experiences and a group lunch.
In the evening, we all went out to a fancy Japanese style restaurant. After the eating was done, we  had a chance to sing songs, which is a standard  Asian custom.  Fortunately, I had prepared myself, so as to spare myself the embarrassment of being asked to sing, and not knowing what to do. I sang three songs, finishing off with Blowin’ In the Wind, which is very popular in China and in Singapore as well. Of course, other students sang too, and we also had a very special slide show. You see, this was to be Kubota Roshi’s final sesshin in Singapore. He is now 80 years old and wants to concentrate his efforts in Japan, while giving Wah Keong and his wife Vivien (both of whom are Zen teachers) the chance to develop their own teaching practice. So we watched 16 years of pictures, showing many of the students at this sesshin as they were going back to 1996!

The following morning, we saw Kubota Roshi off at the airport, and I ended up staying in Singapore for another three days, mainly resting and walking around the China town area, and having tea or ice cream with my new Sangha friends. A special thanks to Maria, who helped me out with hotel accommodations one night, and Kim, who treated me to maybe the best ice cream dessert I ever had!

Why Sit?

What is this thing about sitting meditation? Sometimes I wonder what it is that makes me sit and practice, and after all, why lots of people throughout history have done so. Most people, especially Westerners think that meditation is something weird or even dangerous. Years ago, I visited a community not too far from my university. This was a time of burgeoning spirituality in 1970.  I was talking with one of the members of the community and when I told him I was interested in meditation, he replied that meditation was a sin. Since when has breathing while being aware of one’s own breathing been a bad thing?
Another time, years later, I went on a business trip to Birmingham, Alabama, for a workshop. My host, in the midst of some cordial banter, asked, “So what did you do before you were in the insurance business? I said, “I was a Buddhist monk”. A big curtain of ice crashed down between the two of us, and his face became cold and hard. “THAT’S DIFFERENT!” he shot back. Sheesh!
Well, nowadays there is growing interest in meditation practice, but in Asia, I find that people are far more open to the subject even if they don’t do it. Seems like people at least in Thailand and China, where I have spent most of my time the last few years often consider it fairly normal. And commendable.
So the question is, what is it about meditation that is so special while not being special at all?
I did a web search and found pictures of various famous sages.  Here is a classic picture of Shakyamuni Buddha, who reportedly lived about 2500 years ago, and is considered the founder of Buddhism.

Shakyamuni Buddha sitting under the Bodhi Tree

This is Hsuan Hua, the famous disciple of Chan Master Xu Yun. Hsuan Hua established a strong Buddhist Center in California, the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, in Mendocino County, as well as other centers. There he is, sitting in Lotus Position.

Hsuan Hua, famed disciple of Master Xu Yun

Here is Lahiri Mahasaya, the famous sage discussed in Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi.

Lahiri Mahasaya

This is a picture from the Brooklyn Museum, showing a man meditating in a garden setting. I think this picture is Persian, but I am not sure, he does not appear to be East Asian.

From the Brooklyn Museum, A Man Meditating in a Garden

Here is a picture of the great sage, Laozi, who lived in China and was roughly contemporary with Gautama, the Indian who became known as the Buddha. As an aside, he got the name “Buddha’ because when people asked him who he was, he answered, “Buddha” which means literally, “Awake”. Laozi was the main founder of Daoism. The Dao is “the Way”. Things just as they are.

Laozi, who wrote the classic Dao De Jing, the most popular book on Daoism

And here is another picture of Daoist Meditation
Daoist, Meditation, “Gathering in the Light” is the method used.

Daoist Meditation, Gathering in the Light

Here we see depicted Mahavira,

Mahavira, a contemporary of the Buddha, who founded the Jain religion in India

a contemporary of the Buddha. It would hard for the average person to tell the difference between this picture and one of the Buddha. They both advocated sitting crosslegged, and both are often depicted with hands in their lap, seated on a lotus seat, with a halo on their head. Mahavira was the founder of the Jain religion which is still practiced in India.

Bodhidharma, the legendary Indian monk, who brought Chan/Zen to China. He is said to have sat meditating, facing a wall in a cave for nine years.

Some contemporary sitters in a park, enjoying their meditation together.

Meditating in Madison Square Park

What do all these spiritual practitioners have in common? They SIT!

Years ago, while I lived at the San Francisco Zen Center’s Green Gulch Farm, I spent time with a Yurok Indian Medicine Man, Harry Roberts, who actually was half Irish and half Indian, but had trained with his Uncle, the tribe’s medicine man. He told me that one of the practices that he did was to go to an isolated forest or mountain place, draw a three foot circle, and sit there for three days with no or almost no moving.
When I was waiting for an airplane in the Singapore Airport recently, I asked if there was a meditation room. In Bangkok and Chiang Mai, Thailand, there is a room for Buddhists and a room for Muslims. In Singapore there was a prayer room that is presumably non denominational but probably almost anyone using it is Muslim. There is also a meditation room, for the use of anyone. I went inside and there were just a few small mats and one chair. I arranged the mats so I could do Zazen (seated Zen meditation), and was there for a few minutes when two people entered. One sat crosslegged and one sat in a chair. Because of the hat one wore, I knew they were Muslim. I could hear them talking. Probably Malay, one said one sound that seemed to be “Buddha’. So my guess is, that they were talking about that Westerner sitting by the rear wall of the room, and guessing I was Buddhist.

Interestingly, I visited a bead shop in Singapore, and the owner sold various kinds of beads, such as necklaces. He also sold Buddhist malas. And when I saw some odd ( to me) looking malas, he told me they were Muslim beads. They have 99 beads, and Muslims chant the names of God. Buddhists use ones with 108. And of course Catholics also use rosary beads. Well, it is not the same necessarily as sitting, but they are used to help control the ongoing out of control thought process which 99% of us call ‘thinking’.

One time I found myself, through an internet chat situation with someone with an Arabic sounding name. He was fretting about the world, which I can certainly relate to. So I suggested that he go into a quiet room, sit down, and start to breath. Breathe in “Al” and breathe out “Lah”. Al  lah….Al   lah. He was flabbergasted. “How did you know I already do that, you must be Muslim!” “No, I replied, this is normal, sit down, breathe in breathe out, this is the human way to calm the mind”.
“No no…you must be Muslim… you should read the Koran.” I thanked him for his suggestion.

