"Ho!" laughed the sage, "you stand at my door, prancing and wheedling for me to come out and teach you the art of patience! How absurd!"
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Just found out about the largest "Shòu" in China, carved into a mountainside near here, and am determined to go and see IT with my own two eyes! Call IT a personal pilgrimage of sorts.... ;-)
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So! August 4, 2011, i came from across the world to climb Yuenmen Shan, the "Gateway To The Clouds" - the mountain whereupon was hewn the empire's largest "shòu", completed on 9/9/1569 in honor of a prince's birthday, connoting a wish for the prince to live longer than Yuenmen Shan ITself....
Twelve years ago in 1999, a random vision during zazen inspired one of the most painful experiences i have ever voluntarily undertook, and i was permanently inked with the Chinese longevity character "shòu" in the middle of my chest.... i had no idea of ITs actual meaning at the time, thinking IT to be "good life" or something of the sort, and upon the kind illumination of a calligrapher lady in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, my relationship to this concept began a long, and perhaps fruitful relationship.... Since that time, i have gone through a great deal of introspection and personal clarification about what IT means to live a long life! The initial questions about the contraposed desirability of living a short yet happy life, and a long but dreary life, were answered in my unwavering inability to understand why one couldn't just have a long AND happy life and skip the drama.... My sights have been set for that relative course ever since!
Further questioning has raised increasing awareness of just how much energy is expended upon fruitless labors and flavorful-yet-toxic experiences; i have had to take a slow, hard, long look at all of my personal day-to-day actions and inactions, in a system-wide attempt to uncover exactly where i am self-shortening my life, and if i am indeed doing anything at all to lengthen my years! Of course, the relative futility of focusing on "time" must be taken into account during the process, yet the process ITself has thrown me into facing the difficulties of being embodied, moving through the physical temporal plane, and how to interact with IT in a manner which may be generally understood as "intelligent".... A lot of my choices made under the auspices of "self-medication", or even "self-care", have had to be given either the ol' heave-ho or the ol' overhaul, and my daily dietary and exercise experiences are still sorely lacking to this day....
And so, the "shòu" began slowly reorganizing my life through increasing my attentions to my own details, combined with the exercise of meditation in the slowing down of the body and perceptions in order to better observe the dynamics involved; of course, the cultural background of the character was immediately piquant, and my interest was raised in the longstanding fascination in China with living a long life.... My initial meandering researches brought me into contact with several books on Traditional Chinese Medicine, covering the systems of meridians and qi, and the medical and longevitinous arts of Qigong and Taiji, as well as various methods of massage and sexual stimulation to induce health and long lifespan.... These works were easily cross-referenced with my studies in Vajrayana and Zen Buddhism, and i found to my surprise that the First Patriarch of Ch'an, the hoary and brute Brahmin known as Bodhidharma, had attributed to him a collection of these Chinese systems (i later learned that these were debunked as the work of a 17th-century Buddhist monk of Shaolin).... The seed had been planted, and my interest in both the Chinese culture of the ancient ways and how much of IT remains in China's contemporary technocrazed society began to grow....
My obsession with playing music professionally has prevented me from thinking seriously about world travel for over a decade, all the while imagining that travel would be facilitated by creating a professional touring band.... Twelve years later, with no tour schedule in sight, not to mention the lack of a functional musical project succeeding numerous aborted efforts, semi-functional groupings and unacclaimed shenanigans, the possibility of travel suddenly became very real; and six months of night-shift work and diligent saving later, i was fortunate enough to be holding a tourist visa glued into my passport, and be on a large airplane bound for the land of the Emperors, good-hearted earthy folk, and cheap crap that breaks after a few uses.... CHINA!
After two weeks in Beijing, and some vague plans of traveling to see archaeological sites and climb holy mountains, the concrete immediate plan became a trip to the Qingdao seashore with Qingwei and Li Jun to visit Huabao, and have a little reunion for the intrepid traveling three (Qingwei, Huabao, and Tiffany).... After which, the next plan became to go to Qingwei's home village near Qingzhou and hang out with his family for a few days, and then back to Qingdao to go hang out with Huabao's family for a few days.... So!
This is all to say that i might never have heard about Yuenmen Shan during my entire stay in China, except that we were taken to the Qingzhou History Museum by our kind hosts, and during our rounds of useful education about the province and ancient history of China, Qingwei pointed out a photo on one of the exhibit walls, showing a large red "shòu" on a mountainside, knowing that i would be particularly interested.... i was immediately struck, and upon my voicing my desire to go to see the giant carving in person, was suitably amazed to hear him say that IT was quite nearby! i asked if we might go there, and to my further amazement, he said sure!
And so, two mornings later, on a beautiful hot day where the sun actually poked through the perpetual veil of smog, we and the whole Huang clan were bundled up into the vehicles and driven off into the nearby countryside to the tranquil slopes of Yuenmen Shan, to sweatily climb the winding stairs, the ladies fanning themselves with the long park-ticket stubs the whole way up....
A short time-out at the half-way temple of the God of Longevity provided much-needed shade, rest, views of the sprawling land, and an opportunity for me to do homage in my own way to the face of the concept which has been so useful for so long to so many.... The statue of the god was calm and slightly smiling, yet with an air of seriousness about him - almost like a very kindly pirate! His companion statues, one on either side, were far more jolly: a smiling fellow with a scroll, keeper of the law perhaps, and an old man leaning on a staff, holding a crane, and laughing at the world.... i bowed three times, thanking everything for being so helpful, and asking for the opportunity for me to be helpful as well....
The final push up to the destination was more stairs and hot and sweatiness, and IT was interesting to note that although generally, i would have assumed that i would be making this pilgrimage alone, the reality was that i had an escort of six other folks (Qingwei & Li Jun, Tiffany, Qingwei's Mom, Zhì Mîn and Liu Fan) with me.... A turn around a bend, and then we were there! Big as life and twice as real.... i said hello to this big rock, carved just like me and i just like IT; thanked IT, put my hands in ITs big holes and touched IT, loved on IT, took some pictures with IT, said a fond "zai jian" to IT, and took my leave to head up to the summit with the rest of the folks....
i do not know what this meeting truly means, but IT is a major point of refueling in some way, and IT represents a fullfillment of some sort of bargain made without realizing IT back those twelve years ago.... a smaller cycle within the bigger cycles has closed ITs circuit.... my mark came home, back to a home i never knew IT had....
The winding road upon which "shòu" has led me never seems to lend a glimpse of the road ahead; rather, ITs turns and switchbacks only show the road RIGHT NOW, and keep me indelibly attentive to my self-handling on each particular curve as IT springs into view.... Unlearning all my habits - year by year, day by day, minute by minute, at times seemingly incapable of change - involves processes which have seemed imperceptible, or even non-existent; yet consistent points of note and import distinguish themselves often enough that i no longer doubt my (dreadfully slow) evolution towards a more highly developed "me"! The nature of meditation, observation, and release of attachment have been the most useful practical tools in my kit bag of Self, and all of these are, for me, united under a banner bearing this special concept of longevity and signified by this character of the ancient Chinese script.... i must look back on the road travelled - so far! - with gratitude towards the innumerable gifts that i have been given, and hope that i may be dedicated enough to become one who may pass these gifts on to others! Often i tell curious folks, who wonder what exactly is going on with me and my little shadow, that every time i see IT, IT reminds me to breathe very deeply and very slowly....
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