Childhood

It is dinner time.

Grandpa and I sit down as Grandma puts the dishes out. 

Big Yellow, the neighbor’s dog,

runs in from the front door. 

He is on time, 

always.

Putting his warm chin on my lap, 

he looks at me with his watery eyes.

We have our secret

under the table.

If I get caught up eating

for too long,

Big Yellow reminds me with his paw, 

tapping quietly.

Frogs are croaking 

in the watery fields outside,

calling me.

Finishing my last bite, 

I put down my chopsticks.

I chase after the fireflies under the stars,

and Big Yellow chases after me.

A year later

Every day, I walk home

alone

after school. 

Every day, Big Yellow sits

by a narrow log bridge.

How happy he is upon seeing me!

Together, 

we walk home. 

Another year passes

Across a big river,

Mother comes on her bike

to take me to another home.

“Bye, Grandpa! Bye, Grandma!”

With me sitting on the back seat,

Mother rides away on her bike.

Big Yellow runs after us.

“Go home, Big Yellow!” I cry out.

But he keeps on running, 

his tongue hanging out.

Big Yellow runs 

and runs,

until the big river blocks him.

The boatman kicks him away 

from our small ferry boat. 

On the riverbank,

he groans and paces, 

and becomes smaller and smaller

through my watery eyes.

 

[When I was little, the residents in our Chinese village kept their front doors open all

day. During meal times, my family would greet the villagers who were passing by with,

 “Have you eaten? Join us for a meal!” It was simply a courtesy. Rarely would any 

villager actually come in and sit down to eat with us; but, once in a while, someone

 would accept the invitation. Dogs and cats roamed free. Some of them were fed by 

multiple families, but their original owners were acknowledged by other villagers.]

(Also published in Mirror Flowers Water Moon, Fall 2020, page 14) 

A Tribute To My Father

February this year on my birthday, I video called my parents in China. During the call, my mother carried my father on her back to the couch closer to the screen so that I could see and hear him more clearly. When she put him down, his heavy bones landed motionless on the couch. Over the past twenty years of suffering from Parkinson’s disease, my father had gradually lost his flexibility and strength. My mother cheered up the occasion by talking about some of the “adorable” things that I did as a child. At age five, rain or shine, I walked fifteen minutes to a public bathhouse to bathe myself every day. It became my then daily ritual. Slowly, my father turned his head toward the screen, looked into me, and raised his hand to wave... A week later, he passed away.

I wondered about what kind of life my father would have enjoyed if he weren’t sick with Parkinson’s disease for two decades. He would’ve liked to travel, but he was bound to a walker and then a wheelchair for the last ten years. A few years ago, my brother took my parents to Beijing to have a specialist see my father. While in Beijing, they took a long train ride to the Great Wall. Finally, they were at the foot of the Great Wall, and my mother was so ready to climb along the wall while my brother accompanied my father, who was in his wheelchair watching. But my father began to shake violently with intense pain and they had to cut the trip short and return to the hotel.

My father would’ve liked to play erhu—a two-stringed Chinese musical instrument played with a bow—but he couldn’t hold it without shaking; he would’ve liked to present himself respectably, but he couldn’t stop drooling; he would’ve enjoyed food, but he gradually lost his ability to taste, to chew, and to swallow; he would’ve loved to go to the public bathhouse often, if not every day, but that too became impossible.

Back at home in China, my brother took care of the funeral arrangements. Our relatives all gathered. It made no sense for me to fly back due to the mandatory two-week COVID quarantine period after landing. My mother kept a three-night vigil alongside my father’s body at the funeral home. She recited Amitabha Buddha’s name without stopping and didn’t feel tired. I was told that my father looked very peaceful and even beautiful at the funeral home. I called my mother every day to see how she was doing.

“It’s hard to come back to an empty house without your Baba. Even the air is different. There is no longer a feeling of warmth,” Mother said. After taking care of my father for so many years, she still regretted what she hadn’t done to possibly prolong his life. Through the daily calls, I began to have clearer mental pictures of what they had gone through together. One night, my mother changed the sheets and my father’s nightclothes three times. They recently fell together when my mother carried my father out of the bathroom. Sometimes, my father held his need to get up or change in order to let my mother rest a little at night. A week before his passing, my father missed his cousin who lived nearby. My mother pushed him in the wheelchair all the way to his cousin’s, but he was not home.

I closed my eyes. How readily my emotions swarmed upon a mental image—my parents and maternal grandfather were standing outside the bus, on which I was heading to college in Nanjing. When the bus began to move, they waved goodbye. My mother followed the bus for a while, waving to me until I could no longer see her. Seeing me off at the bus station has been a “significant” recurring family event for many years. It is “significant” in the sense that the goodbye could be the last one, like the one from my grandfather, who a few months later sadly entered the hospital for the final time.

Six years ago when my mother had a medical procedure done on her stomach and my father’s mobility continued to worsen as his Parkinson’s disease progressed, I flew back to China to visit. After a sweet two-week visit, I was leaving again. On the day of my departure, my father surprised me by offering me a ride to the bus station. My mother didn’t think it was a good idea. Then he wanted to come along on my mother’s electric tricycle to the bus station, but there was no room. As my mother and I were about to set off, I heard a “Hey!” from behind. My father was standing behind the kitchen window waving. I smiled and waved back, holding back my tears. My father seldom expressed his feelings, but whenever he revealed his care, it would hit me hard on my soft spot.

In later years, when he became mostly immobile, my father saw me off while lying in bed. He would hold my hands and say, “When you come home next time, Baba may not be here.” To dam the flood of emotions whirling inside, I consciously kept that possibility in perpetual suspension.

During our last call, my father looked at me and sang the birthday song in his no longer clear voice. I sang with him. I told him how much I appreciated the monthly journals such as Children’s Literature and Science for Youth that he subscribed to for my brother and me to read when we were in elementary school. Every time a new issue arrived, my brother and I would fight to be the first one to read it. During the call, I told my father a story in the Children’s Literature journal that made my brother and me laugh hard for a long time. It was a story about two pigs taking turns to help each other get out of a deep hole in the ground, only to find one of them still remaining in the hole after repeated efforts. My father was quite amused by the story and laughed uncontrollably. Actually, I wasn’t sure if he was laughing or crying. I only saw tears rolling down his face.

For years, I have tried to clean up my past with my parents. I once apologized to my father for lashing out at him so cruelly when he biked all the way to my boarding high school and brought me some home-cooked dishes my mother made. In my depressed teen angst, I regarded my parents’ love as an insult to my existence. My teenager behavior may be understandable, but one incident five years ago still pains my heart today.

