of mice and men often go awry”, as Rabbie Burns reminded us.
Since the weekend, I’ve come down with a heavy cold in full gurgling glory. I don’t think it’s a good idea to practice in this condition – not sure how abdominal breathing would affect my system when I have a nose full of goo, so my training schedule is suspended for the duration.
Bleh. Achoo!
Stay at ease under all circumstances, and give whenever conditions allow.
Master Sheng Yen
Seeing as I wasn’t able to access my funds from Thailand, I’ve got most of of my holiday budget left to play with. So, yesterday, I finally got round to buying Yang Jwing-Ming’s Emei Baguazhang book. I’ve heard good things about it, but I’ve always been put off a) by the high price (S$79!) and b) because it’s usually shrinkwrapped, so I couldn’t see what I’d be getting for my money. Yesterday, I found an unwrapped copy in Borders, and after looking through it for a while, decided I definitely needed it in my bookcase!
Right now I’m in between jobs; in fact there’s a gap of a month. With one week gone in Thailand, what to do with the rest of my time?
Partially inspired by Mike Garofalo’s list of 11 things to do in 1001 days, here are my goals for the remaining 3 (well, 2 1/2 now) weeks:
Sounds like a lot, but it’s actually quite possible, I think – I’m not coming at any of these from a standing start, except for 5 and 6. 1 is already almost done, I’m making good progress on 5, 7 and 8, and slow progress on 3 – and that’s just since I came back from Bangkok! Wish me luck 
One topic that came up in my conversation with the nun and the Englishman was the difference between the types of Buddhism – Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana, and Zen. This led on to a short discussion of Bodhidharma, and the Shaolin temple.
Of course, many people with a reasonable interest in martial arts and/or Buddhism will have some idea of the history of Shaolin. However, it seems very few people know much about the Shaolin temple of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
I learned something about this while I was in China, about how Jet Li in the film The Shaolin Temple massively revived interest in the temple and its history, and how the place went from empty ruin to super-commercialized cash-in very rapidly. That was the story of the 80s and 90s.
In the late 90s, a controversial new abbot took charge. I heard widely different stories about Shi Yongxin, who cleared away all of the martial arts schools, and took a strong, MBA-style, management approach, including taking legal action against companies worldwide for infringing on the Shaolin copyright.
The Buddhist channel has a profile of him here. It highlights the two views: either he’s a well-connected traditionalist, who’s restoring the temple to its true Buddhist roots, or else he’s a shady, well-connected opportunist, living the high life whilst depriving others of their livelihood. I encountered both views while I was in China. I bought a book in the Dashanzi Art District, titled Monks in Shaolin by photographer Hei Ming. It’s strongly pro-Abbot. On the other hand, my friend and teacher Xiaoyan was very upset that the Abbot had driven away the martial arts schools, and had a low opinion of the abbot’s lifestyle.
Who can say? At least one person has written an eyewitness account. In Borders yesterday, I found a book by an American journalist, Matthew Polly, titled American Shaolin. He went to the Shaolin Temple in the early 90s, and studied martial arts full-time for a couple of years (I’m jealous!). At S$45, I didn’t buy it, though I may still do so. Anyway, I was interested enough to Google him, and through his site found that he’d written a 4-page article on Slate magazine. It’s about how he went back to Shaolin, ten years after leaving, and his reaction to the changes he encountered. After reading that, I’m more in the abbot’s camp, to be honest: although I’m sure that Shi Yongxin will remain controversial, if he is actually restoring Shaolin as Buddhist centre, and reclaiming the name from unconnected opportunists, I think he’s doing the right thing.
Well, that was fun. Four nights in Bangalamphu, the old aristocratic area and still pretty old-fashioned. I stayed in my usual guesthouse, with a view over a pretty Wat, with lots of trees, and monks’ quarters (I think) built in traditional Thai style. The street’s only a block away from Khao San Road, so a haven for backpackers.
It was really good to get away from Singapore and my usual routine for a while, with no particular need to get anything done.
Some impressions and things that flashed past:
Also, due to the change in routine, the heat, and introspection: sleepless nights, listening as the sounds of revelry died out to be replaced by the soft murmer of Thai conversations, and at last, only by birdsong.
This being the first time I’d stayed longer than a night, I did a fair bit of sightseeing – the Royal Palace, the Emerald Buddha, Chinatown. Thailand’s much cheaper than Singapore, so I had planned to do shopping, but a credit card malfunction put paid to that, and severely limited my spending!
That turned out to be a REALLY good thing – bad card, good karma I guess! It convinced me to check out the meditation classes at Wat Mahathat – something I’d been thinking about anyway, but might not have done if my cashflow hadn’t dried up… The monastery’s Section 5 is apparentlyvery wel-known for teaching foreigners about meditation (the page that links to is only in Thai, btw).
I went on two consecutive days. On the first day, I joined a two-hour class in Vipassana meditation. It was different to the version I’ve previously learned at the Goenka retreats, but with the same aim. The class was run by a nun from the north of Argentina. Afterwards we had a long talk, along with the other student – a shaven-headed young Englishman who was new to Buddhism. Among many other things, we discussed the absence of an individual soul in Buddhist thought; instead there’s a “stream of intention” (not a good explanation, but that’s my fault), which is the sum of all your cravings, actions, and habits of behaviour. This is so deep we aren’t conscious of it – but this is the root of all the times we say “I don’t know why I did that”, or “I can’t help it, it’s just the way I am”, or “I didn’t want to do it, but I couldn’t help myself”. After what happened the Friday night before I left, that made a lot of sense, and kicked off what I hope will be a positive change in attitude – and persuaded me even more that vipassana meditation is the best (and only?) way to clear out these negative habit patterns…
The other positive consequence was that I went on the second day to do solo meditation. Someone else was doing the same: a woman a bit younger than myself. We both stopped at 11am, since section 5 has lunch from 11-1. We spoke briefly over the free lunch provided by the monks and nuns. She was Japanese, but had spent 5 years in India studying, and becoming qualified in, classical Indian dance. She’d set up her own school in dance and yoga back in Japan, and had come to Thailand to learn more about Vipassana.
I had to check out by 12, so couldn’t stay long. But… all the way back to my guesthouse, I was thinking that this was someone really interesting, and wouldn’t it be a shame to never see her again. So, after checking out, I went back to the monastery to resume the conversation. We talked for longer, before I had to leave again to head off to the airport. Actually, we’d talked so long that I’d missed the last possible bus that could have got me there in time, so I had to take a taxi 
It was worth it, though – for whatever reason, it’s been a long while since I met someone so interesting. Actually, only a few since I moved from Beijing…. Hopefully we’ll be able to keep in touch!
Oh, and one more thing! From the same Youtube contributor, a very early film of Cheng Man Ching demonstrating his taijiquan form:
I just have to post one more thing before I go off-line: this video of bagua master Liu Zhiqing giving a performance of a bagua sabre set. According to the writeup by the person who contributed this to Youtube, Liu was 100 years old when he gave this performance…
I’m flying to Thailand in a few hours. I’ll be back next weekend; I don’t expect to be blogging in the meantime. See you in a week!
To take on tough tasks, one must prepare to tough out complaints, and to be in charge is to be in for criticism. Yet complaints help foster compassion and patience, and criticism often holds golden advice.
Master Sheng Yen
I’m going to be attending the spear form classes, I hope! Looking forward to it…
Madam Ge is a bagua lineage holder through Grandmaster Sun Zhijun, who is shown demonstrating a bagua spear form in this YouTube clip. I’m pretty certain that this is the same form that Madam Ge will be teaching.
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