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.

Saturday: I took the train on line 13 from Wudaokou, looped far round to the north of Beijing, and got off at Guanximen, which is just across a river from where Master Sun Zhijun lives. I say river, it’s more like a storm drain, with a trickle of filthy water running along it, backed up into pools occcasionally where people have thrown building waste onto the river bed. Heh, but it does have lots of nice trees along its length. I think I was just in a bad mood: on Thursday, the weather had changed from the lovely warm spring back to wintry cold and rain - not nice at all On Saturday it wasn’t raining any more, but it was still very cold.

Mi Lao Shi was already at Master Sun’s apartment, along with another lady whose name I didn’t get. We chatted for a while, and then went outside again, to where a circle has been painted on the yard, including a “starting box”. I was pretty rusty, so we worked on the first half of the bagua needles / pan guan bi form. It came back fairly quickly, and Mi Lao Shi corrected a lot of small mistakes - in particular, moves where the hands are meant to be yin and yang (eg one facing upwards, and the other down) but where I was doing the move with both yin or both yang…

After a while, Master Sun and the other lady came down to watch, and Master Sun also gave his feedback. Mi Lao Shi and her friend both speak some English, which really helps! It was fun. After our hour was up, we went back up to Master Sun’s apartment, and chatted for a while longer. I mentioned again to Mi Lao Shi that I’m hoping to learn applications; after we’ve worked on the basics, we’ll be able to move on to that. I’m not sure whether that will be taught by Mi Lao Shi, or by Master Sun… I couldn’t follow their conversation closely, but I got the impression it would be the latter.

So there we are, that was my first bagua bi lesson in Beijing! Looking forward to the rest…

On Sunday morning, it was off again to Sun Ru Xian’s apartment across the road from the Old Summer Palace. This is getting confusing: from now on, I think I’ll refer to Sun Zhijun as Master Sun, and Sun Ru Xian as Sun Lao Shi….

So ,anyway, I spent the two hours working on the first three palms, plus the single and double palm changes. Hehehe, like many of my teachers, I think Sun Lao Shi might be a little surprised at how slow on the uptake I am, but there we are, I’m dumb, so let’s just work with it

It was pretty cool. The Chinese xingyi student is in Hong Kong this weekend, but the Dutch guy and English woman, Rene and H, were back again, working on the tanglangquan. We were also joined by a French guy whose name I forgot; he’s working on Yiquan. Also there were a couple of Sun Lao Shi’s longer-term students, Chinese guys in their forties. They were really nice, down to earth, working guys, no pretences at all - the real, classic, traditional martial arts students, in the sense that they were there in their everyday suits and ties - the kind of old-school working class we don’t see in the West much any more. They were both bagua guys, and one in particular gave me a lot of help with the double palm change while Sun Lao Shi was working with the other students.

On the previous occasions when I’ve lived in Beijing, I’ve missed being able to study Buddhism in English, and wasn’t expecting to find much on this occasion. Luckily, H had found a Zen teacher who runs classes very close to where I’m living, and so after our class with Sun Lao Shi we went there. It was really cool - Master Wei’s a nice guy, with lots of TCM experience, and a long background in Zen. We chatted for quite some time, then went into seated meditation, followed by some walking meditation. This last was done very fast - totally not the very slow, measured walking I was expecting… We had to leave quickly after this, as we had a bit of a time crunch, so I’ll have to wait until I see him next time to ask him about that.

Finally, I introduced H to a vegetarian restaurant in Tsinghua Yuan, where the Sichuan hot pot is absolutely delicious! Mmmmmmm

Those who aid and deliver the suffering are bodhisattvas, and those in the throes of suffering are great bodhisattvas.

Master Sheng Yen.

As long as we still have breath, we have boundless hope, and the breath we have is the greatest wealth.

Master Sheng Yen

I need a holiday to recover, how am I going to face work tomorrow…?

As I mentioned, the Piper guys were passing through town for a few days; I managed to catch up with them on Thursday night at a seminar they gave at a local school, and then again on Friday night - after my class with Master Zhou - as they explored Chinatown. Very, very nice guys. More on that in a later post.

Yesterday was taken up with a small part of the seemingly endless preparations for my move to Beijing, followed in the evening by Ch’an meditation. Our sifu instructed us in the different kinds of meditation, and their purposes. I am still hung up on the koan of “What is a butterfly?“. Katz!

Today was the second in my interview series as I sat down over lunch with Madam Ge, and asked her about the Beijing wushu team, life in the movies , and the future of Chinese wushu. Many, many thanks to her for her time - and even more to my gongfu brother Jono, for translating.

A bonus was meeting up with a visiting Taiwanese master, Mr Liu Pang Yao. We had much difficulty understanding each other, but it turns out he’s expert in at least Cheng Man Ching taijiquan and Cheng-style bagua (and probably much else besides). He gave a few demonstrations of applications, which were very, very cool - and which I will appreciate a lot more once my back and shoulder return to normal Very, very, effective, let’s put it that way! He gave me a few flyers for the World Cup Tai Chi Chuan Championship, to be held in Taipei in October this year. Email tccass at ms35 dot hinet dot com for more info.

Now, it’s home again, and settling back into paperwork before work tomorrow…

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