Jianghu :: 2.0

My association with the Kwan Yin Chan Lin Zen Centre in Singapore goes back to the summer 2006, when I first attended a Dharma talk. They belong to the Kwan Um Zen school founded by Zen Master Seung Sahn, who wrote some of the best books on Zen, and on Buddhism, that I’ve yet read (YMMV, of course). On that occasion, as I wrote, the Zen Master was accompanied by a Buddhist nun: a Polish woman with whom I had a brief but very interesting conversation after the talk.

I’m just made contact with her again via Facebook, and we’ve exchanged a few messages. She mentioned that the Kwan Um School have a meditation centre, Mu Sang Sa. It looks very peaceful. What’s interesting, for me, is that it happens to be in the South Korean city of Daejon. Daejon’s the only place I’ve been in Korea - I went there for my first job as a freelance internet consultant, and it was that trip which convinced me that I had to leave the UK and move to Asia, though it took a couple more trips and some exposure to Singapore to actually bring the move about. Guess I have some sort of Karmic connection with Daejon…

As it happens, I’m already contemplating a trip to Korea in September; depending on the prices, I’m thinking of attending the LIFT Asia Conference. If I were to go, I’d been thinking about combining it with a visit to the Golgulsa Temple to see some Sunmudo. Maybe a trip to a zen centre at Korea’s “Silicon Valley” might also be an option….

Not too much to report. Saturday’s pan guan bi class went quickly; I enlivened the day for Master Sun and Mi Laoshi by vigorously stabbing myself in the leg during one move. It didn’t hurt too much, really! Then on to the Bookworm to catch up with Dragoncache again. He brought along a friend of his, a Russian girl who’s as passionate about tango as I am about martial arts. Very interesting, and beautiful - far too good for a stunted, pugnacious little troll like me! A fun evening.

On Sunday morning, I felt really grotty, as if a heavy cold were about to hit me, so I let Sun Lao Shi know I couldn’t make it to class, and stayed in bed. Eventually made it out and had an interesting time the remainder of the day, but it wasn’t really a martial arts weekend, I must say.

On Friday evening, I caught up with H at the Vineyard Cafe. Like so many others, she’s been caught up in the tightening of the visa situation here, so she’s decided to go back to the UK, for a while at least. She had planned to go travelling around for a month before she goes, but I happened to mention my plan in July-August to take the 30-day course at the Yiquan Academy. Her eyes lit up at the prospect of 30 days of zhan zhuang (ahem, how many other people would accept that as a totally appropriate response? It’s great to hang around with other martial arts geeks!), and she thought that would be preferable to aimlessly travelling… I sent her the URL, and she called them on Sunday. Last I heard, she’s starting tomorrow… She said she’d let me know how it goes and, always your faithful correspondent, I shall convey the news as I receive it…

… but it made me laugh:

I’m gradually getting ill, I think. The weather’s not helping, either: grey, cold, and raining. Lots of long-term Beijing residents are coming up with variations on “isn’t it nice, we hardly ever see rain” here, but I don’t think so. I don’t like rain, especially cold rain, and especially when I’m walking around with cold, wet feet and trousers. Bah.

Anyway, so, briefly before I hit the sack:

• Bagua bi class yesterday went well. Made some more progress through the form; looked in more detail at what we’ve done so far. Master Sun (Zhi Jun) commented that my tang ni bu is improving. Mi Lao Shi is pleased that I can do one of the moves fairly well - not sure what it’s called, I think of it as “head dives under armpit”… Master Sun was in a very good mood, laughing more than usual. He was wearing a striped red and black sweater, which gave him the air of a wizened Dennis the Menace (British version, not American). He shook my hand when I left, which he’s not done before. Hmm.
• After class, I went to the Bookworm, where I’d arranged to meet another of Master Sun’s students. I’d got in touch after seeing a comment he’d left on YouTube, and I wanted to meet other bagua students so I sent a message. I wasn’t sure what to expect but in the event Dragoncache turned out to be a really nice guy; we have a lot in common, got on well, and hopefully we’ll meet up again before long.He’s studied bagua for twelve years, and has lived in Beijing for the last five, so his standard is far beyond mine.
• Today’s bagua class was limited; we couldn’t train outdoors because of the rain, so Rene and I took turns to go through moves inside Sun Lao Shi’s living room. I’m feeling really crappy and tired, so didn’t do very well, but in any case worked on two more moves from the Ba Da Zhang. Sun Lao Shi and his wife insisted we stay for lunch, along with another of his friends who (IIRC) is also a TCM doctor and baguazhang teacher. H, btw, appears to have stopped coming; it’s too far from where she lives. After the food, we worked on applications for a while, including some tui shou.

OK, time to sleep now. Good night!

I had my second ch’an meditation class with Wei tonight. A chat about various things, including mountains near Xi’an that are popular with Buddhist and Daoist recluses, followed by a half-hour zuo ch’an session. Wah, I was tired; about twenty minutes in, I started nodding… but got woken up by the chime of a bell - Wei was observing carefully! He says I’m still putting too much effort into breathing, and my chest moves too much; I should breath more shallowly, and be perfectly still. I do not find this easy to achieve. He’s dead right, though, about not trying to breathe; once I stopped worrying about breathing from the dantien, the block that’s kept my breath at my chest gradually went away, and I found the lower abdomen, especially at the back, was starting to expand perfectly naturally. I could of course just meditate on my own - except that I probably wouldn’t, and it’s good to get feedback, and it really is important to have some support from the sangha (in the broader sense, he’s not a monk!). This afternoon, though, I went to the Lotus Centre supermarket at Wudaokou and bought some cushions to sit on so that I can at least try to meditate more at home…

As with all of my teachers in China, we have some communications problems, but this is of course my failing; more effort needed to improve my Mandarin…

Walking home, I came back through the university gardens. Even since last weekend, the leaves are all fully out, many more flowers are in bloom, and the moon is almost full; as the Irish might say, it’s a grand evening, to be sure.