A Pilgrimage To Song Shan

Song Shan, home of Chan Buddhism - September 1, 2011: On my walk from my hanging ground down to the Shaolin Temple, i saw a half-a-card face down on the side of the road, cleanly ripped lengthwise down the middle.... i turned IT over, and IT was the Card of Duality.... So immediately i have my koan for the day.... "What is half of duality?"

The Shaolin grounds are wide and sprawling, with a long history of martial monks and their Wushu training, supposedly imparted in stretching and stick-fighting forms by Bodhidharma, the 28th Patriarch of Buddhism in India, who sailed across the seas to China in order to spread a particular transmission of Buddhism which became known as Chan; the Shaolin Temple, already established as a Buddhist monastery at the time (c. 500 AD), was the spot where the sage finally came to park his bones and place the monks under his peculiar tutelage.... Many stories and legends expound the fierce persona and uncompromising teaching style of the scowling bearded monk, and the writings i have read, which were found in a sealed cave in Dunhuang and attributed to Bodhidharma himself, have profoundly affected my perceptions and understandings of my own consciousness for many years now.... IT was this connection which led me to make this pilgrimage to Song Shan, and whereas many people travel here in awe of the martial athletic prowess of the fighting monks, i have made this journey rather to see with my own eyes the cave where the Master allegedly spent nine straight years in silent meditation facing a wall, and to pay my respects to a being and a transmission, both of which have profoundly affected my own life from many generations removed and an ocean between....

My walk through the front gates soon brought me to the Shaolin Temple proper, where i hesitated in my journey with some thought about "Well, while i'm here, maybe i should check out the monastery which the Master transformed...." i approached a doorway into the temple, where a gray-suited monk sat at a table with a pen and paper, signing people through the door.... i silently indicated to him that i was interested in entering, and his response was a short "Hmmmm-mmmph!" with a flick of a finger pointing away.... Whereupon i recognized his assistance in keeping me focused, rolled right around, and continued on my original path....

Once past the temple, i continued walking past various Shaolin attractions, until finally seeing a sign indicating that the time was at hand to get on the Dharma Trail.... The path was deserted save for myself, and the solitude of my travel accentuated the solemnity of the moment for me.... The path soon forked, with no signs to indicate directionality; however, the left fork remained on ground level, and the right fork began to climb upwards.... At first, i began heading down the attractively-paved ground-level left path, but several steps brought me to the awareness that although the left path looked more inviting, ingeneral i wanted to be moving up the mountainside.... i retraced my several steps and headed upwards with the trust that this direction would bear fruit, signs or no.... And indeed, heading upwards did not let me down in my attempt to climb to Wuru Peak, as common sense might surmise....

Up and up the path led, and soon the path turned to stairs, and the stairs inevitably led to another little tourist-junk stand.... The girl and guy running the enterprise smiled and bowed to me as i approached, and i returned the bow as best i could while climbing stairs....

In the interests of taking good care of my body on this mountain pilgrimage (having learned SOMETHING from Tai Shan, i hope), i bought one of their overpriced waters to make sure my bottle was full, and an iced tea for good measure.... i sat for a bit to drink, and when i was thanking them and getting up to leave, the guy very politely motioned me back onto my little seat, whereupon he began respectfully giving me good massage on both my hands; i appreciated this gesture, and opened myself to being energetically assisted in this way.... The guy continued up my arms, to my shoulders and back, and then energized my legs, paying special attention to the knees and ankles; all in all, IT was quite refreshing for me, and well-needed.... As he finished, i began to thank him, yet before i could thank him properly, he had handed a book and a pen to me, indicating i should write my name at the bottom of a list of names, which i assumed was a log of pilgrims passing through his stand.... So i signed my name with my usual panache and was about to get up again, when he pointed out to me that there were numbers indicated after everybody's name on the list, and smilingly suggested that i come lie down on a bed in the corner of the tent and have a really in-depth back massage.... He saw me deflate from disappointment that his energy work was not freely given, and asked for 50 qwai for his trouble.... i handed him 20 and continued on up the stairs, making a mental note to not let people begin massaging me unless i become much better acquainted with them first....

As i was being massaged, i noticed a Buddhist nun walk past and up the stairs; as i began my climb, i saw her up ahead of me, slowly climbing with her stick and water bottle.... From afar, i considered her as my honorable guide up the mountain.... She sat on a little plateau-bench for a rest, and we exchanged short bows as i passed her by....

Up and up the climb twisted, the stairs now turning into cragstone paths.... The sun vanished and reappeared from behind the clouds.... And as i climbed, assuming my destination was much further ahead, around a curve i came and found the pilgrimage was at an end....

i made some perfunctory efforts to quiet my mind, standing outside the gates of the small grotto area; i waited for a passing group of teenagers to have their gawking laugh, watching me stand unmoving.... And when my inactivity was no longer amusing, and they moved on down and out of sight, the atmosphere became still and the time was at hand.... With one foot in front of the other, i raised myself over the three stairs, and through the gates i entered into the Master's porchyard....