The forest monks in Thailand breathe in Bud, and breathe out Dho…Bud…dho. Same thing. There are all kinds of methods one can use in the process of meditation, but common to many many is the simple act of sitting. But why sitting?
Sitting seems to be the natural way for us to just settle down. But in addition, when we sit in a symmetrical way, such as crosslegged, or in a chair with feet planted on the ground, our body finds alignment and balance. Once the body is aligned and in a state of balance and in harmony with gravity, our whole being settles down, in a natural and harmonious way.
We don’t have to “do” anything. Which is exactly the point. We humans are always doing or thinking we “have to” do something. Eat, sleep, walk, talk, but these are more complicated and require more than just the act of focusing, or just observing. So we create more and more stuff from our actions. It really does get tiresome, finally!

There is nothing to do and nothing to fix. Everything is just as it is. Once we are willing to Just Sit, just standing, just walking and so on become natural, our life becomes seemingly effortless, without struggle. “Learning” to sit is the first step.
Lying down is OK, too, but it seems harder to keep the mind from wandering. Likewise with walking or standing. All of these are good and useful, especially if done observantly.
Once we reach a point of observing and focusing, then our actions start to change in subtle ways that are apparently more harmonious. Humans share some basic hardwired values, like not harming or killing, stealing lying, etc.

Of course those unwholesome activities can be very profitable, which is why lots of people do them. But in the end, settling down, seeing things as they are, life becomes somehow easier.
So, sit, be aware.
Usually, when we enter a Buddhist temple or meditation hall, there is a statue or an image of Shakyamuni Buddha, or another of his famous disciples or other Enlightened Beings. People objectify these images, and we bow to them. Some people dismiss this as idol worship. How can bowing or offering incense of flowers to a block of wood or stone be useful?

However, when I see a such a statue, I ask, what is this about? Is the block of wood saying, ‘give me money’, ‘give me incense’, ‘light a candle’, etc.? I can assure you that the image will do just fine without that (although making some offering to the temple will help support the activities there of course, and also help to open our hearts with the feeling of generosity.) But that is not what the statue is ‘saying’. I am amazed that people overlook this most direct teaching. Children learn by watching and copying others. So the wordless teaching of a Buddha image is, “if you want to be liberated and free, like me, then do what I am doing RIGHT NOW. SIT!” Said with a smile of course.
The great founder of Soto Zen (Caodong  Chan in Chinese)Dogen Zenji, gave a wonderful exposition of this practice, Universally Recommended Instructions for Zazen. In it he says,
“Need I mention the Buddha, who was possessed of inborn knowledge? The influence of his six years of upright sitting is noticeable still. Or Bodhidharma’s transmission of the mind-seal?–the fame of his nine years of wall-sitting is celebrated to this day. Since this was the case with the saints of old, how can we today dispense with negotiation of the Way?”

http://ordinary-extraordinary.blogspot.com/2010/03/dogens-fukanzazengi-section-two.html
Of course, this sitting does not mean being a  Couch potato! It is not an excuse to zone out. However, sitting frees us from the usual tasks that living beings have, and allows us the freedom to direct our mind, or as Dogen says, to turn the light backward. Instead of always looking outside, look within.
Jesus said not to worry so much about the splinter in the other person’s eye, but to see the log in our own eye. That is the same idea. It is sitting which is the scalpel that refines our consciousness.
When we first start to practice sitting meditation, our minds and bodies may be very restless and even uncomfortable, kind of like a fish out of water, flopping around, or, as it said in some of the earlier Buddhist texts, like a calf tied to a post, jumping around, trying to escape.
However, if we use our consciousness and effort to gently and persistently return to just sitting with our meditation topic, be it mindfulness of the breath or body, or thoughts, or a mantra, or other specific mental object, or even, no object just attention to the present moment… at some point we realize that Dogen is correct when he says, that Zen sitting is ‘not meditation, It is simply the Dharma Gate of Repose and Ease.
Sitting down, settling down, we find that we and everything is somehow OK just as it is. From there, we can go out into the world and act appropriately.

Look again at all the famous sages noted above, from many spiritual traditions. What do they have in common? They sit!

War and Trauma–Or What Happens to Veterans?

Why Do Veterans Commit Suicide or Become Mass Shooters?

“Post traumatic stress syndrome” occurred when the soldiers were under stress for long periods of time, or saw scenes of violence, but the ones with the worst PTSD were the ones who killed people”

If we look at how humans are shaped, it is safe to say that highly positive experiences will result in a heightened sense of wellbeing. On the other hand, it is clear that traumatic experiences, whether physical injuries, mental abuse, violence or torture, will result in long lasting consequences, impairing a person from fully experiencing Life.

Here is what Wikipedia says:

Psychological trauma

PTSD is believed to be caused by experiencing any of a wide range of events[6] which produces intense negative feelings of “fear, helplessness or horror”[7] in the observer or participant.[1] Sources of such feelings may include (but are not limited to):

-1. experiencing or witnessing childhood or adult physical, emotional, or sexual abuse;[1]

-1. experiencing or witnessing physical assault, adult experiences of sexual assault, accidents, drug addiction, illnesses, medical complications;[8]

-1. employment in occupations exposed to war (such as soldiers) or disaster (such as emergency service workers);[8]

-1. getting a diagnosis of a life-threatening illness;[1] or

Children or adults may develop PTSD symptoms by experiencing bullying or mobbing.[9][10] Approximately 25% of children exposed to family violence can experience PTSD.[11] Preliminary research suggests that child abuse may interact with mutations in a stress-related gene to increase the risk of PTSD in adults.[12][13][14]

Multiple studies show that parental PTSD and other posttraumatic disturbances in parental psychological functioning can, despite a traumatized parent’s best efforts, interfere with their response to their child as well as their child’s response to trauma.[15][16] Parents with violence-related PTSD may, for example, inadvertently expose their children to developmentally inappropriate violent media due to their need to manage their own emotional dysregulation.[17] Clinical findings indicate that a failure to provide adequate treatment to children after they suffer a traumatic experience, depending on their vulnerability and the severity of the trauma, will ultimately lead to PTSD symptoms in adulthood.[18]

While external factors are obviously a trigger to PTSD, it is the individual’s reaction to stress that determines whether there will be serious long term psychological injury, and how the person will respond in the future.

When I was selling my house, the new buyer came for a visit. He was introduced by his woman friend. He was shaking, very nervous, wearing green camouflage outfit. She told me that he had been a paratrooper during the Vietnam War.

I had never met anyone before in that condition. But it was clear that he was suffering from PTSD. I myself shudder to think the things he saw and did as a paratrooper in a war zone. And this was 30 years after the war against Vietnam had ended. Another fellow I met in Thailand on a bus. He was wearing a blue jump suit, kind of like a uniform one might see in the Air Force or Navy. He had also been a soldier in Vietnam, and had, after a divorce (another traumatizing event ), come to stay in Thailand. Why Thailand, I asked. “Thailand is a peaceful country, live and let live.”