I came home to visit that year and heard that my father wanted to play ping-pong, but everyone thought it was merely a fantasy due to his physical limitations. I said I would take him to play. The next day, I pushed him in a wheelchair to the community center. With one hand holding onto the ping-pong table tightly and the other hand hitting the ball, he played with me. Soon, his physical disability seemed miraculously gone and he began to beat me in the game! I consider myself a pretty good ping-pong player, but I could barely keep up with him. An hour passed and he was still not tired, but I was. The next day, at the same time, we went again. My father amazed me even more with his physical stamina.

On the way home that day, something somehow triggered me. My old judgment of my father cast a shadow over me again. My mother’s words from many years back rang again in my ears: “The most painful thing in my life is having married your father.” On the third day, when my father came to my room and said, “Daughter, let’s go,” I said I was tired and pretended to sleep. After a while, when I came out of my room, my father was gone! My heart started pounding. My mother had just told me about the incident not long before when my father went out on his own and fell in the middle of the street, drawing a crowd and the ambulance. After frantically looking for him for a while, I rushed to the community center. There he was, peacefully watching others playing. He rolled himself there in the wheelchair! I let out my complaints and frustration through a suppressed voice. I don’t remember if we played that day or not. After that day, he never mentioned playing ping-pong again. His mobility decreased and his condition worsened with frequent shaking day and night.

The pain that I may have caused for my father then gnaws at me now. In the morning bowing practice, I contemplated the phrases used in Hoʻoponopono—an ancient Hawaiian practice: “I’m sorry; please forgive me; thank you; I love you.” Waves of tears swelled up in my eyes.

Upon hearing the news of my father’s passing, the residents at the DRBU-Sudhana Center joined me in the Buddha Hall to recite the Great Compassion Mantra twenty-one times. The Berkeley Buddhist Monastery held an online memorial service for him, which gave me a rare opportunity to reconnect with my friends from high school, college, and the other phases of my life on both sides of the Pacific. Two other students at Sudhana Center and I began to read the Earth Store Sutra every day. The sutra illuminates the deeper meaning of filiality through the great vows of Earth Treasury King Bodhisattva. Each day, we dedicate the merit of reading the sutra to all the parents of the past, present, and future, to world peace, and to ending the pandemic.

All these unexpected acts of kindness have gently strengthened me as I live through this human experience of losing a parent. As a mixture of emotions of gratitude, sadness, forgiveness, and compassion continue to ebb and flow, I feel more connected to my father now than when he was alive. Although he was not a Buddhist, my father learned to chant the name of Guanyin Bodhisattva after hearing me chant. It’s comforting to still hear him chanting in my ears, “Namo Guanshiyin Pusa.” The remaining wall between us—a wall that was built with judgements and defensiveness—continues to disintegrate.

My birthday call with my parents ended when another of my father’s seizure-like episodes began. Just before he was about to lose control of his physical movement, or possibly even his consciousness, my father managed to reach into his pocket and take out a small plastic-wrapped cake and extend it to me. My mother said while helping him, “Baba said happy birthday.” That birthday wish became our final goodbye. I hold in my heart that my father’s final birthday wish to me was his way of saying that he was happy that I was born and he appreciated that I was his daughter. I am grateful knowing that being a daughter is a lifelong practice, which will continue to nourish my core at the root level.

Every day during evening ceremony, I video call my mother and set my phone up with her onscreen in the corner of the Buddha Hall at Sudhana Center. She follows along with the ceremony, recites Amitabha Buddha’s name, and circumambulates in the secluded balcony where she long ago set up her altar at home. Every day on that tiny balcony, she makes an incense offering to the same one-foot-tall Buddha that she has been bowing to since I could remember as a child. Whenever we happen to pass by our digital screens at the same time while circumambulating, we glance at each other and share a gentle smile.

(Also published in Mirror Flower Water Moon, Spring 2021, p. 21)

Authenticity in Virtue

 [This essay "Authenticity in Virtue" is drawn from the reflections intrigued by the book, The World as Will and Idea, by Arthur Schopenhauer, a German philosopher. It was read in Comparative Hermeneutics class at DRBU]

Imagine living without the expectation to be virtuous; society doesn’t govern your behavior, friends and family only wish that you enjoy yourself freely, and you don’t hold the belief that doing good deeds is the path to Heaven or the Pure Land. In short, you are not burdened with the obligation to be a virtuous person. Are you still inclined to be a virtuous person anyway? By “virtue,” I mean genuine goodness.

In The World as Will and Idea, Schopenhauer states that it is foolish to expect a moral and ethical system to inspire virtue and nobility in humankind. He writes, “Virtue cannot be taught any more than can genius” (175). He goes on to state, “The will, considered purely in itself, is without knowledge and is merely a blind, irresistible impulse,” and that life, the visible phenomenal world, is “only the mirror of the will” (176-177). Then the true virtuous acts experienced in life must arise from free will. But before jumping to the conclusion that humans are innately good, it must be acknowledged that immorality also arises from the same will.

To borrow the analogy of the inner garden, imagine virtue as the beautiful flowers, and immorality as weeds. Using this analogy leads to a series of questions: How do I tend my inner garden under the influence or even dictation of a blind and impulsive will? Is the will subject to change? Can virtue be cultivated in the garden of will?


VIRTUE and WILL

Why do all sentient life forms, great or small, want to live? Have you ever observed ants? One time, the busy ants around an anthill caught my attention. They hurried in and out of the entrance frantically as if a supreme guest was due to arrive. The route set out by the ant hunter-gatherers stretched far. Out of curiosity, I walked off the road and followed their path, but I could not see the end of it. My eyes settled on one ant, which carried a large white shell, almost three times larger than its own body. Under the sizzling sun, that ant went up and down, unceasingly, over dry leaves and twigs (talk about a bumpy road!). It was truly a long journey home. Up and down...up and down...up and down.... I began to root for that ant while following along. Finally, home was close! As that ant approached the entrance of the anthill, no one was waiting there to applaud its admirable endeavor (though it was heroic to me). After the ant quietly disappeared into the entrance, I looked back at the trail. Several ants were approaching home, all carrying shells or grains much larger than their own bodies. Though there was no fanfare to herald their arrival, they were determined. What motivates the little ants to work so hard?

Schopenhauer would probably answer that it’s “the will to life,” which gives the ant the key to the actions of its body, and its body is just a condition of the knowledge of its will (32, 34). “What the will wills is always life,” and “life is nothing but the representation of that willing.” “The will to life” could mean an innate force that propels sentient beings toward their vital existence to the best of their knowledge or their instinct.

To use my own mundane existence as an example: If I am thirsty, I’ll look for water; if I am hungry, I’ll look for food; if I feel fear, I’ll flee or fight. I breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, in a rhythm that’s not agreed upon based on my conscious consent. In a sense, I am being kept alive. The “will to life” is in me, in you, and in all sentient beings. Do sentient beings run on separate wills to life? In other words, I’m led by my “will to life,” you by yours, and they by theirs? If this is so, the world would be a competitive, conflicting, and chaotic place with all the separate “wills” competing to run the show by controlling their respective “puppets,” a myriad of living forms.

