Chapter 23: Pacing the Cosmos
A brownish leaf drifted down to land on the surface of the goldfish pool. I had always walked by, on the way up the path to the monastery, but today I stopped and sat down on the raised rocks at the edge. Peering in, I saw that the water was deeper than I had imagined, with little flashes of gold as the fish moved amongst the weeds in the depths.
It reminded me of the pool at the pavilion across the river, and I recalled what the fat monk had told me one day as we rested there on our way up the mountain to see the hermit.
“If you are ever looking for a subject of meditation,” he said, “you could do a lot worse than water. It’s not for nothing that Laozi said water is close to the Dao.”
He paused and looked at me. “Water is all one, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it is all one thing, changing its state. One thing as it flows and pools; as it changes, melting from solid ice into a mercury-like liquid. Then it vaporises, losing its heavy form and becoming mist and clouds to move through the sky with the wind, generating thunder and lightning, then falling again to earth to gather, becoming lakes, rivers and seas, or even blood, mucous and urine. But it is all water, all one, the beginning and end of life.”
I had never thought of it like that, and said so.
“We ignore the commonplace,” retorted the fat monk.
I gazed for a while longer into the pool, until the chill wind urged me to rise and resume my trek upward.
As soon as I arrived at the monastery, the gatekeeper led me to a passage that I had never seen before. A large oak door with a round bronze knocker in the middle barred our way. He tugged at it, but the door barely shifted, so I too grabbed the knocker and pulled with him. We were just able to haul it open enough to enter the musty passage beyond. It led downward, worn steps on the rock floor, little grottos with statues of immortals hewn from the native stone walls on either side. I could feel a slight breeze upon my face, but the air was replete with mineral smells, a sharp metallic tinge. I could hear a tinkling sound, water moving in a channel somewhere close by.
The gatekeeper carried no torch, but the passage had a slight luminescence that made no sense. I was just about to ask him about it when he turned, shook his head and pointed further down the passage. Our steps echoed in my ears.
Finally we reached another door, outlined in light coming from within. This one opened easily and we stepped into a large round room illuminated by lights around the walls. A beautiful round carpet, intricately woven with geometric designs through and around which writhed a sinuous dragon in brilliant green. I had never seen anything so beautiful, and was just about to fall to my knees and examine it, when I became aware that in the shadows between the lights around the walls there were people sitting on cushions. An almost inaudible humming rose and fell, as if they were chanting in unison some low murmured incantation.
The gatekeeper tugged me by the arm over to a cushion in the middle of the room, in the centre of the rug, a cushion I saw was placed over the pearl that the dragon was pursuing and just about to grab in his gaping fanged mouth. The little gatekeeper then found his way to an unoccupied cushion by the wall and faded into the darkness between the lights.
There was silence. I could smell incense, the deep mind-altering fragrance of rich Tibetan Samye, known for its ability to assist one to reach deep absorption. I could feel my mind quiet down and still as I sat, the murmured chant mingling with my mind.
Time ceased to have meaning.
The chanting slowed and stopped. A bulky figure moved in the shadows, and the fat monk stepped forward, gesturing me to remain seated. He moved to a point on the carpet where an intricate geometric symbol was woven, turned, took a step to another of the symbols, then a half step to another, turned again and took two full steps, each time landing on one of the symbols in the large carpet. He continued this curious staggered dance that made him look as is he were limping or crippled, moving counter-clockwise around me, until once again he stood before me, still and silent.
It is hard to describe, but each of his moves seemed seared into my mind, as if they had been carved with a stylus into the wax of my soul.
Now the fat monk retired as the Abbot emerged from the shadows and repeated the dance, this time moving clockwise. The moves were exact, but subtly different, lighter, more agile, with a smattering of humour. It was as if I could perceive the essence of the Abbot through his dance, and I realised it had been the same with the fat monk.