I sometimes meet veterans and can feel what they are feeling, and it isn’t comfortable.

I think I have had my own version of PTSD. The death of my father would be considered traumatic, plus, my mother had also experienced childhood trauma through her mother, who had almost certainly experienced trauma in Eastern Europe. In me, it manifested as constant anxiety, anger, depression, finger nail biting, shyness.

A cousin of mine was very aggressive, constantly harassing and picking fights with me. One time, I said to myself, I will never treat others like this. But some people react differently, and arm themselves physically and emotionally. My stepfather had been through WWII in Europe. He’d lost an eye, and didn’t want to talk about what he experienced. But he was very abusive to his sons, harassing, backbiting, even physically fighting with them. One of them joined the Special Forces. He told me later that he left dejected, after the Vietnam War, since now there was no reason to blow things up, which he enjoyed doing. His recreation was going to a shooting range, he had enormous bags of spent shells in his house.

It is my belief that trauma in families is actually passed on deliberately as perhaps a form of initiation into ‘the real world’. When babies in England would cry at night, a British doctor told the mother to let the infant cry, so as to develop self-reliance in a mean world. I think this explains to a degree the cruel treatment that colonial Britain showed its victims around the world at the height of the British Empire. Rather than learning compassion from the loving care of the mother, the child was learning to shut down emotionally. Is it any wonder why some people are so insensitive? I read years ago in The People’s History of the United States, by Howard Zinn, that Indian children were never left alone, babies were carried by their mothers (papoose), and that in the rare case when white children were orphaned and raised by Indians, then returned to ‘civilization’, many preferred to live with the ‘savages’. So I would like to ask the question, is there something in our ‘civilization’ that engenders trauma in a way that encourages war, which results in a vicious circle of trauma and violence?

I have met other soldiers from the Vietnam War, one a bomber pilot shot down over North Vietnam, who was kept in “the Hanoi Hilton”, the prison for American pilots. These were the people who dropped bombs on Vietnamese whom they had never met or been threatened by. He had given an inspirational talk at some conference I attended. The soldiers had shown great courage in standing up to the North Vietnamese, who certainly must have abused them. But he had a kind of wooden quality about him. I greeted him after his talk, and said that although I disagreed with the Vietnam War and what he had done, he had shown courage in prison and appreciated that. His reply was, “I did it to preserve your freedom”. Well, we finally after 20 years of war which resulted in the deaths of at least 2 million Vietnamese, the displacement and injury of again as many, the poisoning of their landscape with Agent Orange, and the horror visited on the Vietnamese, who simply wanted to determine the fate of their own country and culture, we finally got kicked out. And I am still waiting for the Vietnamese invaders whom we were told were sure to come an attack us, if we didn’t fight them over there.

To put it bluntly, he fought and killed and suffered in prison for nothing but the profits of the war making corporations, the careerist military and the hubris of the political leadership.

And you could see it on his face and in his bearing even if he couldn’t feel his own pain. He simply isn’t willing to face the cruelty and meaninglessness of his actions.

The most famous example of PTSD is former presidential candidate, John McCain, who had a similar story. Navy Pilot, shot down over North Vietnam, broke both his arms, spent 5 years in Vietnamese prison.

Robert Dreyfuss. speaking to Amy Goodman on the show, Democracy Now, said, “And on a personal level, McCain has had a tendency over the years—this is so well known on Capitol Hill—to erupt, to explode, to scream and yell at his colleagues in the Republican caucus, in closed-door meetings behind the scenes, and sometimes even in public. So he has scared a lot of his colleagues, who I’m sure are supporting him, like Cochran did, out of party loyalty, but who’ve said, as Cochran did, that they’re extremely concerned about his temper and his apparent willingness to explode. “

I think that PTSD can result in both anger as well as withdrawal. What shocks me about war and trauma, is that people traumatized by war, rather than renounce war because of the horror they experienced, seem to seek it out and relive it.

So here is John McCain, who was shot down and kept as a prisoner for bombing Vietnam, who was quoted, referring to Iran in 2008, and paraphrasing an old Beach Boy song, Barbara Ann, Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran.

Didn’t he learn anything from his war experience? He has shown anger towards his Vietnamese captors, but seems to have forgotten that he was flying over their country blowing up men women and children.

It is this denial by many soldiers that amazes me. They walk through life with PTSD, not owning their own murder. Their own emotional and spiritual callousness.

I think there is a deeper issue in the effect of war. Certainly, victims of war experience PTSD. The most telling words were those of an American fellow I had met, who had returned from being a peacekeeper in Iraq. He had gone to Iraq before the war, hoping, by his presence, to stop the bombing, thinking that the US government would refrain from attacking Iraq if US citizens were there. Later, he returned to the US and set up a treatment program to help returning veterans. It was he who made the observation at the beginning of this piece. Those who kill experience the most traumatic stress. Indeed, we hear that as many soldiers return, according to a November, 2011 article in Huffington Post writer, Eleanor Goldberg, a veteran commits suicide every 80 minutes, according to the VA. She further states that of active duty military, one commits suicide every 36 hours. New figures suggested in the documentary film, On the Bridge, that 8000 veterans of the Middle East wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have committed suicide.

This does not sound like Esprit de corp. What is going on? My theory totally unsubstantiated, is that when we harm others we harm ourselves, at least spiritually or psychologically. This is especially true if the other person is innocent.

We as humans are hard wired to know what is right and wrong. While people can be conditioned to change through training or –trauma, otherwise known as ‘basic training’, when new recruits see the world they knew collapse, only to be replaced by the cohesion of their unit, morality breaks down. But this psychological conditioning only goes so far. Some people like those pilots, go into emotional woodenness, and never recover, yet get by and may even be outwardly successful, like McCain. Others internalize their pain and get into drugs or alcohol to anesthetize themselves from facing what they have done.

Sometimes, it seems whole societies are severely traumatized by war but don’t learn anything. The Civil War, or The War Between the States, as people from the Southern United States like to call it, was in large part destroyed and certainly traumatized by the humiliation of having lost the Civil War. Yet, Southern culture seems to embrace military culture far more than say, Japan after WWII, which adopted a pacifist constitution. Even though the same class of people runs Japan now, as did during WWII, and even though Japan’s war crimes are not even taught in Japan’s public schools, most Japanese have resisted a larger role for their military since WWII. Note the use of language :Civil War. Comedian George Carlin and pointed out the selfcontradictory (maybe pathological) nature of the term.