True, there is no shortage of violence and hypocrisy in this human world competing for control, but virtue, or genuine goodness, also exists, even prevails in some places. There must be an innate pull in human instinct toward virtue. If a virtuous act is stripped of the karmic veil, the future rebirth fantasy, social norms, and mere rote courtesy, what is still left in it that would motivate us to be virtuous? To put it more plainly, would you lend a hand to a complete stranger purely for the sake of the stranger’s wellbeing? Why?

Years ago, when I traveled alone in central Italy, I boarded a train as the only passenger. Neither the train operator nor the conductor spoke a language I could understand. I asked nonverbally if I could sit in the operator's room upfront to watch the train tracks, they agreed. It was late at night when I was dropped off at a small dark station where there was not a single soul in sight. I could hear wild animals howling in the distance. Without being asked, the operator and the conductor both got off the train and made a long phone call communicating with my local contact to make sure that someone was coming to pick me up. Then they left.

Why wouldn’t they leave me without knowing I would be safe? They treated my safety as if it were their own. In their voluntary effort to help me, I saw no sign of any religious fervor or a rote gesture of courtesy, but only authenticity. That authenticity must come from “a direct intuitive knowledge, which can neither be reasoned away, nor arrived at by reasoning” (232). It has to be a deeply felt inner movement that’s beyond a view, an idea, or a sense of guilt or fear.

It’s very unlikely that I would meet the train operator and the conductor again, but their kindness, with no strings attached, will always stay in my heart. Stories like that consistently bring me back to the vision of humanity tending to a collective inner garden of virtue. Granted, there is no shortage of weeds, but the same applies to the flower seeds. Imagine that all sentient beings sow their flower seeds in this collective inner garden, and water them together. With all the attention continuously going to the growth of the flowers, a beautiful garden will take shape with all kinds of flowers flourishing, fragrance permeating the air, bees and butterflies hovering.

VIRTUE and the WEB of LIFE

What enables sentient beings to connect with one another? Schopenhauer uses a lantern metaphor to illustrate the relationship between a multitude of phenomena and “the will to life.” “Just as a magic lantern shows many different pictures, but it is only one and the same flame which makes them all visible.” There is only one will that manifests itself in “the endless diversity and variety of the phenomena” (79). If there is only one will to life, then all phenomena and beings must be interconnected in a way. That means to judge if an act is virtuous or not, we must assess it among all things in the web of life.

For example, I cannot say I’m virtuous by offering a hungry homeless person a sandwich everyday purchased with the money that I stole from another person. In Responsible Living, Dr. Ron Epstein tells a story about a Chinese-American woman who ran a lucrative business with her husband to sell barbecued poultry in San Francisco Chinatown, and meanwhile made respectful offerings daily at a temple for years, but still couldn’t escape her fate of being barbecued to death with her husband in a fire like fried chickens in their own apartment (Epstein 20). Therefore, true virtue must arise from the consideration of the whole web of life where all beings and phenomena are interwoven.

Then, does virtue have a limit? Someone might say, “I can only be virtuous to this extent or be kind to this many people in my own community. I’ve reached my limit.” Should virtue have a limit? Schopenhauer thinks not, for “according to the true nature of things, everyone has to regard all the suffering of the world as his own...as long as he asserts life with all his energy” (218). “Everyone has to regard all the suffering of the world as his own.” What a bold statement! Does “has to” mean any one of us has no other choice, but must pay attention to all the suffering as if they were our own?

Years ago, I visited a Chinese environmental filmmaker who was filming the plastic recycling facilities in a Chinese village (Film: Plastic China). The whole village was like a giant dump, with dead fish floating in a dark foamy river, the smell of trash and burned plastics thick in the air, and running water that was unsafe for cooking. In the piles of plastics processed at one family facility, I saw brands from Trader Joe’s, Safeway, and Whole Foods. How did they get here when these stores are located on the other side of the planet? After the plastics were washed, the dirty water went right back into the river. Some of the non-recyclable plastics were burned by the rice fields causing black smoke to rise high into the sky. In the middle of the village stood a tall billboard, which read The Center for Renewable Resources. The billboard boasted images of tidy facilities, green trees, and a beautiful blue sky. But the sky above the billboard was gray, and the village was overrun with garbage.

My experience in that village shook me deeply. Later, when I read about a whale found dead on Stinson Beach north of San Francisco, its stomach full of plastics, I cried in the quiet night. The pain was deep. I became aware that so much production, waste, competition and violence are due to our greed, not necessity. I began to think critically about material goods; where they come from and where they end up when no longer considered useful. How much harm has been caused during their extraction, manufacture, consumption, and discard? Even a single-use plastic straw could contribute to the death of ocean creatures. Thus, true virtue goes beyond friends and family in our own community, beyond the human-centered civilization or de-civilization, but must extend to all beings in the web of life.

CONCLUSION

If Schopenhauer is correct, virtue cannot be taught. It exists even when there is nothing to be gained by being virtuous. It exists outside of social or religious connotations and burdens because Schopenhauer’s virtue springs from his concept of will and “the will to life.” He interprets life, the entirety of the visible phenomenal world, as the manifestation of the will, a “mirror of the will.” All the true virtuous acts in the world must come from that will, not being imposed by teachers, religion, or other constructs of society.

The phenomenal world and virtuous acts that individuals perform within it are all connected under one will in the web of life. It is all in the same garden. Within this interconnectedness, can an individual be authentically virtuous or be virtuously authentic? Clearly there is no simple answer, but the inquiry into the authenticity in virtue itself may help humanity open up more to the potential of cultivating a collective inner garden of virtue and living in harmony with all sentient beings in the web of life.

(This essay was also published in Mirror Flower Water Moon (鏡花水月), Fall 2019, p.47)

Works Cited

Schopenhauer, Arthur. The World as Will and Idea. Berman, David, editor. Berman, Jill, translator. J.M. Dent, The Everyman Library. 1995

Epstein, Ron. Living Responsibly. Explorations in Applied Buddhist Ethics -- Animals, Environment, GMOs, Digital Media. Buddhist Text Translation Society. 2018

Film: Plastic China, WANG Jiuliang, 2018.