The grotto was shaded and cool, with an altar in the middle decorated with burning incense and a couple of benches along one wall-side; across from these, the rounded open doorway into the cave ITself was dark and inscrutable.... i placed my satchel and guitar down by the benches, and prepared my offerings i had brought along for the occasion.... For the first time on my journey, i felt entirely appropriate kneeling down on the pad in front of the outside altar and performing the customary three prostrations, pressing my palms together before touching my forehead to the padding in front of my knees.... To my surprise, each time i bowed, a bell-like tone was struck from inside the darkened cave.... i finished my respects of greeting and, feeling the electricity of the moment, approached the Dharma Hole....

From just outside the doorway, i paused to observe the Master's space.... The darkness was interrupted only by several candles burning on another altar area, which presented ITself immediately inside the entrance down two stubby stairs.... The cave was small and filled with the smell of incense from among the flowers and singing-bowl on the altar, and the flickering of the candles illuminated a brown-skinned statue, sitting and staring right into my eyes over ITs bristling wooden beard.... Finally face to face with the rendered visage of a Master long gone, i had to curtail my entrancement in order to pay respect to a small gray-suited lady nun whom i realized was seated to my right on the floor next to the altar, who had been kind enough to tone the singing-bowl for my prostrations.... She returned my bow in a small terse way, and immediately went back to her muttered mantra....

The moments spent between myself and the Master's image, staring into each other's eyes, could not be measured in timeframes.... Out of space and out of time, beyond the material out of which we both were constructed, i felt contact with something from a long time ago which knew exactly why i was here, even if i did not; and with the passing of these moments, i realized that IT was time to enter the Dharma Hole, and complete the paying of respects....

Tentatively down the short steps i came, for i was embarrassed to interrupt the little nun who was very busy with her prayers, her fingers twiddling abbreviated mudras in her lap.... i reached into my pockets and disclosed the two offerings i had brought for the Master's altar: my Colored Onyx pyramid from Nederland, Colorado, which had been the mainstay power stone for my Taro table out on Pearl Street in Boulder, and lastly a set of the twenty-two Triumph Cards (Major Arcana) from a Spanish deck i had picked up in Beijing, fanned out and held together with a black paper-clamp.... i muttered an interruptive apology to the nun, and held out my personal treasures to her; her eyes widened as she saw the unexpected pair of objects before her, and she left off praying to supply me with a small white porcelain plate, upon which i placed my offerings in a symmetric manner.... She nodded to me, and placed the plate neatly upon the altar among the many flowers, candles, incense, and knicknacks....

Before the altar was another soft kneepad, and down upon this i knelt, performing another three prostrations while looking into the Master's wooden eyes each time i rose.... The nun, seated once again, struck the singing-bowl for me with each rise and fall, and the gong-like sound reverberated through the small cave....

i heard the sound of new visitors outside behind me, and knew that my time in the Master's space was coming to a close; in my last moment with the brown-skinned statue, i thanked IT for helping me to understand that i am nothing.... and everything.... all at once, and that i will do whatever i can to spread this understanding and the compassion IT engenders out into the world....

i rose to my feet and bowed to the little nun lady, who nodded back before returning almost immediately to her mutterings.... i left the darkness of the Dharma Hole, smiling at the two ladies waiting on the bench outside in the light, collected my things, and returned to the world outside on the path....

Even though my pilgrimage had been fulfilled, IT seemed proper to complete the journey up the mountain to the Wuru Peak, and so i continued upward on the path, climbing until i found myself coming around the backside of the giant white statue of Bodhidharma which commands ITs presence out over the Shaolin valley.... As i passed round, i noticed a gray-suited monk asleep on the ground next to the statue's base, and took care in my steps not to wake him.... i stared up at the huge white seated figure, and realized that the pagoda a little ways west up the peak would be a much preferable place to park for a spot of reflection....

The pagoda was a wonderful spot of solitude, offering shade from the sun and spectacular views of all directions.... Sitting facing south, i prepared my materials, and taking up my faux-ancient Chinese coin, proceeded to cast for a hexagram of the I-Ching.... The coin rang out eighteen times as IT hit the stone floor, and i was led to Hexagram 26, "Great Buildup" or "The Taming Power of the Great" (depending upon which translation one might refer), pointing me towards greater humility and understanding of how my past influences my present.... i then threw the Taro, for purposes of gaining some direction, and placed the cards in the east, south, west, and north, with a significator in the middle.... They came up as: East - The High Priestess inverted, South - Justice inverted, West - Connection inverted, North - The Magician, Significator - Dominion inverted.... As everything was inverted except the Magician, i began to understand that my current solo direction is not the place where my focus needs to be right now, and allowing transformation through a course set towards more interaction with people is ultimately the point of my travelling.... My life is simply not at ITs most fruitful if i am cloistered away from the world for an overly long period of time, as i have learned many times in the past.... i sat in appreciation of this spot atop Wuru Peak, with the misty clouds passing by all around, thankful for some difficult lessons and wise guidance....