“Hi there, we are at war. Blam blam blam, oops sorry about that”

In a telling article written in January 2001, Southern Honor, Southern Pride, author Jeff Adams http://csapartisan.tripod.com/essays/SHSP.htm stated,

“Any Southerner worth their salt will know that a big part of the Southern culture is a “love affair” with the profession of arms.” He notes with pride Southern Military culture, referring to the Civil War as The War for Southern Independence. He goes on to point out the disproportionate number of southern soldiers relative to the US population as a whole, as well as the large number of medal winners. But at the at the end of the article, he changes tone. noting that

“as a people Southerners need to start questioning the reasonableness of continuing to serve in a military force that holds no love for the South, its people or its culture, except as a resource for providing bodies for its war machine. While the Medal of Honor is presented to those who serve with the highest honor in combat, it is questionable if honorable service can still be obtained through being part of the military arm of the American Empire. Would an honorable Southerner have accepted the Medal of Honor for “outstanding bombing of civilians” in Serbia? I would hope not. “

It is more than 11 years since that article was written, and undoubtedly, the war machine has continued to rely on large numbers of Southerners. It is a good sign that many Southerners are questioning ‘the American Empire’, and although I don’t agree with Ron Paul on social issues and the role of Capital in American society, the groundswell of support for Paul, who is advocating a significant reduction in the role and funding of the military, is a hopeful sign.

Maybe the trauma of continuous war is finally inducing some introspection and self examination, which, I believe is the antidote to trauma, whether induced by war or other causes.

Before 2003, the percentage of Army suicides was below civilian rates, but it started to climb in 2004, one year after the US-led invasion, according to the doctors’ analysis, which was expected to appear in the British journal Injury Prevention on Thursday.

In 2008, 140 Army servicemen committed suicide, a rate, which reflected an 80 percent increase from 2004, the article noted. The suicide rate was also a lot higher than that of the civilian society’s, it said.

“This increase, unprecedented in over 30 years of US Army records, suggests that 30 percent of suicides that occurred in 2008 may be associated with post-2003 events following the major commitment of troops to Iraq, in addition to the ongoing operations in Afghanistan,” said the paper.

It noted that more than one-fifth of all active-duty troops suffered from some kind of mental disorder.

According to three different studies published in the American Journal of Public Health in January, many US military personnel and veterans are struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression or other consequences of deployment to war zones.

A study of almost 600 US veterans returning from Iraq or Afghanistan showed that nearly 14 percent of them were suffering from PTSD and 39 percent from probable alcohol abuse.

http://poorrichards-blog.blogspot.com/2012/03/us-army-suicides-jumped-by-80-following.html

Also see http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30761.htm Cancer of the Spirit

On the Bridge http://www.onthebridgethemovie.com/

The Costs of War Collective Amnesia and Learning from Experience http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-bobrow/the-costs-of-war-collecti_b_1324609.html

Six Months in China Part Six

My time in China was winding down, but I had a couple more events to take in before returning to Xiamen. While at Lao Zu Si, I made friends with Huang Zhao, a telecom engineer, who had worked for China’s biggest internet company, TenCent, also known by Chinese as QQ.

It is mainly a messaging and blog site, and when people exchange contact information, they will as often as not ask each other for their QQ number. It also works as an email address. However, outside China it’s not used so much.

Huang Zhao had an interesting history. His father had a stroke at the age of 28, and had to be cared for by his mother. After another 29 years or so, his father had died two years ago. So I felt a connection with him since my father had died, too.

He told me he decided to leave QQ and had not worked in about two years: when I met him, he was staying at the temple for a month or so.

He invited me to his city, Wuhan, which is in Hubei Province, as is Lao Zu Si. Since I had planned to go to the Chan Buddhism Conference in Hubei Province in late October, it was pretty convenient for me to take a 20 hour overnight train from Jiayuguan to Xi’An, and then another 12 hour overnight train to Wuhan.

At Huang Zhao’s house, his mom, true to his promise, fed me her delicious home cooked Chinese food, and we did some site seeing.

Here they are on the banks of the huge and famous Yangzi River.

The thing about China is that there are sooo many cities with sooo many people, that we Westerners have most likely never heard of.

Wuhan is a city of 4.2 million people, but it is really three cities, that eventually grew together. We took a walk on the banks of the river,

which is near the historic district. Similar to Hong Kong and Xiamen, it was forced to open up to foreign concessions and companies, so now, despite urban renewal, there are still old charming buildings maintained as historic reasons.

The façade of the (French Colonial) Bank of Indo China

There is a lot of new construction, too, such as a Howard Johnson Hotel that reminds me of the San Francisco Hyatt Regency, with its exterior elevator shaft. Going up the elevator, and looking down on the city, gave a bit of “High Anxiety” like Mel Brooks did in his memorable comedy.

Huang Zhau also introduced me to some of his friends at Wuhan University, one of the best Universities in China, with a strong department of technology. We went to their dormitory, sat around and –true to Chinese form–, drank tea! And of course had very good conversation. We talked about modern society and its discontents and also about the reemergence of Buddhism as a counterbalance to the strains of modern life.

Another highly interesting aspect of our discussion, as well as discussions I have had with a number of Chinese, was the degree to which they are familiar with American History. They know the names of some of our presidents like Abraham Lincoln, and have studied the principles of Democracy. Many express great admiration for the American system of government, the fact that American people have the right to vote, and the sense that the US government is more responsive to the people than their own.

On the other hand, they also are quite concerned about the many wars that the USA gets involved with. So there is a mixture of idealistic admiration as well as criticism. One thing is for sure: they know a lot more about America than Americans know about China, and that the information that Americans get about China is filtered and propagandized AT LEAST AS MUCH if not more so, than Chinese.

At least the Chinese know when they are getting propaganda, whereas most Americans take the narrative they’ve been told for granted as fact.

This is not only regrettable, but could really prove ultimately fatal for the whole world!

The next day, having called Ming Ji Fashi about the Chan conference, I was offered a ride with 8 other people in a van, taking the three hour ride from Wuhan to Huang Mei, site of the conference.

When we arrived at the hotel, I was shown a room which I was to share with another Chinese fellow, a young professor at another university in Wuhan.

There were about 400 people at the conference, and some top professors of Buddhism in China gave major addresses. Before the academic program started in the afternoon of the first day, there was a morning entertainment program. We entered a large auditorium a few minutes’ walk from the hotel, to the sound of the Diamond Sutra, chanted by Imee Ooi, a Malaysian Chinese woman who had done tremendous work in bringing Buddhist chanting to modern ears.

