For Rebuilding the Northern Shaolin Temple: Part 13, click here.
Time Flies Like an Arrow
guang yin si jian (光阴似箭)
Most everyone agrees that fall is the most beautiful season in Beijing, as well as for the north of China in general. Not surprisingly, they even have a word for it - quigaoqishuang (秋高气爽) – which literally translates as “Autumn Lofty Qi Refreshing.”
The morning of Sunday October 28th, 2018 had a steady north wind bringing slightly cold, crystal clear air to my home in Beijing, while the sky shimmered in pale blue grandeur. I woke in my apartment in the middle of correcting midterm exams and planned an escape back home to North Shaolin Monastery on Panshan - Pan Mountain - about 95 Kilometers east of here. The leaves around here were in full color aflame with brilliant hues of yellows, oranges and reds.
Although I haven’t published anything about Rebuilding of North Shaolin Monastery for a long while, I’ve visited several times to hook up with dear friends and luxuriate in the mountain’s aura of serenity. For reasons unknown to me, unseen and unknowable forces compelled me on this day to visit and reconnect the worlds between then and now, here and there. All becomes One when one wills to make it so, or perhaps more accurately, abandons the desires that keep worlds apart.
A couple hours later I found myself cruising through Panshan town at the base of Pan Mountain. Not much has changed along this road during the eight years I’ve been visiting. Panshan isn’t just a mountain range; it’s also a classic prototype small town at the foot of the mountains, surrounded by farms, with lots of small markets along the winding small main street leading to the mountain. True, there’s a new side of town with wide modern straight streets and apartment buildings, but the road from the highway to the monastery is classically rural and evocative of small town nostalgia - even for me and I’m not a nostalgic person.
People young and old riding mostly-dilapidated motorbikes frequently darted out of nowhere in front of me as usual. Mutton was being grilled in front of restaurants here and there. Faint wood fire smells drifted in the morning air, combining with the autumn leaves smells, making a fantastic bouquet of olfactory timelessness. Fruit and vegetable sellers tidied their shops. A herd of goats wandered by. An older couple teetered across the street, and on and on. It’s really beautiful.
Cruising up the switch-backed mountain road triggered a flickering multitude of memories. Because this is a historic mountain and national park with royal history, there’s a small - again really old - check-point. In fact, there’s a huge rock overhang there and I suspect it was an ancient gateway too. I told the old security guard - in my best Putonghua (Mandarin) that I’m a lay disciple of the Shaolin and I wasn’t sure he understood me as he just continued to look at me with unabashed curiosity. So then I said: “Pengyou!” which means “friend.”
“Pengyou!” he repeated as his eyes lit up and face wreathed in smiles. He turned around and lifted the time-worn gate. Has this happened before? I vaguely wondered.
About three quarters of a mile below the monastery, I could see it shining up on the mountainside. Wow! So much had been done since I was there last spring. In the distance I could see construction of the monks’ living quarters was mostly finished and a new smaller Hall had been built at the front of the monastery complex.
It was about 11:30 AM when I saw the turnoff to the now mostly-rebuilt monastery. I wondered if the monks had moved into the their new living quarters yet but decided to go a couple of hundred meters further to their humble old quarters in a really small courtyard. Turning off the small road up an even smaller stone driveway, I saw a car parked in the lovely old yard and figured I’d guessed correctly; they were still there. About 30 seconds after parking, Shi Yan Wan came out of a small office room and warmly greeted me. A couple of minutes later, Shi Yan Pei came out and I was doubly delighted as being the head monk there, he’s got all the latest news. Shi Yan Wan, by the way, is Shi Yan Pei’s administrative assistant and general manager of construction as Shi Yen Pei has to travel often so Shi Yan Wan takes care of things in his absence. Shi Yan Wan also does a lot of Shaolin history research and other things. He’s really quite a brilliant young man.
A few minutes later we were sitting in Shi Yan Pei’s tiny office and he started to prepare tea. I first asked about the other monks and found most of the old crew was still there, including Shi Yan Kong, the head Kung Fu master teacher there for the past few years. He’s been traveling the world a bit with the Shaolin Abbot, I was informed, but he looked the same and fit as ever.