The Inner Journey During a Guan Yin Retreat at CTTB

Praying for Parents
During the couple of weeks leading to the Guan Yin retreat, I took it seriously to prepare, mentally and emotionally. I made up my mind to do the noble silence, meaning no texting, no phone call, and no talking. I sent out emails to tie up loose ends, made calls to finish the unfinished conversations, and said my temporary goodbyes and delayed apologies. In a sense, it was a bit like preparing for my upcoming “death” on a tiny scale, so that I could enter the session with a less distracted mind. The video call with my parents in China was the grand finale of this pre-Guanyin preparation.  My mother was especially supportive and said she would recite Guanyin’s name in China too. In the first two days in the session, my attention was on sending prayers to my father who is suffering from the late stage Parkinson’s Disease, and my mother who is the 24/7 caregiver of my father, and who has led a life serving her family since she was about 8 years old. If I had any merits and virtue through my cultivation, I would like to offer them first to my parents, who made this physical life of mine possible. I even brought their photo with me and put it in my pocket during the session in the Buddha Hall. It was comforting to feel their presence with me.

Guan Yin’s Name Transforms Afflictions
As I turned attention to my own inner process, what surprised me was that I uncovered some bitterness underneath my kind persona toward others, no matter how subtle that bitterness may be on the outside. For example, in a very subtle way, I judged those who took too much food (I do that myself), thinking they were greedy; I felt bothered by those who walked at their own pace despite the big gap between her and the person before her during walking recitation, thinking they were arrogant. What’s worse, I had to face again my ongoing jealousy of different people throughout my life. Watching my own judging and comparing mind, it felt like I was living in a house, with energy constantly leaking out. Imagine all the energy that I could’ve saved from false thinking and fault-finding! These ongoing afflictions, though seemingly subtle, really became big obstacles in my cultivation. Without grasping or resisting, I would not be carried off easily by those afflictions, if I focus on reciting Guanyin’s name. If I recite Guan Yin’s name from my dantian--the source of my qi--continuously, I could evoke the four qualities of Guan Yin Bodhisattva from the source within me: kindness, compassion, joy, and giving. 

With these intentions, I recited, and recited, and I began to see that every fault I found in others, I have or had in me. When I grasped the external objects, the faults or strengths in others became amplified, and I became attached to those amplified focus points, and no longer see the whole truth. I began to see again my own faults throughout my life, harming those around me out of my own suffering from shame, insecurity, fear, pride, low self-esteem, prejudice, resentment, selfishness, and more. We seem to harm each other when our suffering inside overflows. Transforming my own afflictions could be my best service to the world. In the text of the Sixth Patriarch (Huineng), there are many lines pointing to these habitual afflictions and the way to break free and transform, “affliction is itself bodhi...obstacles of their wrong views are formidable and the roots of their afflictions go deep...when you contemplate and illuminate with a wisdom that clearly penetrates both inside and outside, you can discern your original mind. Recognizing your original mind is the fundamental liberation.”

Repentance and Renewal
During the walking recitation, some memories came to me. Two years ago, when I visited my parents in China, my father wanted to play pingpong. I said I would take him, but no other family member believed that he could still play. I pushed him in a wheelchair to the pingpong place. I helped him get out of the wheelchair, and he stood by the pingpong table with one hand holding onto the table to keep himself steady, the other hand hitting the ball. He was still so good! I could barely keep up with him. It was like a miracle! And he was tireless. After two decades of being physically disabled, I forgot to think how much he wanted to move and live like a normal person. Then the next day, the same time, he wanted to go again. He was so alive in those two days! But on the third day, when he knocked on my door as I was taking a noon rest, I felt tired and didn’t want to go. After a while, when I came out of my room, he was gone. He walked himself to the pingpong place by pushing his own wheelchair! When I found him, I let out my complaints of him walking out on his own. After that day, he never came out to play pingpong again. His condition instantly become worse. But what happened in those two days? Maybe he was happy that finally someone believed in him and accompanied him to do what he used to love to do? There is no room for me to go into the details for the complicated reason why I didn’t want to go with him on the third day. But oh, my heart ached greatly during the walking recitation, especially when I thought of my unkind words toward him on that third day. Tears brought out more incidents in my life when I let down someone, hurt someone, or didn’t care. One after another, each hit me back hard. 

“Na Mo Guan Shi Yin Pu Sa. Na Mo Guan Shi Yin Pu Sa. Na Mo Guan Shi Yin Pu Sa....” I continued to chant with hundreds of others. Na Mo (or Namo) means homage (the same root as Namaste), bowing with the highest respect. Guan Shi Yin is the longer version of Guan Yin, or Kwan Yin (the Goddess of Great Compassion), and it literally means listening to or contemplating the cries of the world. Pu Sa means bodhisattva, (in Mahayana Buddhism) a person who is able to reach nirvana but delays doing so out of compassion in order to save suffering beings.

 
But without making the vow not to make the same mistakes again, repentance doesn’t stop the future cycle of the same suffering. I’m still continuously repeating the same patterns of harming others and hurting myself. The same habitual patterns over and over, even if I’ve been repenting for some years. From this moment on, I need to catch all my negative thoughts towards others before they could go out to do harm to anyone. The Sixth Patriarch emphasized both repentance and renewal. He explained that “to renew” means “to turn back from such wrongs; it means from now on you have awakened to the stupidity, confusion, arrogance, deceit, jealousy, envy and other unwholesome tendencies, have reversed course and will never revert to them again.” I now understand that to repent is not easy, but to renew is even harder. To repent is to see deeply our wrong doings without guilt or shame, and to renew is to turn back from all wrong doings and never revert to them again. Renewal definitely needs some serious cultivation before it can be done! 

Sit spot
After five days of reciting, repenting, lots of tears, noble silence, and only two meals a day (no dinner), I could no longer ground myself in the Buddha Hall on the sixth day. I needed to play hooky. I walked to survey the land after the morning recitation and the sitting. During the afternoon session, I grabbed my knitting work, a book on The Way of Tea, and walked to my new found sit spot in the woods with a very light heart. Once I walked into that open space, it felt like I walked into a wonderland with the perfect sunlight, the different shades of green, the blue sky and moving white clouds, birds chirping, squirrels running, and even wild turkeys. I completely surrendered myself to the magical colors and the serenity around me. I put down my sit cloth and a back cushion against the tree that I chose and sat down comfortably. I recited Na Mo Guan Shi Yin Pu Sa and a sense peace and joy stayed with me for a long time. Reading about the tea as the way of life also helped me see beauty in all seemingly mundane moments and trivial details. I experienced such great contentment and peace that I’d never experienced before. All the heaviness of being a human was all gone. No more worries or concerns, no more judgements or feeling of lacking, only peaceful joy. I could only think of two words to describe that place and that state, “paradise” and “magical.” I found paradise at CTTB! The world outside that “paradise” seemed a whole different one.

