66. Wealth is like running water

Wealth is like running water, and giving like digging a well. Just as the deeper the well, the more water it holds, the more you give, the more wealth you have.

Master Sheng Yen

Protected: Woah

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Triage

I’m starting to prepare for my move to Beijing. Over the weekend, I sent a couple of boxes of books to where I’ll be working; they should arrive around the same time as I do. I’m giving away dozens more books, and there’s still others that I want to keep, and will be leaving with friends – but a significant number of my friends are in a similar situation, to be honest, so I can’t leave much in Singapore.

That’s just the books; I have somehow managed to acquire a lot of stuff over the last two years, and it’s all got to leave my current apartment before, or as, I do… SO the question for each item is: do I want to take this to Beijing with me?

Wait… you can’t take it with you… I’ve heard that before, somewhere!

A few years ago, I read about a businessman, a consultant perhaps, who lived out of hotel rooms, with only the possessions he could carry in his luggage. At the time, I though that was crazy; now, I realize I’ve come to see it as an ideal. Part of this transition was finally selling my house in the UK; I’d come to hate the way it, and all the objects that filled it, controlled my ability to act on opportunities or take chances. The day I sold the house, having disposed of 95% of the contents, was a happy day indeed. I’m actually enjoying the process of reducing my belongings to a few bag- and box-fuls again.

As it happens, just before I started writing this, I saw evidence that I’m not alone in this POV – Cory Doctorow, he of the goggles, red cape, and balloon, writes on Boing Boing:

Since I left Toronto in 1999 (where I had an illegal, 2,000 sqft warehouse space), I’ve lived in progressively smaller apartments and flats, and I’ve come to love it. I think the key is to be absolutely ruthless about getting rid of stuff that you don’t need anymore — for example, I’ve started to give most of my books to thrift-stores when I’m done with them, buying them as a used book on Amazon for a few pennies if I need them again.

Hear, hear. Cease attachment to objects, and become free…

Week 1 roundup

The calendar in my old Nokia, the one I lost, showed which week it was in the calendar; I find that none of my remaining calendars (Google calendar, Windows, Mac, or ancient backup Nokia) have this function. So, I won’t be using the number of the week much in post headings, at least until I buy a new phone! Anyway, I know for sure that this has been the first week of 2008…

On New Year’s eve, I had an invitation to go to a barbeque. I was a bit dubious at first, as it was at the home of a friend-of-a-friend, and I wasn’t sure I felt up to being polite to strangers; I felt more like being contemplative. Plus, there was a taijigong class that evening. In the end, I decided to skip class and go to the barbie, since I was getting a bit too antisocial.  As it turned out, it was a really good evening, with quite a lot of people I knew or kind-of-knew, and we had a really good time with lots of friendly piss-taking and banter.

Round about 11, I said my farewells and headed up to the temple at Bright Hill. I went to their countdown last year, which wasn’t really to my taste, but I wanted to see in the New Year again to the sound of the 108 chimes of the bell. I got there at just the right time; I went to stand next  to the bell and, while I was debating where to stand, found that the crowd had sort of formed up around me. Next thing I knew, the monks had arrived, and I wound up pretty much facing the abbot as he rang the bell. What I didn’t know last year was that the crowd was largely composed of people who had spent the previous week on retreat at the temple, and this was the culmination of that.

I didn’t stay too long afterwards, and got a cab home. On New Year’s Day, Madam Ge had arranged a farewell meal for Sun Zhi Jun and Mi Jun Pei. We went to a fish restaurant on Marine Parade, and had a nice few hours. Most people had a buffet; as the sole veggie, I was brought a plate of vegetable noodles. There were lots of speeches of appreciation from various students (I was “persuaded” to make one as well, and almost died of embarrassment!), and gifts of tokens of esteem to all of our teachers. The evening finished off with karaoke. I have an deep dislike of karaoke  – I don’t like to sing, and I never know the words or, often, the tune – so I didn’t sing. Five years in Asia, and I’ve never yet sung in karaoke – and I don’t plan on breaking that precedent!

On Wednesday, I went for solo practice, and then to drink tea with Chin Woo friends. I’m trying to cut down on the beer for the new year… Thursday to taijigong class at the Nam Wah Association.

On Friday, Master Zhou took me through a lot of exercises designed to work on loosening up the shoulders, and developing explosive power. My power is currently more of a damp fizzle; more work needed. A good place to start is on getting my posture right; I almost gave myself whiplash at one point as trying to project force forwards from the shoulders shook my neck and head back and forth…

Last night, for the first time in over a year, there was no more baguazhang with Madam Ge. Instead, I headed down to Lavender for my first class in Zen Meditation at the Kwan Yin Chan Lin centre. It was a big class, with around forty students, though I don’t know how many were first-timers; quite a few were return students. There were quite a few foreigners.  It was a very calming session, as Ven. Chi Boon began to outline what Zen is about.