I first heard her rendition of it from my Chinese teacher at Xiamen University in 2009 and was totally captivated by it. She has also done chants of the Metta Sutta, the discourse on lovingkindness, as well as the Heart Sutra in Chinese, Sino Japanese and in English.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUzzivYjvRASanskrit Heart Sutra

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciYO7mWq3OgMandarin Heart Sutra

http://www.immmusic.com/I highly recommend her work.

That was only the beginning. After introductions and welcoming of the honored guests on stage, the program went on for two hours of Chinese classical music, singers, dancers, and other entertainment. Hardly what I expected at an academic conference, but really great performances.

We returned to the hotel for lunch. One dining room served vegetarian food and the other served nonvegetarian.

After an afternoon rest period—Chinese often take an after lunch siesta– the main conference began, with addresses and talks given, first by eminent Chinese, starting with Jing Hui Fashi, then by foreign monks and professors. Later, there were breakout session where particular areas of interest were addressed, such as Buddhism and tourism, Buddhism and psychotherapy, and so on.

Jeremy Zhu, who had studied at Harvard and now is a psychotherapist and Ph.D researcher at Renmin University gave a talk on psychotherapy. He does work with art therapy as well as other creative approaches (www.jeremyzhu.wordpress.com).

Most of the people at the conference did not speak English, so I was not able to fully appreciate what went on, however, I made some friends and contacts. One nice woman, who teaches Koans, the stories so central to Chan and Zen, at a University in Beijing has invited me to go there and do some work, teaching and editing.

Another speaker, Sheng Guang Shi, who has spent 20 years in Canada, spoke on the cultural barriers, separating Asians and Westerners. We had a good discussion, especially since he had spoken just recently at the American Buddhist Teachers’ conference held at the San Francisco Zen Center. He had had a discussion with my own American teacher Nelson Foster just a couple of months earlier. We agreed to stay in touch. Both of us feel that Asians and Westerners would benefit from cultural exchanges. Chinese are very open to foreigners who want to come and practice. And I think it would be really helpful to Westerners, who are sometimes a bit reticent and anxious about going to China, to come and see for themselves what China is about, on the human level, not what we are told about China. As one Tibetan said to Bill Porter, in his book Zen Baggage, a pilgrimage in China, “If you want to become Enlightened, leave your country.”

Here I am with my friend Chen Jie, who teaches Koans.

Here is my translator and helper, Sheng Zhong.

After the conference was over, the conference coordinators got everyone to the airport or train station. I got a ride to Nanchang Airport, since I had had enough overnight train rides for a while, and got back to Xiamen the next day.  Cheng Rong invited me to meet her monk friend and teacher, Dao Cheng. When I met him, he was having tea in his room with a couple of young business women. After chatting awhile, I asked him what his practice was, and among other things, he said he studied the Diamond Sutra. We had a good exchange about its meaning, especially for people who are not monks. He said the central  point of the Sutra, is Kong, that is Chinese for Emptiness. He then went on to explain in laymen terms what that is, basically, it is the space which has the potential for everything, if I understood his meaning, translated into English by Cheng Rong.

I had first thought to stay in Xiamen, but then decided to make a one day trip to Guangzhou, a few hundred miles south. I had met a very nice Chinese doctor in Dun Huang, Guan Wanxian, who was doing her medical residency, and she invited me to come to see this city of about 5 million people. She told me that she liked the desert, but would not go back again because of the fragility of the environment. Here is a picture she sent me of a poor little plant living in the harsh desert. It reminds me of our own life. We may not notice it, but we are all sometimes like that little plant, trying to survive in a great world of emptiness. Sometimes I see a small insect crawling along the road. I wonder what they

are thinking. Do they know where they are going? Do we know where we are going in this vast universe?

When Guan Wanxian took me out to see Guangzhou at night, I could see that the city skyline at night is really dramatic.

The following day, we visited the tomb of an ancient King of South China.

These are pieces of jade buried with the Emperor of that time. It seems that he also buried food, clothing as well as servants and even a wife, so he wouldn’t be lonely in the afterlife.  This is a reproduction of his coffin, since the tomb had undergone flooding in ages past, and the actual coffin had virtually disintegrated.

The Lonely Planet tourist guide book describes this mausoleum as one of the best museums in China, and indeed the exhibits are fascinating. It was built after the tomb was discovered in 1983. The Chinese have a fascination for jade, and the museum has many displays of jade as well as many artifacts from that period 2000 years ago.

Ancient Chinese jade Jewelry

One of the things that I take away from my stay in China, is that, despite everything that China has been through in its very long history—numerous dynasties have come and gone, it has been invaded many times, and suffered tremendous instability, especially in the last 300 years, there is something very solid and stable. On the other hand, sometimes, things don’t work properly, like my problem with the airplane flight, or the possibility of getting scammed. Any time something doesn’t go right and seems unfixable, people often just shrug their shoulders and say, “That’s China”.

Nevertheless, there is a sense of history and culture that is so embedded in the people, that it gives a sense of groundedness that I don’t experience in Western culture. Many young people see Buddhism as old fashioned and superstitious. And yet, their sensibility reflects the impact of Buddhism, as well as Confucian and Daoist ethics and culture.

Also, China, while it has a sense of its own significance, and perhaps even superiority, is not arrogant in the same way that we see in the same way as American Manifest Destiny, that is America’s God Given Right to take what it wants—all in the name of freedom and democracy.

Here is an example of American propaganda about China. When Libya’s civil war started and it became very unstable, China had 30,000 workers there under contract to do some work in the oil business; China had invested several billion dollars in a deal to deliver Libyan oil to China. When the workers were endangered, China sent one warship to go to the Libyan coast as part of a rescue effort, to get its people out of harm’s way.

CNN reported this story as “ a dangerous projection of Chinese power into the Mediterranean Sea.” It went on to say that China was spending —in big letters across the TV screen—90 BILLION DOLLARS a year on its military. Whereas, the United States was planning to reduce its military budget in the future. What the announcer failed to point out, was that the “official” US military budget is well over 650 BILLION DOLLARS. This does not include the nuclear weapons budget hidden in the Department of Energy, or the tens of billions spent on the many “intelligence agencies”, the CIA, NSA for starters, nor the Homeland Security Budget, and on and on.  It also didn’t point out that in the Mediterranean Sea, there is the 6th Fleet which, according to the US Navy website has “one or more aircraft carriers, each with an accompanying complement of approximately six cruisers and destroyers. On board the aircraft carrier is an air wing of 65 – 85 aircraft. The air wing is the primary striking arm of the Battle Force, and includes attack, fighter, anti-submarine, and reconnaissance aircraft. Ships accompanying the carrier serve as defensive and offensive platforms with duties involving anti-air, surface and submarine warfare. In addition to its major role of controlling the seas, the Battle Force can also project its power over land.” So who is projecting power?