Restrengthening the Bodhisattva Vow
When I returned to the Buddha Hall later, all the heaviness of being a human seemed to come back to me again. I missed that peaceful joy I experienced in Nature alone. The chanting, the walking, the bows stopped making sense, because I wanted to go back to that “paradise,” not here. I don’t feel free here. What happened?  I wanted to be free from all this heaviness: confusion, doubt, fear.... Have I been “misled” by wai dao, and now I could no longer recognize Buddha Dharma? What’s going on? I don’t remember how long it took me to re-settle before it dawned on me what Bodhisattva vow really meant. Do I really want to continue to stay with that peace and joy that I experienced in the woods alone, without being bothered by this human world?  The Sixth Patriarch says, “The Buddha Dharma is right here in the world, there is no awakening apart from this world; to search for Bodhi somewhere beyond this world, is like looking for a rabbit with antlers.” But was my being in the woods apart from this world? No. And it didn’t feel like a dull emptiness either. And I do want to continue to have that state as I walk in the Buddha Hall, or talk to people, or do anything in my daily life. I don’t think I want that state without the humans “bothering” me in this entire life. As a human, I intuitively know that I need to stay in this human world to cultivate, not leaving it “behind.” But how can I integrate that peace and joy inside while living this “heavy” human life, which is often afflicted? Then I understood that taking the Bodhisattva path is not a small thing!

My First Test After Guan Yin Session
Right after the Guan Yin session, I called my family again after my brother sent me a message, “Miss you.” But at the end, when my brother began talking like a tape recorder repeating what he’s been repeating for years that I should be able to support myself financially; I don’t have a good retirement plan; I’m not even contributing to society. My body became tensed up again and great frustration overtook me that I had to say “I’ve got to go” and hang up. I thought that I had had such a profound retreat and felt I was at the peak of my deep spiritual journey, and then my brother ruined everything for me! Great job, bro! I so wanted to send my brother a message, saying,

“How many times do I have to tell you that I’m doing fine. I’m making my conscious choices to live a life as such, and I’m happy. I don’t need anyone to worry about me. Everything you said is exactly what I don’t want to hear. But you continue to repeat the same nonsense to me! Why? You are wasting my time! Tell you what! The life you live, I’ve seen it and lived it, and I know it all; but the world that I see now is the world that you don’t know, but I hope one day you will know. It’s beyond everything you know now! It’s beyond language. If you don’t know about it, then don’t express your opinion on it! Do you know? When I talk to Baba and Mama without you being there, we three often have such a joyful and deep conversation. So wonderful! But whenever you are around, the conversation becomes dull, superficial, and meaningless. I wish I didn’t have anything to do with you sometimes. This is the last time I’m saying these things to you. After this, we will only talk about parents and your son Weiwei, nothing else. That’s it. You’ll never understand it. But that’s fine. I give up. You’ll live your life; I’ll live mine. Good luck, brother!”

I’m so glad that I didn’t send the message above because ten minutes later, my brother sent me a message apologizing: Sister, have an early rest today. Gege (older brother in Chinese) didn’t know how to speak properly according to the situation. I just hope my sister’s life will be a secure one. Live happily, eat well, and take care of the body, which is the foundation of everything. (three red heart symbols).

Earlier Gege commented over the call that I was even more skinnier than the last time he saw me. He thinks that I’m not eating enough nutrients because of my vegetarian diet. After reading the message, I cried. I have such a loving brother, and I was being ungrateful again, constantly defending myself, and expecting him to understand me. Maybe I've failed the first test after Guan Yin session, but I'm grateful for the test.

Seeing China with New Eyes -- The Trip That Transforms (2018)

My most recent trip to China this year has forever transformed my relationship with China, where I was born and raised, and had lived until my mid-twenties. In the past, visiting China often brought up my old shame of being a peasant's daughter, and aversion of the contemporary empty consumerism. During this trip, I met so many inspiring souls and was in constant awe of the vibrant life force that had led them to living their lives with such audacity and creativity. My old self-image and my view on China were renewed, again and again, in their refreshing presence. During one long phone call with brother Zilong while sitting on a swing chair in a courtyard in an ancient town in southern China, I couldn’t contain my overflowing joy and said “I wish I could just move back to China and live here now!” Though now I know that I’m not yet ready to move back to China, I’d like to share briefly some of my experiences in China with my soul family on this side of the Pacific. :)

A Modern Monastery--Xilai Temple
 
Mu Deng Shi-Fu, along with 30 of her disciples who live in Xilai Temple and many other followers, has a grand vision for transforming the consciousness of China, especially the young generation, and the world, moving away from mindless consumerism and toward a spiritual path. I was utterly impressed by the quality of her students and the harmony and joy in Xilai Temple. Some of the young residents, who used to hold prestigious and high-paying jobs in Beijing, Shanghai, or Guangzhou, decided to drop everything in the city and come to join the movement in Xilai; some were already social entrepreneurs and change-makers in impact investment and B Corp before they came; some were artists and free spirits wandering in their world travels or leading a conventional family life. Each of them has an inspiring story to tell.

As they continue to use their talents, skills and social connections to help build this new spiritual community, they learn to listen to birds, smell flowers, work in the fields, cook, drink tea, meditate, and organize public events inside and outside the temple. They’re inspired by Mu Deng Shi-Fu to live simply, fully, and gracefully, tuned in to the delicate details of life in each moment.

An Ongoing Exploration--Hua Dao Eco-Community

Daqing, a friend from Beijing, met us in Chengdu and invited us to Hua Dao Eco-Community (华道生态社区) where he is a member. We happened to visit during their canola festival, introducing and sharing eco-knowledge, regenerative living, and traditional teachings and art. Many local villagers came.

Daqing visited Findhorn Ecovillage in Scotland a couple of times to learn about Eco-living. Many Hua Dao members are active in organizing eco-events across China. Hua Dao was built through crowd funding from mostly entrepreneurs, intellectuals, and activists, who share the vision of co-creating a new civilization on the planet that nurtures the relationship between humans, between human and Nature, and society. 

Through challenges, mistakes, and patience, Hua Dao Eco-community is slowly implementing new ways of living. Due to the high speed life in the city, very few members are able to actually live in Hua Dao full time. But when they do show up, the childlike smiles on their faces are profoundly moving, as they drop a seed in the soil, dye a piece of cloth, or make tofu from scratch for the first time. 

The neighboring Fan Pu Eco-Farm is considered a rare success, which has attracted young people to work or volunteer there full time, offering programs for city kids and their parents to experience the farm and make art. 

Chengdu Waldorf School

I participated in a 3-day workshop in Chengdu Waldorf School, the first Waldorf school in China founded in 2004, and learned a little about Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy and biodynamic agriculture. 

On campus, it was so heartwarming to see kids climbing trees during recess, playing with toys handmade with natural materials, washing dishes with camellia seed powder instead of dish detergent, separating garbage, using compost toilet, and working in the gardens. 

