Jiu Hua Shan is one of China's 5 holy mountains. The Chinese inscription on our Commemorative Chinatown Rock at Vernon/Hall is from a poem by one of China's most beloved classical poets - Li Bai - who named Jiu Hua Shan: Mountain of Nine Flowers.
One of many temples there - this one superficially unremarkable - is where I had been meditating for years: outside its gate; on a roughly put together granite bench; a boisterous mountain stream precipitously behind-below me but never mind; the trunk of a tree for grounding touch in front; constantly bowing bamboo plumes gravely acknowledging each other and me; birds just waking up. No people - the temple gate still closed.
Good for Qi Gong.
After settling - the stream's chorus would rush through me, fill me, drown me.
Sometimes - after meditating - I found a cup of tea next to me or some fruit. With no-one to be seen - no direct social contact necessary.
Then - standing in the stream - I would rinse my hands, arms, face.
And walk through dense bamboo back to my village - Xia Min Yuan - about 3km away. Attentive step after step: many large toads in dry-bamboo-leaf camouflage are none too visible and none too swift.
Fundamentally not much has changed over the course of my coming here for 22 years: but quite some time ago all houses got solar hot water on the roof; all families got an electricity-powered scooter. All street-lights along lanes got small individual power-plants on top - a sun-hat: collecting, storing, converting and applying after sunset.
No surprise and simple: this community has strong and trusted leadership and truly co-operative let's-do-this-thing spirit.
The villagers' open smiles feed me: You're back! You look well!
On my first morning this year - looking forward to meditating on my bench, at my tree, at my stream, outside my temple - I find a drastic change to all in physical reality and vibes.
My tree was cut down for no reason apparent to me, and a huge representation of obscenely obese Xiao Fo - the Laughing Buddha, which actually he isn't but in charge of abundance and contentment to many - while to me more a gurgly-gluttonous Jabba the Hutt - has been placed next to the gate.
I feel off-balance.
A nun appears and offers me a small bowl of xifan - rice gruel. She also is overweight and surely not on xifan.
I have always been suspicious of overweight monks' and nun's integrity. Too inclined to worldly indulgence - too disinclined to physical exertion.
Asking her why this healthy, in nobody's way tree was killed, she has no explanation, ordered to come here after that fact. She apologizes and withdraws.
It's time to temple-shop. I can't continue here and will not give up my mornings. So I arbitrarily stop in a tiny-dusty worship room. Once I sit - I hear constant comings-and-goings too close to me in this small space: clearly to ogle lao wai - the foreigner. I am at least vaguely known in the area. But seeing me - or anyone non-monk, really - actually meditate in these places is unusual. Temple-hop and bow with piles of pricey incense to invite money mainly - yes. Meditate - no.
I finish with dropping some coins into a large donation-box, always placed in front of statues. I do this not to further the cause (or effect) but - always in the eye here - simply want to be a good white ghost. Among the real people.
Cleverly - made out of wood - those boxes are boom-boxes as well. So - dropping coins into them is heard loudly and affirms the giving religio-tourists' devotion over that of others - guilt! - while alerting monks/nuns to funds coming in.
When I leave the following morning - a monk - mental arms akimbo (to basic lao wai: inscrutable) - stands outside giving me the look. Not a word!
O(nly) my God(s)!
Despite my coin-drop on this second morning as well - on the third the door is locked.
Of course I can meditate anywhere outside, but doing it inside now seems more appropriate.
Next I deliberately decide on the worship-hall of an old nunnery - going full opposite - large, high, deep, dark and cool. Imposing gold-glitz figures from the myriad of holy folk in Buddhism - all with their own special niche to light(en) the path - along the walls.
I finally gave up religio-spiritual table-hopping years ago in an Indian monastery and brought all that down to bottom-line integrity, as my base from which to function - period.
Integrity - with cultural adjustments - the great decider in any religion anyway underneath their pomp and circumstance - was a natural conclusion for me.
Of course, condensing it all into this low-body-fat mind-shape would not be acceptable to the religion-industry, with its high-drama control mechanisms: their source-apps being blind faith, guilt, karma and hope.
Similar control-methods to people's everyday-lives: the most popular apps are those devised for removing the user/used step-by-step from personal responsibility and decision-making based on - effort with integrity.
It's not a help-me! bend that draws me to these places - but they're conveniently there, and their initial energetic focus over time has made them acquire a soothing vibe of otherworldly captivating remoteness - even if now often artificially induced, maintained by those within and artificially supported by those without.
In the nunnery - directly behind the currently unused table/chair at the door for a religious-guidance nun - is another, heavier-looking chair against the wall, with two metal fire-buckets close on its other side. Not wanting to disrupt the quiet with crashing into these buckets: lifting the hemmed-in chair up and over to the corner where I want to sit needs to be done mindfully. Twice: in and out. Pressure!
I come back next morning. Same chair - same routine. Except - when I take it to exactly the same place as the day before, I notice a 10 fen coin (like a dime here but far less value) on the floor, next to the chair and not there the previous morning.
When I am finished I drop 2 of my coins and this one into the donation-box at hand.
I feel righteous.
Then I return the chair - again without mishap - and leave.
Next morning the coin is back. Same place.
I don't touch it again.
The following morning the fire-buckets are gone - the coin still there.
Xiqi - Inhale
Huqi - Exhale
Shortly before he dies, Leonard Cohen talks about the pleasure he now finds in doing small, seemingly inconsequential things attentively.
Lao Xun Ke
'Gruel' some tale, nicely done ; )
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