One thing that I found very interesting was when he asked us what Zen is. When some students tried to answer, he pointed out that by using words, we depart from the true nature of zen. How could we answer without using words? As we mulled this over, trying to discover some abstract way to achieve this, intellectualising the problem, an assistant standing behind us suddenly rapped the floor loudly with a stick. The surprise of the noise jerked us back into the moment. That was the answer all along… I found it interesting because I’ve read about this before, just as you are reading it now, and thought I understood – but there was an almost physical sensation as the mind returned, and I hadn’t expected that.

We began to practise seated meditation; I’m nowhere near flexible enough to sit in full lotus position, or even half-lotus. My ankles are very stiff. I suddenly realised that they used to be much looser; after the first meditation retreat I attended in Thailand, I was meditating regularly, and that really stretched my ankles. It was during that period that I first went to Beijing, and began to study baguazhang – I wonder if stopping regular meditation is why I seem to find mud-stepping harder these days? Stiffer ankles…?  Hmmm. The style of meditation we were using is all about breathing from the dantian, which is very good for me – I’ve been finding that difficult recently.
We also spent ten minutes last night in slow walking meditation, where practice in bagua stepping proved useful.  I’m looking forward to the rest of the course! I have a feeling that it will tie in much more closely than I expected with my work on taijigong and bagua…

The unexpected

It’s been an evening of unexpected meetings, news, and insights… Where to start? Well, at the beginning, of course!

I made it to Duxton Plain Park in good time for my lesson with Master Zhou. As I was doing my stretches, a Chin Woo student whose face I vaguely know came up to me to let me know that Master Zhou was running late, and would be there in about fifteen minutes. No problem at any time, but it was fortuitous tonight; just a moment later a monk walked past. I’ve seen him around on a number of occasions; he’s a tall Chinese, in the robes of the New Kadampa movement. I assumed then that the Odiyana Centre was growing, and had brought in a second monk. Up until this summer, I was attending the centre regularly to hear dharma talks delivered by Kelsang Wangchg – who is, like me, from South Wales, and is the same age as me, give or take a couple of months.

Anyhow, this evening the monk was accompanied by Kelsang Lamden, the resident nun, who said hi, so I went over to chat. The monk is Kelsang Tonglam; he’s from Hong Kong, but has lived for some time in the UK – with the accent to prove it! A very nice guy. The big shock for me was to hear that Wangchog has disrobed and returned to lay life. It’s perfectly acceptable in many (most?) Buddhist traditions for this to happen, so it’s not a bad thing, but I truly am astonished; Wangchog always seemed so happy and committed. Still, as Lamden said, people change. Apparently he’s still in Singapore; I’ll make an effort to catch up with him before I go to Beijing.

By this time Master Zhou had arrived, so I said goodbye and got on with the class. We did a lot of work with exercises to try to loosen my over-tight shoulders, and then worked on the form a bit more; mostly repetition, as I’d forgotten most of what I learned last week… Since filming Mi Lao Shi has proved so useful in remembering the bagua needles form, I asked Master Zhou if I could film him going through the set. He was OK with that, but unfortunately my batteries died halfway through. Doh! Next class, perhaps.

Following the class, I went elsewhere in the park, and practised solo. I spent most of the next hour and a half working on the bagua needles form, trying to get it into muscle memory. I still need to find the right diameter circle to walk, in order to finish where I started; sometimes I get it, other times not…. I also went through the CMC-37 a few times, plus the xuan xuan dao. I finished up with one last go at the needles set, and a walk through Zhang Sheng Li’s long xing set – the first bagua set I learned. During these last two, I vaguely noticed someone sit down on a nearby bench to watch; this happens often enough that I pay it no mind. After I’d finished, I was drinking water and getting ready to go meet friends, when I noticed the watcher coming over to talk to me. He was Chinese, a mainlander by his accent, and in his 30s or 40s. He only spoke to me in Chinese, and started correcting me a lot on my posture and stepping. Using slow, simple sentences, and lots of demonstrations, he talked a lot about the use and non-use of force in the internal arts, the use of body structure and angles, the right width of a stance, and a lot more. It was all really good, and he plainly knows his stuff. He was emphatic that I had to loosen up a lot, and was very soft in his applications – soft like a whip…. Very good feedback…. He wouldn’t tell me his name, or what he does. He says he’s a student only of taijiquan, but clearly knows quite a bit about bagua. He wouldn’t even name his taiji style; he said he doesn’t know it, he was just taught like this by a very old man back in China. Eventually, my friends started calling to see where I was. I ignored the calls, but then a search party arrived, and it was time for me to move on. My mysterious teacher then departed, saying only that we would meet again….