The school also provides ongoing workshops on nature education, theatre, voice, and art therapy for the parents and teachers, often taught by guest teachers from the global Waldorf community. After hearing their descriptions of the workshops offered there, I was amazed by their openness and willingness to explore life on such a deep level.

Pachamama Alliance Volunteers

Through friends in Hua Dao Eco-community, we met Pachamama Alliance volunteers in Chengdu and Beijing. Pachamama was translated to “Earth Mama” in Chinese. We offered them contage workshops, which connected us deeper through improvised dance, and our shared concerns for the ecological sustainability in the future and the compassionate actions that we can take. Start small.

In Beijing, the group that took our workshop stayed connected and invited more mothers to start the change, first at their own homes, reducing, reusing and recycling, and organized Awakening the Dreamer workshops created by Pachamama Alliance. 

A Non-profit Yoga Retreat Center

Last year, Andy found online this Snow Mountain Retreat Center located at the foot of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in Yunnan Province, and spent several wonderful days there, bonding with the staff and volunteers. It turned out that this center was founded by Gyangiri who founded Mountainyoga in Beijing in 2003, the first yoga retreat center in China. It offers an ongoing 28-day holistic yoga teacher training program each month. At the end of the 28-day training when we were there, Gyangiri said to the group that the secret of this practice is not about perfect yoga poses, but LOVE.

This year, Andy was invited to do a four-day workshop there, and he invited me to be his co-facilitator. We spent lots of time brainstorming what we could offer. We named the workshop “Little Spark,” blending contact improvisation with mindful touch and massage, which Andy and his late wife, Deb Hubsmith coined the term, “contage.” We decided to offer it as a gift.

We started our first day of the workshop by singing our picked theme song, “Time to be Happy.” Facing 25 participants, we expressed our gratitude to be there. Each participant took turn to introduce themselves and offer the group a stretch followed by the rest of the group. We were surprised by how creative and open every one was. We soon laughed off our nervousness, as curiosity and joy flowed into our hearts. As the workshop progressed, it opened us up from a culture that human touch is rare, rapidly built trust and connection among strangers, and further connected each of us to our own authentic movement that was not dictated by thoughts. Within a couple of hours, strangers danced together like playful children, including those who said they had never danced before. In the evening, we showed some short videos on kindness and ecological awareness and held discussions. They were all well received.

I had never before experienced such deep joy in service. What a gift that each one was giving me! It was the most healing experience for me.

The "Little Spark" Workshop
 
Through word of mouth, within a month, we were invited to do workshops in different cities. So far, we’ve offered our workshop in Shanghai, Xilai, Chengdu, Lijiang, Tianjin, and Beijing. The closing sharing circle was the most powerful, as each shared our deep gratitude for each other’s openness and kindness.

As one participant who is a civil engineer said, "I don't like socializing. This is the first time that I shared in any salon. When I arrived here earlier, I felt alone, but gradually, I began to have body contacts with other participants and connect with everyone. In the process of establishing connection, I felt warmth, gentleness and kindness, and I put down my defense, broke out of the confinement of my little self, and expanded it to the entire group, the entire room, and at the end, I could dance freely in relaxation. I thank everyone here, thank the teachers for giving me such an opportunity to feel kindness in this world."

Kindness
 
A young man, who volunteered at Hua Dao Eco-community, told me that he was in military for over 10 years. His entire military experience had been rescuing those in need in earthquakes and floods. Being in service to others had become his way of life. A year ago, though he had a hard time leaving his buddies in the military, he left, knowing that he needed to expand his horizon outside. And he continued to volunteer, especially in nature-related education. He wants to explore a better education for his one-year-old baby.
 
During the workshop at Chengdu Waldorf School, I stayed at an Airb&b, run by a young couple who rescued six cats from the street over the years. Each cat had a story where and how they rescued it. Like a miracle, the sick skinny homeless cats were transformed into healthy and happy spirits with distinctive characteristics under their care. 

Last year, my mother told me that several years back, one day when she was on her way home from the market, she saw an old man fall on the street by himself and then pretend he was injured. But no one came to help him until a young man, whom my mother knew, hurried to get him up. But the old man grabbed the young man and accused him for hitting him and demanded being taken to the hospital. The young man took the old man to the hospital. My mother saw the whole thing but didn’t have the courage to come up to tell the truth to the surrounding crowd, as she knew that old man too. She went home, feeling heartsick. After hearing the story, I said, “Ma, after all these years, why not go visit that young man and tell him what you told me?” This year when I visited home, my mother told me that she visited the young man, who told her that he didn’t need to pay at the hospital as the doctor found out what was going on. But he felt compassionate for the old man who did get hit by someone earlier that day. That evening, the young man insisted putting my mother’s bicycle onto his vehicle and giving her a ride home. They had a sweet conversation during the ride like a family.

Continuous Interweaving of the Interconnections
 
The web of interconnections continues to expand. Hua Dao Eco-community introduced us to Pachamama volunteers; Pachamama group in Beijing welcomed a participant of our workshop at the yoga retreat center; folks from the yoga retreat center went to attend the tea ceremony held in Xilai Temple; Mu Deng from Xilai and her students visited the US and hosted a tea ceremony at Banyan Grove....

The Two Dancing Forces
 
Oftentimes in China, for one moment, I could almost smell and touch that a widespread human consciousness (r)evolution was about to reach the tipping point, then the next moment when I walked out to the street, I was bombarded by the advertisement everywhere that enticed us for more sensual pleasures, better cars, and new condos, everyone walking around with eyes locked to their small screens, and I would almost fall back to despair: There is no way out; we are doomed. :)

Truly, "it’s getting better and better, worse and worse, faster and faster." How shall we hold the two possible outcomes? To paraphrase what Joanna Macy, one of the greatest elders of our time, said, the worst thing is not the destruction caused by irresponsible human behaviors that harms life on Earth, but the deadening of our hearts and minds. We ought to feel and honor our fear and despair in order to understand what’s beneath that fear and despair—our love for life. As Joanna wrote, we don’t know for sure if we are midwives for the new life-sustaining future or the deathbed attendants for the dying. But either way, we can always live this life in awe as the sun rises every morning because life itself is a miracle and we are forever grateful.<3 br="">

Surrendering to the Mystery of Existence

The other morning, a thought came to me: I am the first woman who went to college in my extended family in the past at least three generations. No wonder when I was in college, my younger cousins wrote to me, saying how much they admired me. And some relatives would talk about me with pride. But I wasn’t grateful nor proud then for I had not liked my life. I kept wanting a better one. I thought that if my Gaokao, the National College Entrance Exam, score had been higher, I would have studied at a better university for a “better” major than “Preventive Medicine,” which could be a noble career, if my heart had been in the right place. I had endless war inside of me and I was convinced that I wasn’t living the life that I was “supposed” to be living. “Why am I me?” I asked. Thinking back, I can say that I have been refusing to accept myself and this life that’s been gifted to me specifically, and I have successfully made myself an outsider in my own life for a long time.