Now it was Cook’s turn as he stepped smiling from the shadows and took his place on the carpet. Still the staggered step, still the precise moving from symbol to symbol in widdershins movement, but at each step Cook’s body changed, from heavy fullness in one part to light emptiness in another, alternating in endless changes until he too stood in stillness before me.
The others joined him then and the Abbot gestured for me to stand, then led the way across the carpet, out of the round cavern, and into a smaller adjoining room also dug out of the rock.
From silence to speech
But this one was appointed with a table and chairs, and on the table were charts and illustrations, paper and brush.
“We move from silence into speech,” said the Abbot, pulling a curtain over the doorway, cutting off the larger cavern. The four of them took seats, the fat monk, Abbot and Cook at the table, the gatekeeper next to the door. They left me standing.
“This is a graduation ceremony, of sorts,” said the Abbot. “Of course you are not graduating into anything, but rather into nothing, and the path has at one and the same time no gradations, but different levels of subtle capacity which can be gently increased with infusions of …”
“Medicine,” said the fat monk, grinning. “That’s what we are here to discuss. The hermit said you did very well in the valley, although he seemed amused by something that he did not share, and merely indicated that we could begin to explain the exoteric aspects of dealing with medicine.”
I found my voice. “Exoteric?”
Cook smiled. “The esoteric aspects cannot be spoken, they are learned through essence. Within, if you will, although that is actually inaccurate and also illustrates the problem.”
“What problem?”
“That you cannot speak of it.”
They all laughed.
“Ok,” said the fat monk. “Let’s get down to business. We Daoists have made a special study of techniques to gather medicine, and in fact our literature describes them in great detail, but without some individual guidance it is hard to employ those techniques. But there are two broad categories: external medicine and internal medicine. Internal medicine is the crucial one.”
“And I guess the most complicated, right?” I said.
“Quite the contrary,” he replied with a smile. “It is very simple. It basically operates itself. The processes involved in gathering external medicine, though, can be complicated and need careful supervision lest one go astray.”
“Go astray how, exactly?”
“Well, the whole ‘Daoist sexual technique’ area, for example, is extremely dangerous …”
“A trap for fools,” interjected the Abbot, shaking his head.
“… and is also explicitly warned against in most authoritative literature. But even in areas just involving breathing techniques--qi gong--unless carefully instructed one can imagine that you need to force qi through certain channels, or hold a ball of qi in the lower abdomen, or force qi into certain organs.”
Bags under her eyes
Cook was giggling.
“What?” We all turned to him.
“I was at the market the other day and one of the vegetable sellers was asking me why she had these bags under her eyes, since she thinks monks all know about medicine. Turns out she’d been following a qi gong ‘master’ who had advised her that to maintain health in her eyes she should force tears from her eyes every morning and night.”
“Unbelievable,” said the fat monk. “No wonder she had bags, all that qi forced up into the eye sockets.”
The power of attention
“Most of the time,” the abbot said, “people start with the terminology and get confused. I am going to start with the actual process, and move from that to the terminology. So here we go: what people call ‘a normal life’ is as if lived in a fog, a misty half-forgetfulness. It just passes by like a dream. To begin to change this, one of the first things we do is train attention, and very often we will begin by focussing our attention on the physical body. This is where training in gongfu techniques, Taiji Quan, Xingyi or Bagua come in. Or sometimes we just do simple yangsheng. The point is the same: to learn in exquisite detail the subtle actions of physical sensing.”
At the end of the table, the fat monk was grinding ink, slowly circling the inkstick in a tiny pool of water.
The abbot continued, “The advantage in starting with physical sensing is that the body is always present, and therefore improving our awareness of our bodily sensations itself brings a kind of ‘presence’ into our being. Others can sense this presence, sometimes, and it very easily leads practitioners into thinking that they are somehow ‘special’.”
Cook chuckled and shook his head.