San Huang

The Buddhist Channel has an interesting little piece about the San Huang retreat, near the Shaolin Temple. A 48 year-old reporter for the Sunday Times goes to Shaolin, endures a few days of agonizing training, then heads off for the peace and quiet of this small retreat community. Nice.

65. While worry fuels unnecessary torment

While worry fuels unnecessary torment, carefulness breeds security.

Master Sheng Yen

True self, right path

As I mentioned, I went to a Dharma talk last week, given by Zen Master Wu Bong.

The marketing by the KYCL centre was a bit mixed up, I think. It only mentioned a talk on the 20th of December. It turned out that there was a Dharma talk on the 19th as well, and the session on the 20th was really meant as more of a Q&A. Master Wu mentioned that on the previous night there were very few people but many questions; on the 20th, many people but few questions – not surprising, really!

Master Wu teaches through telling stories, which in some cases went over the heads of some in the audience. There was, I think, a pretty eclectic audience; some who knew very little of Zen, some who knew a lot. Of course, what we take away from a Dharma talk like this depends very much on what we take into it. On this occasion, I was struck hard by his teaching that Zen means finding your true path in life, and striving to follow it. What your true path is, is something each individual must choose. In response to a question from a Caucasian (German?) woman, he stressed that it’s not about “feeling” what your true path is, it’s a matter of actively choosing it and then living it and following it with commitment.  The founder of the Kwan Um school movement, Zen Master Seung Sahn, says something very similar in one of his books, perhaps The Compass of Zen. I’ll have to check my copy again.

This got my attention, because I have to say that I’ve recently been feeling intensely insecure about my future direction. As you know, I’m heading off to Beijing in February, and I’m looking forward to it very much. The fact is, though, that it’s for a short-term contract, and I really don’t know what I’m going to do afterwards, or where I’m going to be living. I’m very much concerned with trying to “find my path”, after my MBA didn’t help me to make the career transition I’d envisaged.  Over the past couple of weeks, this has been worrying me a lot. The key takeaway was that Master Wu really emphasised finding the right path, and sticking with it regardless of the difficulties. Find your true self.

Through coincidence, or karmic destiny, I found myself a few days later browsing in one of the second-hand bookshops in the Bras Basah complex. A couple of books almost jumped out at me. One of them was The Buddha, Geoff, and Me by Edward Canfor-Dumas. I’ve seen it before on the shelves at Kinokuniya, but wasn’t tempted then. A quick flick through the pages, though, and I bought it. I even got an unexpected discount on the marked price! It could have been written for me, in the situation I’m currently in, and I got through it in an evening. I’ll give it a couple of days to percolate through my subconscious, and then I’ll read it again. There’s a lot of down-to-earth wisdom, and very recognizable characters in this book! It’s actually a novel, written in a memoir style; at first, I was taken in, and though it actually was autobiographical.

These two events have actually been pretty helpful to me, as they have resonated so strongly with things that were already on my mind, and ideas I was already juggling with. How to actually turn these into a path I can follow? That’s the challenge for 2008…

Oh, and to answer the question that was on my mind, Master Wu Bong is not a monk. In the Kwan Um school, both lay people and monks can be Zen Masters.

Dharma talk tomorrow

Tomorrow is a public holiday in Singapore, and the Kwan Yin Chan Lin Zen Centre have organised a dharma talk. This will be delivered by Paris-based Zen Master Wu Bong, who is originally from Poland. The location is at the Centre, near Lavender MRT station, from 7:30pm.

Coincidentally, tomorrow’s bagua class with Master Sun has been moved to the morning, which leaves me free to attend the talk.

Looking at Master Wu Bong’s profile, I see that he lives in a Zen Centre with his wife and children. I’ve noticed that a number of the Kwan Yin movement’s Zen Masters are married; I still haven’t worked out whether this means there’s a difference between “Zen Masters” and monks, whether one can be both simultaneously, or what… Guess I’ll try to ask someone at the centre tomorrow.

More zen meditation in Singapore

I’m noticing a lot of visitors coming to my post Zen Meditation in Singapore, which is a year old now. If you’ve come here looking for information on classes in zen, the Kwan Yin Chan Lin centre will be running a six-week course starting on January 5th 2008. Details here (PDF file).