During the past 14 years of living in the US and going back and forth across the Pacific Ocean, my self-image and views on life have been constantly integrating and evolving, from desiring for worldly wealth and success to searching inner wealth through creative self-expressions, from being isolated in personal crisis to seeing the widespread ecological crisis, from worshiping western civilization to reconnecting to Chinese traditional roots, from materialistic mindset to seeking spirituality, from seeking truth alone to finding the ever-expanding communities across the globe.... But self-acceptance has never stopped being the biggest struggle in my personal growth.

Recently, I met someone who had literally lived my dream life, the right life--the right university, right major, right success, even the drama, the excitement, the struggles, and her deep commitment and engagement in living each phase of her life. Yet, life has led her to the realization that what really matters is to hear her soul calling, and then act accordingly, not what she has done on the outside. In other words, even if I had lived my past the way I had dreamed of, I would have ended up in almost the same place, internally.

I ask myself: Do I still want to continue to try to live my “dream” life? What does that “dream” life mean to me now? How could anything be more exciting and fulfilling than accepting and surrendering to my very own existence that’s bestowed upon me from the Mystery? Am I not curious about “Why am I here? What am I here to do?” 

"Don't be discouraged by your incapacity to dispel darkness from the world. Light your little candle and step forward." -- Amma

Trip to Crestone in 2018

If we do everything with a noble intention, then everything we do is noble. Ask yourself three questions: Where are you? Where is really home? What are you doing here?
                                                                          ----- Mu Deng 

      Recently, we visited Crestone, a “spiritual vortex” in Colorado, with a group of Chan practitioners from China. How incredible it was to be exposed to such concentrated wisdom in a small mountain town with a population of less than 150! Being immersed in the true harmony among different world religions, spiritual practices, and conscious organizations was truly a treasurable rare experience! How profound it was to receive Chinese Chan teaching while absorbing teachings from all the wisdom traditions that we encountered! May such a vibrant and open-hearted spiritual community continue to evolve to its full potential for generations to come.

The Crestone Prophecy
Crestone is situated in the northern part of the San Luis Valley, a sacred land of natural harmony, where no colonial nor tribal conflicts have shed blood in the past. Native Americans called it the Bloodless Valley, which is also a “cultural crossroads” and “where the light comes into the world.” It drew many prehistoric Native American groups to come, primarily for healing ceremonies, vision questing, hunting, collection of food and medicines, and rights of passage for Native American youth.



In the 1960’s, Glen Anderson, a local mystic, whom some called the modern day Prophet, predicted that a foreigner from overseas would come and create a new high vibrational interfaith community—a refuge for all the world spiritual traditions with direct lineages; several off-the-grid communities would be created with an emphasis on the highest level of spiritual and cultural development; the main purpose of creating such community would be to bring forth a new civilization of humanity that is in harmony with themselves, each other, and Nature; and thousands of children would seek refuge there.

In 1977, Maurice Strong, the founding Executive Director of the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP), and his Denmark-born wife, Hanne Strong, purchased a large tract of land in the Crestone area. In October 1978, when Hanne Strong arrived and settled in their ranch, Glen Anderson knocked at her door and said, “I have been waiting for you to arrive.” He revealed to Hanne that she would be the one who would manifest the vision of bringing different world wisdom traditions and religions to Crestone to “help bring forth a new civilization of evolved human beings,” and Crestone would be known to the world for its interfaith community and its commitment to education, environmental protection, and spiritual pursuits. Shortly after meeting Glen, Hanne retreated to the mountains for a four-day-and-four-night vision quest and knew in her heart that Crestone would become the “Refuge for World Truths.” Before she moved forward with this vision, Hanne consulted the indigenous elders of the Hopi Nation, whose roots in the San Luis Valley could date back to thousands of years ago, and received the affirmation from the elders.

The Strongs decided to donate some of their land to world religious and spiritual lineages that agreed to establish centers in Crestone. To coordinate the program, they founded the Manitou Foundation. Today’s Crestone harbors an amazing array of spiritual sites: ashrams, monasteries, temples, retreat centers, stupas, labyrinths, medicine wheels, sweat lodges, and other sacred landmarks. There’s even a ziggurat, a structure modeled after the temples of ancient Babylon. Over the last four decades, many Native American medicine people have returned to this land for ceremonies and recognized the valley as a place of high spiritual significance and potency for transformation.

Below I'd introduce a few noble souls and centers that we visited in Crestone.

The Strongs--The Founding Family
In 2013, late Maurice Strong spoke at the Asia Education Forum General Conference and Ecological Education and Sustainable Development Forum in Chengdu, China, “We are the first generation ever to have the responsibility for our own future. What we do, or fail to do, will determine the future of life on Earth. This requires unprecedented levels of cooperation both within and amongst nations.” He also pointed out that “the healthiest and more sustainable natural ecological systems are those which maintain the highest degree of diversity and variety,” and it requires us to make fundamental changes in our educational economic system and “resist the temptation merely to patch up the existing system” that leads to its crisis.

As we gathered around Ms. Hanne Strong at her home, her deep longing for having indigenous Grandmas to come to the land to heal wounds and share wisdom, her passion for bringing ecological awareness to more and more young people, and her concerns for the future of humanity moved us to tears, and yet, her cheerful nature and laughter brightened up our spirit and inspired us to work together toward an awakened future.

James O’Dea--The Conscious Activist
James O’Dea is a former President of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, Washington office director of Amnesty International and CEO of the Seva Foundation. Among many other noble services that he offered to the world, he has taught peace-building to students in 30 countries and conducted frontline social healing dialogues around the world.

In his Crestone home, James first brought our awareness to the four levels of Heart: Thinking Heart, Feeling Heart, Inspired Heart, and Illuminated Heart. He then shared with us the story that set the tone of the bittersweetness of his life. He was conceived several days before his 11-year-old sister died, and his mother found out that she was pregnant with a new baby while losing a child. After witnessing tremendous unspeakably cruel human-caused sufferings, the question that he had been waiting to be asked all his life until that point was delivered to him on a seemingly aimless outing in Bolinas, a hidden coast town north of San Francisco Bay, “How do we integrate spirituality with activism?” His lifelong search on this topic is captured in his book, The Conscious Activist, where activism meets mysticism.

At the end, James shared his soul-awakening prayer, and we repeated after him in both English and Mandarin Chinese:
Soul Awakening, Heart Opening, Light Shining, Love Flowing, Wound Dissolving, Peace Radiating.

As the high souls from the East and the West spoke the shared vision, the room was filled with timeless stillness....