“This, of course, is to be resisted or at least down-played,” said the abbot. “The second thing that increasing your attention on the physical body does is to ‘de-congest the head’ in the sense of reducing the intensity of compulsive thoughts. You may have noticed that there are different types of thinking which you could crudely call ‘heavy’ and ‘light’. This is over-simplified, of course, but most people should be able to recall the experience of being sharp and agile in mind, with answers seeming to appear without effort. That is the ‘light’ type of thinking. ‘Heavy’ thinking is just how it sounds: dull, uninspired and slow.”
I knew what he meant.
“By pouring your attention into your body,” he continued, “those heavy thoughts descend, and allow the light thoughts to arise in clarity. It is as if that mist that we were living in starts to separate, murky waters settling below, light pure mist ascending above, and allowing dry land to reveal itself in the middle. This is the Earth of Will or Intent.”
The fat monk took up a brush and dashed off two characters.
意土
“Earth is all the muscles and flesh of the body, as well as the centre,” he said, “and yì (意) as you know is thought or intent or Will, in the sense of the direction of your attention.”
He drew a larger circle around the two characters, then placed four other characters at each of the cardinal points.
“When you place your attention on your body, silencing your random thoughts, looking and listening inward, then attention gathers in the centre, ie Earth.”
He tapped the centre two characters.
“This is an important step, because for the first time the individual begins to sense an ability to make clear decisions, to direct attention purposefully, and encourage through proper choice the continuing clarification. It can be incredibly fascinating, all the things you discover …”
“Like what?” I interrupted.
They looked at each other.
The fat monk spoke first. “Well, like the connection between awareness of the breath and the activation of different acupuncture points and channels. Say you are walking along, thinking only of the weight of the body on the soles of the feet, the feel of the wind on your skin, your breath as it enters your lungs and moves downward into the Dan Tian. At this point you will often spontaneously notice that Yongquan and Laogong start to feel a bit distended and heavy, and that the shaoyin and jueyin channels are throbbing.”
“And why is that important?”
“It isn’t.” They all laughed. “But that doesn’t stop people from getting fixated on interesting physical sensations.”
“Look,” said the fat monk, “All of this activity is in the realm of ‘external medicine’, and is also considered what our Buddhist brethren call fāng biàn (方便) an expedient means, just used for convenience to help you along the way. So you want to take care that you do not turn medicine into poison by getting stuck, focussing on the body and being unable to let go.”
“This is an important concept,” interrupted the abbot. “All means, all methods, all concepts are useful while they are useful and then should be relinquished.”
“Once you have caught the fish, you can then drop the net,” quoted Cook.
“Is that an old Chinese proverb?” I asked.
“Actually I think it is from one of the boatman’s stories,” said Cook with a sheepish grin.
“But I don’t get it. If it is not important, why do it? What’s the point?”
“Let’s take a walk,” said the abbot.
The hidden garden
He led the way out of the small room, but not through the large chamber with the rug. A door behind a tapestry curtain led to steps which inclined upward along a narrow stone passageway. I could see light ahead, and then we stepped out into a confined grotto, weirdly shaped rocks with crevices and nooks all around. We did not pause but followed the abbot through the grotto out into a garden with a pond covered in lotus leaves. A few lotus flowers braved the cooler temperatures. We settled in a small pavilion bordering the pond. I thought I had been everywhere in the monastery, but I had never seen this spot before. It was as if it existed on another plane, a land unsullied and pure.
The abbot spoke. “Now let us say what we can of the inner medicine,” he said. “Most of the time our senses are directed outward, and reinforce the feeling that we are one solid body, individual, separate from everything. You need to learn to sense within, to lessen that sense of being individual, and detach from the feeling of mere physical existence. You know, it takes us a lot of work, a lot of energy, to constantly create and recreate this sense of individuality. That is what the books mean when they say that the average person uses their mind to create their body. Here though ‘the body’ does not just mean the physical body, but the lower soul, which is associated with everyday consciousness.” He sketched the word pò (魄) in his palm.
“When you can free that energy from obsessive clinging, that saved energy can then go toward combining the higher and lower souls into their original completeness.”
