Zen + Kungfu = Shaolin Temple

Shaolin Temple is a monastery in the Songshan Mountains of Henan, but it is not the kind of monastery where one finds pious, kindly old men gently sauntering about. The monks at Shaolin are gentle, yes, but also fierce as tigers. They have calm eyes and big biceps. As strong and agile as they are committed to spiritual enlightenment, Shaolin monks have dedicated their lives to the twin arts of kungfu and zen meditation. You may be thinking: is this not a contradiction? While this monastic practice is certainly unusual, they would actually fight only in self-defense, and rarely, if at all, do they use it in this way. Primarily, the practice in itself of kungfu is an intense physical and spiritual exercise. The result: fierce, dedicated, passionate monks in tip-top physical condition.

While I visited, Shaolin Temple was hosting a kungfu camp for youth, and twice a day over a thousand boys spread out onto the campus to practice. They jumped, punched, kicked, and shouted in unison and in formation. I marveled at the discipline, and they seemed to take such joy out of such hard work. The scene reminded me of the summer soccer camps I used to do as a child, with one noticeable difference: with soccer and other sports, one trained to defeat an opponent; in kungfu, it seemed, one trained to develop oneself.

I had the chance to spend some time with one of the monks, who was about my age. He had lived at Shaolin for ten years already and fully planned to live there for the rest of his life. The reason he decided to come in the first place? He loved kungfu. He also loved, I discovered, to discuss Buddhist theology. I never refuse a good theological conversation; unfortunately, my Chinese vocabulary quickly revealed its limitations (they didn’t teach me metaphysical terms in Chinese school), so our conversations were not as engaging as they could have been.

For those who may not be aware, in addition to being the first institution to develop Chinese martial arts, Shaolin Temple is the birthplace of Zen Buddhism. Zen is the Japanese word for Chan (禅), which simply means meditation. In the 5^th century C.E., one of the monks who had travelled from India decided to go to a nearby cave, where he purportedly sat facing a wall for nine years, whereupon he became enlightened. This man, Bodhidharma, eventually took in a disciple, whom he taught the simple discipline of sitting meditation. This disciple eventually took on a disciple, who, in turn, took on a disciple, who took on a disciple, who, then, took on a handful of disciples. Within this bunch, now the sixth generation, one of these disciples taught sitting meditation to hundreds of people, whereupon Chan/Zen Buddhism truly began to flower and spread throughout China, and eventually to Japan and other places.

[Bodhidharma in meditative posture]

On my second day at Shaolin, my new cloistered friend invited me into his room for lunch, where he proceeded to show me his meditation posture. In my personal practice, I had temporarily given up on the lotus position because I sometimes cramped and lost circulation in my legs. But he persuaded me to return to the lotus position, or at least half-lotus, as it conserves and circulates qi much better. In fact, in the Chan/Zen tradition, at least in China, meditators place a a blanket over their torso and legs precisely to conserve qi. I assumed that the Shaolin monks would have a special room, a kind of zendo, where they all meditated together, but I was wrong. They do what, in fact, I do: they simply sit on their bed!

Ode To Beijing

City of a hundred million lights

A daily explosion of culture, growth, and people

Spilling onto the streets and alleyways

Amongst the bicycles, pedicabs, peddlers, and pedestrians

Vendors, fruit stands, shopkeepers, and hawkers of all kinds.

Around the globe people come

Willing to explore the wild, rough, and unready.

Modernity in Beijing has surely asserted itself

Capitalism and industry have come to the fore

As it turns out, free markets are a gift

And machinery is the machinery for change

How can you argue with the ending of poverty

Just don’t worship the money and the glitz

Stay rooted in your deep Chinese roots

You have lived a long time, and you know this.

Not In My Words

Sunrise and Sunset

Scenes On the Streets

Living In the Hutongs

Literally meaning “recklessly connected,” the hutongs (胡同) are the rambling alleyways of Beijing and vestiges of Old Beijing community life. The buildings in these neighborhoods are typically low, one-story buildings - sometimes rudimentary, sometimes built in a gorgeous timber-frame style - usually contain some sort of courtyard, and are often as rambling and organic as the hutongs in which they are situated. Truly possessing a pre-modern community feel, the hutongs allow pedestrians to stroll in the Old Town unawares of the city’s now ubiquitous modern features of highways, skyscrapers, and the like.