China is surrounded by US military bases in Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan, Pakistan, India, and US backed groups have been implicated in stirring up trouble in Chinese provinces. Chinese frequently complain about the  government, however, I ask them how many countries China is currently bombing. The answer is None.

While it is true that a culture of harmony can be construed as a way for authority to say, “Be reasonable…do it our way…or else,” things are not looking so great from a human rights standpoint in the United States. The US prison population is larger than China’s even though the US has 1/4 the total population.

Chinese are, I think somewhat more introspective than Americans, and for sure, they take a much longer view than our instant gratification oriented society. That does not mean that Chinese are frugal. People who have money are certainly spending it. China just surpassed the USA in auto sales this year, and they are spending money on art, liquor, gambling, and so on. It is common for wealthy Chinese married men to have at least one girlfriend on the side. My impression is that their wives have little choice but to look the other way. Is that so different from in the West? I also find that Chinese are extraordinarily generous. When they go out to eat, people literally fight over who will pay the bill. At some temples, the monks pushed my money away when I offered a donation. In fact, there are many temples being built with the generous donations of wealthy Chinese, and the conferences that I have attended were in large part paid for by wealthy Chinese.  One beautiful temple I stayed at in Myanmar, Pau Auk Monastery, with 400 monks in residence was built with donations from one Chinese family.

All this is simply to say, that while Chinese know that they have a lot to learn from the West, on the other hand, they also cling to old ideas and ways of doing things that are not so useful. And at the same time, there are aspects of their culture, the sense of social relations, their devotion to education, art, music and culture that is not as obvious in the West (though, perhaps, it may be that I simply didn’t travel in those circles when I lived in the USA full time, and was busy earning a living. )

Certainly, they can learn from us, but we can also learn from them, especially in terms of social relations. When I praise my Chinese friends about their harmonious family relationships, though, they tell me, “You have no idea how complicated and messed up they are.”

It’s all quite fascinating. But what I want to end with, is the recognition that by immersing myself in Chinese culture and being with Chinese people, I think I have learned something about people and about myself that I could not have learned, absent my trip.

Visit China, be open to making friends. I guarantee you’ll be glad you did.

Six Months in China Part Five

Once I arrived in Dun Huang, I had to figure out where to go, I only knew of the Dun Huang youth hostel, which was a good place, since I could connect with other budget conscious  travelers.

It seems that the only way to do any site seeing is by taking a tour. The first day, I took a trip to see the wild desert areas around Dun Huang.

Dun Huang is, geographically speaking, in Gansu Province, more than 1500 miles Northwest of Xiamen. It’s like going from, say, North Florida to Wyoming. The terrain reminded me of the Nevada desert, and the scenery is like Utah.

In fact, this area of China so famous for its part of The Silk Road, is so dry that camels are sometimes used.

One of the most popular tourist sites is Whistling Sands/ Crescent Moon Spring, an oasis in a valley formed by sand dunes.

It is a bit pricey to go there, about $22 to look around, and it costs extra money to take a camel ride.

However, while at the hostel, I met a dreadlocked dude, named William, from Belgium, who seemed to know how to get around the strictures of normal society. We took a city bus, rather than a taxi, to the end of the line, and then hiked in, going around a chain link fence. We climbed up to the top of the sand dune and then down into the park for free.

Later, he came into Chiang Mai, and he told me that after we parted ways in China, he’d gone to Beijing and camped out on the Great Wall, and even lit a fire. All of course totally out of bounds. But we need free spirits like him, dontcha think?

I took a regular tour to some other sites, including the Yardan Landforms, very reminiscent of Utah and the Southwestern USA.

On this particular tour, which consisted of going on a bus and stopping for ten minutes to take pictures and leave, we saw an abandoned outpost that looked like little more than a pile of rocks, as well as the very far end of the Great Wall, little more than ruins at this time.

One of the best parts of this trip, was being out where the air is really clean and the sky is so blue. Most areas of China, notably Beijing have serious smog problems. Also, the air is much drier than I was used to in Xiamen and points South. So even though the temperature was getting quite cool, especially at night, compared with the temples I had stayed at, down to 36 degrees Fahrenheit by early morning, it was still a lot more comfortable than damp, raw 50 degrees at Lao Zu Si in late September.

Of course the highlight of the trip was the famous caves at Mogao, or Mogao Ku. As you enter the area of the caves, you will see the main building, which houses a 34.5 meter (about 110 feet) Maitreya Budda.

At this point, you may be asking yourself, what is this huge artistic project doing out in the middle of nowhere. The basic story is that the Silk Road from central Asia to the Far East passed through this area. It is how the legendary Marco Polo made his way to China. At that time, starting around the year 300 CE, there was much trade going on, and Buddhism was one of the “imports” from India and Central Asia.

Many wealthy merchants were devout Buddhists, as were soldiers and other people. One way that they could express their devotion, was to go to the rock cliff sides, dig out a cave, perhaps even  sponsor a monk who would live in the cave, or simply build a temple, and decorate it with paintings and images of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas (Buddhas to be), Arhats (perfected beings who reached Nirvana), and various heavenly (or not so heavenly deities).

We are told that no photos could be taken in the caves, due to the damage that constant exposure to flashbulbs could cause. My personal opinion is that, having had so much of its cultural treasures stolen by people throughout the ages, particularly recently by Western collectors and opportunists, that they feel very protective of the sites.

Fortunately, however, there is a very fine museum, which not only explains the history of the caves, but even has a number of caves reproduced, and photos are permitted.

This picture taken in the museum shows how, over time, due to the type of pigment used, the painting became degraded. The right hand side shows what the painting originally looked like.

Here is a classic sculpture of Maitreya, the Buddha to be in the next age.

This is a photo of the ceiling.

 

One of my favorite Dun Huang paintings is the story of the deer king. My sister, Jiru, had painted a reproduction of it that appears in the lobby of a hotel in Xiamen. Here is her painting.

 

I was fortunate to see the original at Dun Huang.

These are some other pictures from the caves or postcards.

Avalokitesvara, a silk painting found in a cave, along with hundreds of other paintings and manuscripts, including the Sutra of Hui Neng

A Bodhisattva found in Cave 194

A Flying Figure, cave 158

Following the trip to Mogau Ku, I still had a lot of time before my scheduled flight back. One evening, I just went wandering around Dun Huang City, and found that there are a fair number of shops selling silk or wool rugs, paintings, sculpture and so on. Prices look pretty good, but of course, you have to get there to bargain. But a full size silk rug can go for about $3000, much less, I think than at a shop in the US. While Dun Huang is clearly a tourist town, and there is an element of “tourist trap” about it, it is still a wonderful place to go, and many Chinese expressed their longing to visit there at some point in their lives.