Cook took up the guidon. “There is another aspect to Earth,” he said, “and that is trust (信 xìn). Trust, trustworthiness and sincerity all are associated with Earth, and all are essential aspects of this path. I think it was Huang Yuanji who said ‘If people can be perfectly sincere all the time, then what makes the elixir is herein.’
“I know that quote!” said the fat monk. “I was reading that chapter of his last night. Just before it he said:
Trust is associated with earth. The entire process of cultivating refinement makes subtle use of the earth of intent. Therefore Laozi says, ‘That vitality is very real; there is trustworthiness in it.’ This is the basis of the alchemical elixir; nothing but perfect sincerity.
“Yes!” said the abbot. “Trust that you will be guided, earnestness in your search, and you begin to notice that little indications are laid out for you along the path. If you notice these, more will be supplied.”
“Who is doing this?” I asked.
“Not a who,” smiled Cook.
“You know what I found interesting?” said the fat monk to the abbot, “I noticed that this seems to stop at a certain stage.”
“Yes,” said the abbot, “because it can become an encumbrance, and subject to abuse. When you no longer need it, it happens to you less. You do not lose it, as such, but it no longer functions without your participation.”
“Another good example of medicine turning into poison,” the fat monk agreed.
I had a faint inkling of what they were talking about. Every so often I would be concentrating on a question or studying a concept, and someone would make an off-handed comment that shed new light on it, or let me see it from a new angle. Or I would open a book at random and there would be the perfect quote to illuminate what was holding me back.
Hidden tussle
We sat in silence, looking out over the pool. Wind played amongst the lotus leaves, rippling the surface of the water. A sudden swirling in one corner was the only indication of a sub-surface tussle, two goldfish chasing the same bug or little shrimp.
The fat monk had brought his paper with the circle on it. ‘We have spoken of this in the past,” he said, “but not in the context of medicine. ”This is some of the technical terminology the abbot mentioned just now.”
He pointed to the paper. “See hún (魂) on the left, this is linked to Wood and has an ascending quality, lifting your spirit. On the right is pò (魄), linked to metal and sinking …”
“That is why we call it the lower consciousness,” interrupted the abbot. “Hún is part of the higher consciousness.”
“Part of?” I asked.
“Yes. Its ascending tendencies must be linked to shén (神),” the abbot reached over and indicated the top of the circle. “Pò on the other hand is linked into the physical vitality of jīng (精).” He pointed to the bottom of the circle.
“Seems simple enough,” I said.
They all laughed. “That’s because we’ve kept it simple,” Cook said. “We haven’t mentioned that each of these five, the hún, pò, jīng, shén along with yì in the middle, each has its higher and lower forms, its everyday and transcendent actions. But again, this is stuff that you must verify on your own, not just take it on faith.”
The teacher appears
The abbot sat up.
“Ok, I think that is enough to go over today. But let’s recap the fundamental ideas here,” he said. “To begin gathering medicine, a person should attend closely to their physical sensations for a certain period of time each day, reducing the tendency to be swept away in thoughts and drained of energy. Attend to the breath, imitate the bellows-like action of heaven and earth. Quietly rising, gently descending, you will start to feel a single qi circulating amongst the hundred joints of the body, closing and opening. As it opens the qi will emerge, as it closes the qi will enter. The qi emerging is like earthly qi ascending upward. Qi entering is like heavenly qi dropping in descent.”
“This is a great exercise in increasing longevity, even if you get nothing else from it,” remarked Cook.
The abbot stood, swept his arm around and declaimed, “But if you gallop around the realm of dust and flowers, and contend in the arena of true and false, your true qi will be dispersed and wasted, no longer yours. Don’t do it! Nourishing your true qi in emptiness and quiet, hold to the centre.”
He gave me a long look. “When you can do that, your true teacher will appear.”
“My true teacher? Appear from where?”
He touched my chest.
A goldfish leapt free of the water and fell back with a splash.