I am fortunate to live in one of these neighborhoods. Growing out of the courtyard of a restaurant outside my bedroom window stands a tree, which neighbors tell me is approximately 300 years old. That sounds right: this country measures things by the hundreds of years, if not by the thousands. The neighborhood preserves the old way of life. Take a walk in this neighborhood one afternoon and you will see silent old men smoking pipes; women hanging out clothes to dry; small children peeing in public; retired folks gathered around for an intense, communal game of checkers; workers sitting in clusters outside for some lunchtime noodles. The noodles are dependably prepared by a young man and his wife, in a small see-through annex to the vegetable market, which is housed in an old temple, which also houses the bread makers, the rice vendors, and a semi-modern supermarket.

As everyone knows, Chinese people love to eat, preferably with company, and often in loud, festive restaurants. In Beijing, prepared food is readily available at every turn, and this neighborhood is no exception. For my dining needs, I often turn to the very affordable home-style cooking prepared and delivered by the friendly woman from Henan. I also discovered a nearby dumpling joint, from which one can select dozens of fillings, not least of which is pickled garlic, managed by a very smiley man who always wears pink. Most evenings I pass a very typical Beijing noodle place, lit by red lanterns, whose loyal patrons often spill out the doors and into the alleyway. When I am in the mood for western food, there is a bar around the corner that makes decent pizzas. And, my favorite restaurant in the neighborhood is a Yunnan restaurant, which literally makes my mouth water whenever I think about their delectable baked tofu dishes, mint salads, and stir-fried mushroom combinations. The closest restaurant of all, Lucky Dining Hall, the one in whose courtyard stood a 300-year-old tree, for some reason attracts hip musicians, friends, and adoring fans. Many a night I have passed their window to observe a bucolic scene of drinking and singing and scattered half-eaten dishes.

Besides the bountiful restaurants, our residence has other interesting neighbors. At number 28 of our hutong stands a mysterious building, in which people very inconspicuously entered and left. The building is clearly not a restaurant, but also not a business, and the small, high windows, reveal a meticulously painted interior and a gorgeous post-and-beam ceiling. I have yet to find out the purpose of this secret society. Around the corner from us live “hairdressers,” who rarely cut hair but keep a red light on for afterhours customers. They came to our fall-time barbeque, as did almost everyone on our little block, from the kiosk vendors to our next door neighbors, to whom we also give our recyclables in exchange for the occasional homemade stuffed bun.

How I love the oh-so-organic nature of the Beijing hutongs, always overflowing with life!

China (part 2)

- 2 -

In the USA

Where things seem so normal

And nothing is out of the ordinary

To everyone but me.

Oh, you nice quiet subdivisions

Beautiful boutique houses, and manicured lawns

Cars galore, a puppy dog, and all your household needs.

I would rather the people walking, the millions

Underneath the black canopy of the city sky

In their Saturday night best

The chefs, the vendors

The neighborhood strollers

The drunken street fighters

And curious onlookers

And leggy women dressed in Chinese silk.

Oh China, you country of a thousand constellations

Aware of the Confucian order of things

Yet very free, it seems to me:

Singing in the park, dancing in the street

Lovers in each other’s organic embrace

Little children in proud grandparents’ arms.

Sure, there are the ornery folk

The gruff, the grumpy, unruly and uncultured

But that’s okay, because they too belong

They are still countrymen and countrywomen.

You motherland, you five-thousand year reign

Of deep culture and self-respect

Having survived the turbulence of dynasties

Diverse as the Tianshan Mountains are to the Gobi Desert

You manage somehow to hold it together.

Quirky China

If you keep your eyes open while strolling Chinese streets, even for just a little while, you will encounter some delightful quirks.

[yes, that is a goldfish]

Snapshots of Rural Life

Tibetan-Style Debates

Each monastery in Tibet has its own distinguishing characteristics. At the Sera Monastery, monks daily participate in lively afternoon courtyard debates. Though the debates were banned from tourists during the March-time protests—the government was afraid the monks would use the debates as a forum for protest—we were able to stay past closing time and sneak in. The empty courtyard itself was a beautiful site. White pebbles in the courtyard matched the white earthen buildings around the courtyard, and, when they arrived, the monks in their rich auburn attire provided a contrast of colors that mimicked that of the surrounding architecture.