The next day, I booked a taxi with some Chinese tourists to see some other caves.

These are similar to Mogao Ku but farther away. It cost 4 of us $20 each for a full 8 hour drive.

One of the places was a group of caves that was under a different jurisdiction from Mogao Ku, in a place called Anxi.

The site is quite remote, and stark. New walkways have been built, and the tour guide spoke pretty good English, however, it cost $50 and the cave paintings were in pretty

sorry shape.

The combination of weathering and vandalism, especially during the Cultural Revolution was quite evident.

However, we then went to the Yulin Grottos, which were quite reasonable in price, about $7 for a tour of 5 caves, and the quality of the pictures were very good. For an additional $15 I could have seen ONE other cave which was supposed to be a really fine specimen, however, I felt sort of pictured out for the day and didn’t take them up on the offer. My Chinese companions did, and I got the feeling that it was so-so.

The grottoes are cut out from the walls of the canyon, where a river flows through otherwise barren terrain. The style of artwork is similar to that at Mogao Ku.

Here is a large, 4 foot high incense bowl in front of one of the caves.

The Chinese Character on the front is “Buddha”, or “Fo”, as spoken in Mandarin Chinese.

This painting was on the outside of a doorway to the caves. It is quite weathered, faded and barely visible.

It appears to be that of a hermit, probably Bodhidharma, though I am not sure.

I had planned to stay for a week in Dun Huang, thinking that there would be a lot more to see, however, I realized that, although one could go back to Mogao Ku, or the other caves, there was not a lot more to see. One morning, I started to talk with a fellow I had met at Mogao Ku, and he told me how easy it would be to take a bus to the Provincial Capital, Jiayuguan. Which just happens to be my friend, Cheng Rong’s home town. It is also the last major station for the Great Wall, and since she had encouraged me to visit there, I cut my stay at Dun Huang short, and changed my train ticket, and took a bus to Jiayuguan.

When I got there, I had no idea where to go, and the bus left me off on a road side. As luck would have it, a group of young Chinese travelers were in the same situation. They did a considerable amount of haggling with a couple of taxi drives, and we proceeded to look for cheap hotels. Several hotels would not take foreigners, so my group visited several until we found one that would. Three men, including me, shared one room, and the women shared a second one. The price, once I split the cost with the other two guys was only about $8. However, there was a problem with the showers. We had no hot water. It turned out that there was hot water but you had to go upstairs to another hotel room. I didn’t understand that, but finally got my hot shower after 30 minutes of mutual misunderstanding with the hotel manager.

Before dinner, we all went looking around at the local market for dried fruits and nuts, which are very popular, and grown in that region. Almonds, walnuts, raisins apricots all delicious for a very reasonable price. And also directly benefiting the local economy. The next day, we arranged with the drivers to take us on a one day trip to the Jiayuguan Fort.

I’m told that when someone fell out of favor with the Emperor, he would banish them to this place. They’d be taken to the fort, and then told to leave. They may have been brought in this type of prison chariot.

And left off here, at the gorge beside the Fort.

The fort was recreated to look the way it must have 500 hundred or so years ago, with many exhibits.

Here is a podium where the Generals would give orders to the troops.

. Here a view of the outside walls of the Fortress.

Here I am with my Chinese companions

The Chinese have a very pleasant way of asking people not to pick or walk on the flowers.

This is one of the entrances to the fort.

Here is an exhibit of someone advising, a General, most likely.

I guess if you were a rich merchant, you probably wore clothes like this in Ming Dynasty (500 to 700 years ago).

There were quarters for the officers as well as rank and file soldiers, also quarters for family. Here, perhaps an officer’s wife in a room devoted to calligraphy. Amazing that nowadays I still see rooms like this.

Outside the fortress lay the Great Wall of China, itself, which stretches from Beijing all the way to Jiayuguan, about 1000 miles. Mao Ze Dong himself has said that “Anyone who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man”. Well, I didn’t know about this quote at the time, but I had felt like climbing the Great Wall is something that I just HAD to do.

So I went outside the fort and started climbing. It is several hundred steep steps, I counted about 700.

The Wall at that section is designed as a loop, so that you can climb up on one end and come down on another end. I thought we were a little short on time, so I had to hussle. But my Chinese friends told me to slow down. It didn’t matter, I love hiking and the vista was great once arriving at the top. Down below, I could even see a caravan walking along.

Of course, once I reached the bottom again, I could see that it was not a real caravan, just an example, but you get the idea, anyway, it was fun.

Also, when I reached the bottom of the Great Wall, there was a place where you could get a gold (not real) medallion, that had your name engraved on it. My English name didn’t fit, so I had her do one with my Chinese (Buddhist) name, in two short Chinese characters.   So now, having climbed the Great Wall,  I can say that I am a true man. I have arrived!

Here is one medallion, a large one, that says, “If we fail to reach the Great Wall, we are no heroes.”

The next day, I met Ma Hai Ge, a friend of Cheng Rong, who has a small lingerie shop in the city of Jiayuguan. He graciously took me around to see some of the sites, as well as treating me to one of the local delicacies, barbequed goat meat. Followed by a heaping plate of thick Gansu province noodles. When he invited me for dinner after those two appetizers, I demurred. I was stuffed. He was too! He was showing the standard Chinese friendship and hospitality, which I have found so often in my travels. From Jiayuguan, I was set to go by train, first to Xi’An and then take a second train to Wuhan.

Six Months in China Part Four

Since I had gotten an invitation to go to Beijing from Lily, I decided to head there, before the cold weather set in in Beijing, and to my pleasant surprise, the weather in Beijing early October was actually perfect, clear skies and warm days. The tea house, called the Autumn Moon Tea House is used as a meeting place; it also has art for sale.

The tea room entryway. The calligraphy says, Zhao Zhou Tea House.

Here is the  Chan Tang at the Tea House.

      A painting of the founder of Zen, Bodhidharma

Here is the tea room, note the presence of Gu Qin, an ancient instrument, along with modern art.  A picture of Kuan Yin, outside the Chan Tang.

The tea house has an upstairs space where the Chan Tang and other facilities for holding retreats are located. A monk leads the retreat, and every day after lunch, there is a question and answer session. Since my Chinese is not good enough to understand the talk, I didn’t go, but I did have a chance to talk with the monk at one point. These discussions are always enjoyable and give a chance to explore the Dharma together.