As i sat pondering these things, the sleeping monk came walking up the path towards the pagoda and addressed me, indicating that he wished me to sit and he would administer massage to my hands; i politely declined, not wanting to enter into another money situation, and indicated to him that i had no money for him.... He indicated to me that he didn't want money and that the energy exchange was from his heart, yet i still declined, and continued meditating upon my Taro throw.... He sat down, and there we sat together silently for a while.... i had a thought, and opened up a package of two sesame compressed biscuits and offered him one, which he took with thanks.... We sat and ate our dry crumbly biscuits in silence, after which he came and sat down right next to me, and continued to try to begin massaging my hands.... i again declined, insisting that i had no money for him, whereupon he repeated several times that he was a "Da Mo" monk, pointing down towards the white statue.... i indicated to him that i was also a Da Mo monk, who had come across the ocean to pay respects, and he understood and embraced me as a brother, hugging me on both the left and the right.... We bowed to each other and he took his leave, starting back down the path towards the statue; i was very happy with this exchange, feeling very connected in kinship to this weathered monk, and watched him depart with a good feeling in my heart....

Yet as soon as he was a few steps down the path, the monk stopped and came back to the pagoda; sitting next to me again, he took out a book and showed me pages of people's names with numbers after them, which was now a familiar sight for me.... He took out a pen and wrote the number "50" on his hand.... i looked at him, in wonderment that we had just had this connection and that still he wanted my dough; i declined once again, and he crossed out the "50" and wrote "30" underneath IT.... i shook my head sadly, and he seemed to finally perceive that i was not going to give him any money and that i was a hopeless mark.... He got up and went back down the path, once again out of sight behind the white statue....

After this exchange, i felt the need to cleanse my immediate area with music, and took out the guitar.... i sang Cockroach's (Dan Penta's) song "Piss Poor", with ITs chorus of "Turn away from yourself, fucker", which i hadn't done in a while, and thanked 'Roach with a shout-out over the netherwaves, saying, "i bet you never thought your song would be sung on top of a holy mountain in China!".... i continued playing, noticing that there was a little commotion down by the white statue, and observed a bunch of little kids swarming up from below the statue like ants.... Soon they were heading right up towards me, and when they arrived, they had with them a maybe-twenty-years-old kid with a phone blaring tinny pump-em-up rock music, who proceeded to punch one of the pagoda's wooden columns very hard several times and yell for the straggler kids to catch up.... i cleared away my Taro cards quickly, for within seconds the entire pagoda was taken over by fifteen kung-fu summer campers who did not know what to make of me.... i sat down and began to play along with the music on the guy's phone, doing my version of ripping on the guitar (which is very far from actually ripping and doesn't sound great on my cheesy little Traveller guitar) and they all seemed awestruck and applauded when i finished.... Encouraged, i played "Now Ain't The Time" for them, which they also seemed to love, and finished off with "Georgia On My Mind", which also seemed to make them all very happy, as they kept applauding at random points during these songs.... i hoped that my musical display would indicate to them that we were all studying things that take concentration and discipline to accomplish, but this may or may not not have been communicated....

The counsellor-kid rounded them all up and the group began down the far path, waving and yelling goodbyes to me, and i played guitar to them until they were out of sight....

i finished up my musical session with the slowest "Brokedown Palace" that i've ever played; IT was very beautiful and i hope to be able to play IT that way again for other folks sometime.... During this song, the monk (who, i had decided, was not an official monk of the temple, but rather a homeless guy dressed up as a monk, living up on the mountain) returned up the path and sat down in the pagoda; he began talking loudly to me while i was clearly involved in singing a slow and beautiful song, which i assumed was another request for money and completely ignored, focusing hard on maintaining the mood of the song.... He soon left again, and i finished with a heartfelt thank-you to Song Shan and acknowledgement of my good fortune in all of this experience....

On the way back down the path, i saw a man climbing up the stairs below.... He was carrying a stick over his shoulders, from either end of which dangled heavy cases of bottled water, big boxes full! He was headed up towards the tourist crap stands, to reload their supplies for the next wave of thirsty tourists.... Sweatily, slowly, step by step, he lifted himself and his burden up each step in the hot sun; IT was almost like an ascetic's journey up the mountain, except the conscious driving force behind his labors was money and consumerism.... However, i recognized that he would be rewarded both financially and karmatically, i suppose, because you can't carry so much water such a long way up without IT being a good deed.... i waited respectfully on a stair, as far over as i could go, as he made his slow and exhausted way past me one step at a time....