Gradually filtering in, the monks first gathered en masse and sat on the ground, where they proceeded to chant deep guttural Tibetan chants in a spontaneous and free-flowing manner. The scene reminded me of a subdued Pentecostal gathering, without the dancing. After over an hour of spontaneous, hypnotic chanting, they dispersed into groups of eight or ten throughout the courtyard. Thus, the moment we had been waiting for: the debates began. Each small group sat in a horseshoe, inside which the teacher stood. He directed his attention to one of the hapless souls sitting at his feet and began to fire away theological questions. The student would then hazard an answer, sometimes not without some serious thinking. Then, in a dramatic gesture—and some had a flair for the dramatic—the teacher would bring his right arm up in the air, pause, and bring his hand crashing down onto the other, ending with a fully-stretched arm pointing toward the victim, accompanied by yet another question. And then another, and another. In this fashion, with their own mix of rigor and flair, the monks apparently learned to hone their capacity for logical reasoning, a fact that I find quite interesting. Tibetan Buddhism, famous for its mystical orientation, also regards training in logic a vital aspect of its education. Whereas many in the West often dismiss mystical religion as irrational wu-wu, the Tibetans seem to embrace both the rational mind and the mystical mind.

Chinese T-shirts in English

Do these people know what their clothing says? Do they care? My guess is they care as much as Westerners who wear clothing with Chinese characters.

A Wedding

A couple friends were married this summer, and I wrote a little poem for them.
--------
On that day
There was a play
Starring Jesse, Liz, and friends

On the mountain
Go and count ‘em
Stories, laughter, and wedding bands.

Top of the inning
A new beginning
Liz and Jesse westward go

Newly wed
Are they mad?
Inviting someone to their new home.

Sweet and generous
And adventurous
Liz shall train at the GTU

Into the uncharted
Open-hearted
Jesse shall sing songs for you.

Daytime planters
Nighttime lanterns
Living and working in community

Playing, sharing
Serving, caring
Marching to the beat of their Diety.

Hard At Work

China (part 1)

- 1 - Like a newborn Thrilled to be alive In the land of forgotten ancestors Also bustling with change and transformation Freedom, love, play, adventure Which lie outside those typical hard-played games Of success and failure Of good and bad Of in and out Of heaven and hell. Who knew you city lights would call to me so Like those shining lights of the New England sky? Please tell me about the universality of humankind. Don’t get stuck in the particulars: this is different, that is exotic Neither stay within the limited confines Of your own head. Look. Really look and listen. And don’t be afraid to feel.

Vehicles of Beijing

I marvel at the sheer variety of vehicles in Beijing. Do you?

Layman Red Pine At the Bookworm

Bill Porter, known within the Buddhist community as Layman Red Pine, regaled a crowd at the Bookworm with stories of Chinese Zen Masters. An American who came to China years ago out of an interest in Zen Buddhism, he now writes books about Buddhism in China.

Red Pine told us about his journey through the mountains of China visiting Buddhist hermits, who are those monks who retire to mountains and caves for years, even decades, to live a life of austerity and devotion. Those who are able to live that life come out with a “Ph.D. in Zen,” and are able to teach others. He told us about the monasteries and Zen communities, those monks who are the only ones truly practicing communism in today’s China, that is to say, truly doing what Marx called “sharing the means of production.” He told us about the difference between zen and Zen: the former saw religion as the formal practice of meditation; the latter saw everything one does, from eating to shitting to meditating to chopping wood, as Zen—there is no separation.

And, he told us about legendary Zen masters, which is what his latest book is primarily about. The first Bodhidharma developed this particular style of Buddhism with an emphasis on meditation, but after several generations, there were only a handful of people on this path. Then, all of a sudden, its popular exploded within a couple generations to over a thousand devotees, as it proved to be a viable model.

He told us a story of supposedly the greatest Zen master in China of the past few enturies, Sun Lu(?). Both Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai revered him, even while they destroyed temples and ransacked monasteries. One day, Zhou Enlai summoned Sun Lu? To Beijing, instructing him to come by himself. When he arrived and saw that hundreds of people accompanied him, Zhou Enlai was furious. He said, “I told you not to bring anyone!” Sun Lu responded, “I didn’t. These are all ghosts of dead people.” At that moment, they all vanished. After that encounter, Zhou Enlai ordered the protection of temples and monasteries throughout the country.

Red Pine’s own story was fascinating. He came to Taiwan on a graduate fellowship and, upon reading Alan Watts, realized that he was more interested in Buddhism than in academia. He learned Chinese, hung out in monasteries, and realized that he was not cut out to be a monk, for reasons not least of which was the celibacy requirement. He translated Tang Dynasty poetry, read the news on Chinese radio, and then began to track down Buddhist hermits, all the while basically being broke. Nowadays, he is married with kids, living in small town Washington State, still writing and translating, and I think still being broke.

A Tale of Two Hotpots

If you want a quick and easy meal, don’t eat hotpot. But if you are willing to work for your meal and are open to unexpected surprises and challenges, might I recommend trying out the hotpot restaurant nearest you.