Then I told Shi Yan Pei a little about my most recent Kung Fu adventures in Ethiopia and he was happy to hear Kung Fu is quite popular there. Our conversation slowly diverged to the development of Shaolin Kung Fu in several countries.
The green Chinese tea was aromatic, rich, and soothing all at the same time. It warms inside and out, refreshing like a mountain valley in springtime. Little do most people know, but smell is the most powerful sense in many ways. The sensory input goes directly deep into the brain without all the filtering the other senses experience en route to the emotional centers of the brain. My experiences of drinking green tea at North Shaolin are strung together like pearls on a string, rooted in ancient times, yet always current in the river of newness.
Then we got around to North Shaolin Monastery news and I found out the new building in front of the top level of the monastery was Guan Yin Hall. Designed in classic Song Dynasty style - that is with interlocked wooden pillars and beams - she’s a classic beauty of Chinese architecture. “When will they move into the monastery monks’ quarters?” I asked. “Next year in June,” Shi Yan Pei replied. Wow! “Up to 20 monks will live there to begin with” he added. I asked if the construction crews were still working and he said yes, making me quite happy as work had stopped repeatedly over past years due to finance issues.
Northern Shaolin: view from Sutra Hall.
Who is Guan Yin?
Guan Yin is the East Asian Buddhist, Taoist and Chinese folk religion’s Goddess of Mercy combining limitless compassion and wisdom. These two qualities complement each other quite nicely. Guan Yin means “observing the sounds (or cries) of the (human) world,” I was told. The word ‘avalokita’ means “seeing or gazing down” and “Evara” means “lord” in Sanskrit. In China she’s usually called “Guan Shi Yin Pu Sa.” Guan Yin is referred to as Avalokitesvara in the Lotus Sutra - an ancient Indian Buddhist scripture dating back to the first Century CE. In Buddhism she’s identified as a Bodhisattva, which is a Buddha in a former life that makes a vow to save all sentient beings by delaying their supreme awakening - Nirvana - to help others along the path to enlightenment.
There are many legends of the origin of the Chinese version of Guan Yin. One relates to the Buddhist saint Miao Shan. A short version can be read at Miao Shan on ChinaBuddhismEncyclopedia.com
Although most people think of Avalokitesvara as female, s/he was first imported to China from India in the first Century as a male, though s/he encompasses both male and female characteristics. Historians write that “Guan Shi Yin Pu Sa,” was depicted as male in China until about the Song Dynasty (960-1279).
All of that dichotomous thinking aside, Guan Yin Pusa is a wonderful symbol/role model of compassion and wisdom, eternal qualities that ebb and flow though cycles in history and the nearly completed Guan Yin Pusa Hall at the front of the North Shaolin Monastery is simple, elegant and beautiful.
Guan Yin Hall Northern Shaolin; October 2018.
Changes
I also noted that the ancient White Tower, Bai Ta, the sole survivor of the wars, had been repaired and repainted like new. Thus, there were no more bullet holes to remind one of the bad old days. The cycle of rebirth turns again. Reflecting on the nearly completed monastery brings to mind my first interviews with Shi Yan Pei and the plans made so long ago in my memory, (but only the blink of an eye in the legendary North Shaolin’s memory).
The temple now includes six areas: 1. Entrance garden, 2. Central Temple/Hall/Library area: Zhong Zhou Hall (Center Hall), Cang Jing Ge (Fa Tang) Sutra Hall, Shan Men (Entrance Gate Hall), Tian Wang Palace (Heavenly King Temple), Guan Yin Hall (Bodhisattva Temple), 3. Monk living quarters, 4. Wushu practice area, 5. Tower and forests site - Ta Lin - ancient Tower-forest – Tombs up and behind the Temple, and a 6. Performance area. What remains to be completed? Tian Wang Palace, the Entrance Gate Hall, the entrance to the monks quarters, the Wushu practice and Performance areas, and a regular parking area - at least. Still, it looks like and is a monastery now.
The world has changed much in the nine years since I first visited here, but the work to restore this legendary monastery has flowed forward.
For Rebuilding the Northern Shaolin Temple: Part 15, click click here.