The retreat lasted for 6 days, however, one afternoon, Lily had invited me to go to the highly respected professor’s birthday party, mentioned above. There was a pot luck lunch, followed by presentations by his students. Lily practices Beijing Opera, other students performed Chinese flute or Gu Qin, others did calligraphy. A few spoke some English, so I was able to get a feel for what they were doing. I feel refreshed being around people who are interested in art and music, even though I am not schooled in that.

Here, Lily (right) and a friend sing Beijing Opera, which is sung it seems from the throat, in a very high pitch, rather than the deeper tones of Western opera.

Playing traditional Chinese wooden flute.

My last night in Beijing was rather special. The week of the retreat, October 1-7 is the national holiday marking the founding of the People’s Republic of China. A couple of acquaintances who had attended the retreat took me downtown where thousands of people were milling around. Hundreds of thousands of people from villages all over China come to Beijing for this event, since there is no work that week.

One of my long held dreams was to go and pay my respects to “the old Buddha”, Zhao Zhou, or in Japanese, Joshu. Lily also encouraged me to go, and arranged my train from Beijing. Beijing is so huge, that if you don’t know the city and don’t know Chinese, it is quite difficult to get around. Lily, ever the most gracious hostess, took care of that for me, as well as taking me out to eat and getting a hotel for me, during my stay, since the Tea House retreat was during the day, and most people commuted there from their homes.

I took a train from Beijing to Shijiazhuang, the provincial capital of Hebei Province. Train quality varies a fair amount in China; this train was very clean, comfortable, and fast, as good as any train I have been on. When I got there, someone from the temple was to pick me up at the train station, and fortunately again, I was able to find an English speaker, who could translate for him and me, and after a few minutes, we found each other.

Bai Lin Si, means Cypress Forest Temple, however, it is not in a forest, but in a fairly typical Chinese smaller city. The temple is the main attraction, and many people come to visit.

Here is the entryway, which says, Cypress Forest Chan Temple—Bai Lin Chan Si

This is Zhao Zhou’s memorial tower, or Stupa. It was damaged by an earthquake 20 or so years ago, but was rebuilt with donations from Singapore Chinese.

At first, I had thought to stay for about two weeks, however, once there, I found myself thinking more and more “Dun Huang…Dun Huang…Dun Huang.”

Many years ago, I had gone to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and

was captivated by the thousand year old cave paintings that had been reproduced and brought to America. I had hoped to find my old friend, the painting reproduction shown here.

I was not able to find it at Dun Huang, however, I like it a lot. We see some Buddhist saint, surrounded by various other entities, the ones in the lower right are probably other enlightened beings, as indicated by their halos. Some are probably lay donors, the one with the largest halo may be a Bodhisattva, or Buddha-to-be. Notice that they are all looking off to the right, probably to a Buddha figure not shown here.

What I like the most is the very strange looking beings, at the top of the picture, perhaps Yakshas, sort of a mythical monster. Yet even though they are really weird looking, they, too are experiencing reverence for the object on the right. I take this to mean, that in a Sangha, or Buddhist community, you will find all kinds of people at various levels of spiritual development, and there is room for everyone, dysfunctional or saintly! We should take this to heart, and be more tolerant of people we think are weird, that is the message I get from this picture.

I had my heart set on seeing Dun Huang, and doing some real adventure outside of the more populous Eastern part of China.

When I first got to Bai Lin Si, the office manager introduced me to Ping, a 30ish fellow taking time off from his hectic job, so he could study Buddhism. Since he speaks English quite well, he served as translator and helper. He asked the office manager if he could take me on a tour of the monks’ area, including the Chan Tang, or meditation hall reserved for the monks. The answer was a polite refusal, since only monks are supposed to go there. However, when I told Ping of my desire to go to Dun Huang, and my early departure from Bai Lin Si, the acting abbot, Ming Ying Fashi (Ming Hai, the abbot, is now in a three year solitary retreat, like Jin Wu Fashi had done) got in touch with me through Ping.

Ming Ying must have heard about me through Ming Ji or Jin Wu, or Lily, because he apologized for not meeting with me earlier. We arranged a meeting time the morning that I had planned to leave, and he took me on a personal guided tour of the temple, including the sacred Founder’s Hall, dedicated to Zhao Zhou and Xu Yun, and also the monks’ Chan Tang.

I feel so very grateful to the many monks who have been so open and supportive of me, a mere “Barbarian from the West”.

He arranged with Ping to get me to the airport for a flight to the city of Dun Huang, and off I went.

It turns out that the weather in Shijiazhuang is frequently foggy. My driver and I started out at 7:30, thinking it would take over an hour to get to the airport by 9 AM, giving me plenty of time for my 10:30 flight. But the fog was so thick that he could hardly see the road, and traffic was heavy, too. He tried an alternate route, but that didn’t work, and we didn’t get to the airport until after ten, which meant that I missed my flight!

But fortunately, the flight itself was delayed, the airport staff said it would be two hours late, so timing was perfect. Not!

At noon, I checked in again….no news. At this point, I was getting antsy. Since my time in China was drawing to a close, and my visa was running out, I’d decided to take airplanes to Dun Huang. The only way to go was through Xi’An, the former historic capital of China. But if I missed my flight to Xi’An I would miss my flight the next day to Dun Huang. I didn’t mind the overnight stay in Xi’An. I wanted to spend the day there, too, since Xi’An has many famous sites as well, like the famous Terra Cotta Warriors.

Every hour or so, I asked the airline about the flight. They said, don’t worry, it will fly they just didn’t know when.

There was another problem, I had booked a room at the Xi’An youth hostel, and learned that it was over an hour from the airport, and my flight was at 7:30 AM. That made it impossible to catch a taxi at 5:00 AM, to arrive on time. What to do?

Finally, having exhausted politeness, I demanded to see the supervisor. A nice attendant had graciously allowed me to stay in the VIP lounge, but that didn’t solve my problem. So I insisted on getting an answer.

After much hemming and hawing, the manager, who spoke as much English as I speak Chinese agreed with me. He acknowledged that they should have let me know a lot sooner. I took the plane at a much higher price to avoid a ten hour train. So instead of sitting in a train for ten hours, I paid three times more money to sit in the airport. Not to mention the hotel problem in Xi’An.

He agreed finally to get a room at the airport hotel, just 10 minutes from the airport, and put me up for the night free.

It is always emphasized that in China, you never ever lose your temper.

EXCEPT if you want to get something done!

I finally caught my flight at 9:30 PM, eleven hours late, arrived in Xi’An and, after a few more mixups, got a shuttle bus to the hotel.

The next day, I caught my flight and arrived in Dun Huang.