Hotpot is a special kind of meal that sounds like what it is: a pot of hot liquid, in which you place various vegetables, meats, fungi, and other things. I recently went to a couple hotpot establishments, one in Beijing and one in Chengdu. Although the meals were essentially the same, the two experiences highlight the differences between the two kinds of cuisines.

The restaurant I went to with some Chinese classmates in Beijing was lined with large landscape paintings and dark-stained antique furniture. The feeling, as in many Beijing restaurants, was decidedly ceremonial. After the waiters served us an assortment of vegetables and meats to place in our pots, a man walks in with a ball of dough and asks for our attention. He begins to stretch, pull, and eventually sling dough around while simultaneously doing a little dance. He was clearly having a lot of fun. Still somewhat perplexed as to what this guy was doing, when he came around and gave each of us several long strands of dough, that he had just made some freshly hand-pulled noodles to cook into our pot.

When a few friends—Matt, Riley, and Jill—and I traveled to Sichuan, a province famous for spicy food and, indeed, where hotpot originally comes from, we knew we had to find some hotpot. After roaming the streets of Chengdu, we were delighted when we finally did find a very unassuming hotpot place, and though I was not quite sure what exactly I had ordered, and came to regret the duck intestines later, we were all in all quite happy. I cannot say that it came as a complete surprise that, halfway through the meal, we all began individual permutations of sweating, sniffling, and crying. Whatever they put in the sauce, it had a few extra notches of spicy kick! See our contorted faces below.

A Remarkably Ordinary Chinese Town

Earlier this year, I was invited to Inner Mongolia (which, by the way, is part of China, and not a separate country, as I originally thought) to a 4-day English camp, called “Crazy English.” I landed early in the morning in Baotou, a town few foreigners have even heard of, was picked up at the airport, and within 10 minutes of sitting down in the auditorium, was told to come onto the stage and “do something.” “Sure,” I told them, not sure at all what they wanted me to do. I walked onto the stage, grinning stupidly, looked onto the crowd of 300 eight to ten-year-olds, and began to try to carry on some kind of dialogue with them. After a minute of this, I sensed that I was boring them and I had vague premonitions that I would be fired before I even began. So I went to Plan B: I sang and danced the hokey-pokey. They got a real kick out of that.

Although initially it took my by surprise, but snack time eventually became one of my favorite parts of the day, during which time my boss requested that I go from classroom to classroom and shake each of the kids’ hands. The reason? My boss said, “They want to feel friendly with you.” So, I did go around and shake hands with the youngsters and, with the brave and affectionate, gave hugs. It was very sweet, and we all did feel a little friendlier afterwards. (Why don’t we try something like this in American classrooms?)

Coming on this trip allowed me to see a very average Chinese city, which I previously had not done, nor even thought to do. There is very little reason for a foreigner to come to Baotou, Inner Mongolia. Yet, it was a reminder to me that Beijing is as representative of Chinese society as New York is of American. Instead of headquartering multinational corporations, a handful of small to medium-sized Chinese companies operate in Baotou; the city is not the seat of national Communist Party officials but of local officials sprinkled within their own communities; in contrast to the congested Beijing roads of cars, buses, and bicycles, Baotou’s streets were remarkably clean, benign, and empty; lacking the glamour and vitality of a thriving arts and cultural scene, the Baotou’s citizens made up for it with plain friendliness and charm. The students were adorable and the teachers inspiring in their commitment, and yet most of these people would most likely not venture outside the city limits of a place I had previously not noticed the existence of. The whole scene moved me, and, in the end, I found it hard to say goodbye.

Ode to Green Tea

Here along the waters of West Lake
Much adored by poets of dynasties hence
Comes the equally praiseworthy Dragon Well tea.

Green, supple leaves, almost magical in my mind
to make such a simple and delicate drink.
We shouldn’t be surprised that this unassuming shrub
chooses such a delicate region as its hub.

This warm, soothing beverage
Rich with antioxidants
Gives off just enough caffeine
No, not too much
like that jittery beverage from the tropics
But just enough
For a midday pick-me-up.

Immediately one can hear the sound of the guqin and the bawu
And see the willows swaying in the gentle breeze
Not to mention the craggy mountains behind.
Those scholars of yore took it upon themselves
To sip tea while discussing Confucius and literature
Don’t picture the aloof philosopher, the snobby aesthete
This is serious business, with tea in hand they meet.

I love to watch the green leaves dance in the simmering water.
I won’t stop you if you really want to add milk, sugar, and all the rest
But, as for me, no additives please.
I am content with these unadorned and unfermented leaves.