As the sun began to drift ITs way down towards the mountains, i continued my return to the world of people down the staircase, and the stairs returned once again to stone pathway....

As life would have IT, before i could take my leave of the holy mountain, i was faced with a difficult choice in a difficult situation.... As i was walking, i noticed a large wasp-looking insect (but not a wasp) flopping around on the path; upon closer inspection, i saw that a big chunk of ITs left wing was missing, and the brother-sister was hobbling pitifully, barely able to walk, and flopped over onto ITs back when IT noticed me noticing IT.... IT stayed very still, and i thought that IT might have died just then, but IT soon became clear that IT was still alive, and in a very bad way....

IT seemed to me that life had placed we two together in the same place for me to assist this poor bugger in ending ITs suffering, and i realized that i could do that by stomping IT unceremoniously into the concrete of the path.... Just thinking about doing this was very distasteful to me, and raised the question in my mind: Do i have any right to take over the part of Nature in this matter? Perhaps i have entered this situation to recognize my mandate of allowing things to take their own courses? This resonated with me, and i resolved to simply move the poor thing off the unforgiving road, to a soft vegetated spot on the side where IT could pass away in relative peace....

i accomplished this with a pair of leaves, depositing IT on a plant's wide leaf on the side of the road.... i was happy to have helped for one moment, until the insect almost immediately fell off the leaf onto the dirt below, and writhed around painfully, which caused my question to resurface: am i meant to ease ITs suffering by dispatching IT? Visions flashed through my head of myself lying incapacitated on a road somewhere bleeding to death, in severe pain, and asking a random passer-by to help me end my suffering; i was not at all sure that this is what i was hearing from this insect.... i fretted and realized i had no clear answer here, but now here i was in the middle of this situation....

i decided to pick one card to give me some guidance, and out came the Queen of Wands, which of course made me think of Tiffany.... What would Tiffany do? She would put the thing out of ITs misery, of course.... Very well, i thought, and steeled myself for this course of action....

The insect was now nestled on the dirt in a space between two rocks, just the right size for another rock to fit between.... i chose a rock of proper size, and said my apologies to my friend, along with wishes for ITs speed to the buggy afterlife.... In a solemn moment, i plunged the rock down very hard upon the poor thing, and all was still....

i got to my feet, saying my apologies, and was about to head on my way when something made me pause.... i apologized again to my friend for the disturbance, but i felt the need to lift up the rock just to make sure the deed was accomplished; i leant down and lifted the rock, and.... NO!!! The poor poor thing was not dead, but partially crushed and yet still writhing! In horror, i plunged the rock back down upon IT with a crushing blow, even harder than the first one, and lifted the rock to reveal.... that IT was still alive and moving, and damaged worse and in greater pain but still not dead!

My visions of myself dying in a road flooded back, but this time with the helpful passer-by taking out a club and brutally attacking my helpless form as the manner of dispatching me, cruelly bludgeoning me over and over as my situation went from piteous dying to horrible murder in an instant....

IT took four or five crushing blows to finally get the insect to lie still (as i was pounding IT into the soft dirt, i realized), and i was sickened and horrified by myself and my choices.... One solid foot-stomp on the concrete and this might have been all over, but my waffling and indecision were the cause of this nightmare.... Yet now IT was finished, and the brother-sister laid still finally under the killing stone....

i walked away with regret and tears in my heart, apologizing to ITs spirit and to the universe for my actions, and expressing my willingness to take on the karma for what i had just done.... i apologized over and over again, knowing that IT would do no good, but simply wanting the universe to know how sorry i was....

The lesson for me was to understand that IT is not my business to meddle in the affairs of Nature, unless i receive an UNDOUBTEDLY CLEAR message that i am to involve myself.... IT is not my right to take life from others, and i am not the right hand of Justice.... i carried this lesson down with me off the holy mountain....

As the day came to a close, and the sun sunk behind the peaks of Song Shan, i emerged through the massive front gates of the Shaolin Temple, ignoring the Bu Yao's trying to sell me on hotels for the night or rides to the Longmen Grottoes, and walked the road back towards my hanging home on the mountain.... On the way, i kept an eye out for any TOTM messages i might see along the way, to further clarify my earlier message of "half a duality", and i was not disappointed! During my walk, in order, i saw: The Card of Chaos, a whole Card of Duality, half of a Joker shortways, the Card of Balance halved with both halves sitting right next to each other, a corner of the Card of The Wild Card, and a halved Card of The Backstabber.... With a headful of new thoughts (although breaking with any adherence to the Zen tenet of "emptying the mind"), i climbed back up the hill, as the silent conversation between myself and the cards lasted long into the night....