William Howell--Camino de Crestone
William Howell, bedsides his role as our spiritual tour guide in Crestone, is a poet and author, retreat master, and meditation teacher, who immersed himself in world's great wisdom traditions for 40+ years. Inspired by Camino de Santiago that he and his wife, Brahmi, walked, they founded Camino de Crestone pilgrimage, which is offered in the spirit of religious unity and diversity. This year, William has handed over the torch of Camino de Crestone to his successors, as he and Brahmi are ready for their next soul calling. A while ago, they have also let go of the form of Sanctuary House that they founded 26 years ago, but kept their heart open for whomever hears the call to find them. The tour he led in Crestone was of profound quality due to his deep connections in the Crestone spiritual community.

During our tour, William was often seen standing outside to hold the door for us, and always the last one to go to the buffet line at meal times. He truly cared about each of us and took all the time to explain to us the history and the stories of Crestone. When he looked at you, he took you in completely, making you feel that you were the only one that mattered to him at that moment in the entire world. Whenever he was moved by Truth, tears would instantly fill up his eyes. To me, he is someone who has long ago given himself to the Service on the Path of Awakening.

He seemed ageless. In his 70s, he is still a playful child at heart. While approaching the Dome at Crestone Mountain Zen Center at dusk, he was crouching, running, hiding.... as if the Dome were a fort occupied by an opposing force. We all laughed hard and mimicked him. Inside the Dome, as suggested by a sound healer among us, we formed a spontaneous humming/singing circle, and William was the first to contribute to our collective chorus with his clear and deep voice.

Haidakhandi Universal Ashram and Ramloti
During our short stay in Crestone, we stayed and ate most of our meals at Haidakhandi Universal Ashram (HUA)--a Babaji ashram. It is an off-the-grid center, solar-powered, with their own water system.

Babaji became known to the West through Paramahansa Yogananda's book--Autobiography of a Yogi, from reading which our gracious host Ramloti instantly became a devotee of Babaji in the early 1980s. Disregarding all the obstacles in her life, Ramloti went to visit Babaji in India several times before He left His body in 1984.

During one dinner at the Ashram, Ramloti shared with us the story of visiting Babaji with her two young sons. As she and her sons were near Babaji's ashram, Babaji sent a person to greet them. How did Babaji know they were coming! Ramloti wondered. When they arrived, Babaji handed her and her sons each one cup of Indian tea that he made. Ramloti was convinced that Babaji must have mistaken her for someone important. :) In the past, she had worked hard to impress people and to cover up her fear inside. Whenever someone complimented her, she would tell herself, if they knew who she really was, they would not think highly of her, because she was not good inside. It was not until much later in her life did she experience that everyone is worthy of divine love and she is loved by the Divine Mother at every moment.

In the Ashram temple, the residents change the outfit for the Divine Mother statue every morning, and the practitioners and visitors arise early for spiritual practices, meditation, and Aarati (a sung worship service). They respond to all deities' names with "Jai!" At meal time, when Ramloti gave meal offering to all the deities, we all cheerfully raised our hands and responded "Jai!"



Other Visited Spiritual Centers, Organizations, and Artists
The Spiritual Life Institute is a Roman Catholic community with roots in the Carmelite contemplative tradition. “Be still and know that I am God” They aspire to create a vital environment characterized by "solitude, simplicity and beauty." The retreat center, nicely tucked in Nature, is open to people of all faiths and all walks of life, who need a solitary place to reconnect with their own roots in God. Father Eric has lived there for 35 years and worked as a carpenter and plumber to help build the center. Every day, he drinks tea, prays, works, and enjoys nature.



Shumei International Institute is a non-profit organization originated in Japan. The founder, Mokichi Okada, taught that a world free of sickness, poverty, and discord is within everyone’s reach through the spiritual healing of Jyorei, the practice of Natural Agriculture, and the appreciation of Art and Beauty. Jyorei, which means “purification of the spirit,” is a simple yet profound healing art. Our host Matthew Crowley shared the two most important teachings that he learned from Shumei: "Nature teaches us everything." "If you want to be happy, make others happy." Shumei transformed him from a competitive businessman into a spiritual practitioner who is willing to become a channel that transmits light to others.

Chamma Ling Retreat Center preserves ancient Bön Practices, Tibet’s oldest spiritual tradition, to restore and to heal the world. Ms. Hanne Strong recommended the soul retrieval retreat offered at this center.

We chanted and circled around the KTTG Stupa. Karma Thegsum Tashi Gomang (KTTG) was founded by His Holiness the XVI Gyalwa Karmapa, head of the Kagyu order of Tibetan Buddhism. Stupa is an architectural rendering of the Buddhist path, the stages and aspects of enlightenment. If seen from above, this white Stupa with golden spire on top looks like the eye of this valley. What made this Stupa even more special is that 100,000 miniature stupas made by volunteers were placed inside. Within each miniature stupa is a roll of prayers, and mantras. The 100,000 stupas were all blessed and consecrated by visiting lamas before being placed inside. Although these 100,000 miniature stupas and the prayers inside were invisible to our eyes of flesh from the outside, the noble intention and high consciousness radiate out from the inside and reach the realms far and beyond.



We meditated in Vajra Vidya Retreat Center and were completely charmed by the lighthearted and cheerful teacher Venerable Khenpo Lobzang Tenzin. We tried our conscious drawing after meeting Marika Popovits, who has been expressing realities through paintings within the realms of Consciousness since 1970s. We were mesmerized by Singne Ramstrom's forceful ancient dance at her home studio, where we also had Chinese Chan tea ceremony with the Crestone spiritual community. I missed the meeting with John Milton, one of the founding fathers of the modern environmental movement, a pioneering ecologist, spiritual teacher, vision quest leader and shaman, who founded Way of Nature. I found his twelve guiding principles of natural liberation very helpful tools for practices.



The Cross pollination Among Centers
Ramloti borrowed chopsticks and hot water containers from Shumei Center in order to host us. At the Ashram store, there were James O'Dea's books on display. Marika said she was inspired by one of James O'Dea's poems to paint and James was inspired by her painting to write a poem. Hanne took the vision quest with John Milton after meeting the Prophet Glen Anderson, and John Milton now serves on the board of Manitou Institute. Shumei hosts Crestone's community gathering at their outdoor amphitheater. How much pure joy we experienced when we gave each other Sufi kisses! And William connects with everyone, and everyone seems to connect with everyone else! :) It's a true harmonious spiritual community in Crestone. 

As Ms. Hanne Strong said to us, "Nothing will happen in Crestone until original people return. When in great harmony, great things will happen. Our soul and life depend on each other. Anyone who can speak for the land...ask what the land wants. No matter what happens...the truest purpose of humanity will be preserved."