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Sacred journey in China
By John Clauss (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2011-04-22 09:11
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[You are welcome to share your China stories with China Daily website readers. We will publish two or three articles every week from April 8, 2011, and the authors will be paid 200 yuan ($30).Detail]
As a kid growing up in America during the sixties, my generation was fascinated with the Shaolin Temple. Almost every weekend I watched Kungfu Theater thinking wow, would I love to go to China, live in a small village and study under a real kungfu master.
 A picture of the Shaolin Abbot De Chan and the author. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] |
I started taking kungfu lessons in New York City and whenever the topic of the Shaolin Temple came up, the overseas Chinese would say ah, there's no such thing as Shaolin. It's just a movie. However, after studying for eight years I needed to see it for myself. So in 1984, when I was twenty-three years old, I got a plane ticket to Hong Kong.
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My kungfu masters were from Hong Kong so I looked up some of their contemporaries and found their schools to be very small and not so impressive. I was quite surprised. It seemed that the people of Hong Kong were more interested in shopping than kungfu. All the people said the same thing about the Shaolin Temple and no one knew where it was or if it even existed. Finally after a year some one told me that it did really exist and that it was in the Chinese Mainland, Henan province.
So, now that I had a direction I got a train ticket to Guangzhou. Guangzhou was very undeveloped in 1984. I thought mainland was supposed to be full of little villages with people walking around in long silk robes ready to break out into kungfu at any moment. Well, it wasn't like the Hong Kong movies that I grew up with that's for sure.
It took me several days to get a train ticket to Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province. Finally I got a hard seat ticket and it took two days to get there. It was exhausting but at least I was closer to Shaolin.
When I got off the train I was in real trouble because no one understood my Chinese. The reason why is because I only spoke Cantonese and they all communicated in Mandarin or the Henan dialect. So, I had to write on a piece of paper in Chinese everything I wanted to say such as where is Shaolin, how much is a bowl of noodles and so forth. A crowd of hundreds gathered around and looked at me as if they saw a ghost. Everywhere I went they called out lao wai, which became my new name.
Finally, with great amazement I found a bus going to Shaolin so now I was sure that there really was a Shaolin Temple and I was on my way. The road to Shaolin from America was long but from the Zhengzhou train station it was just as long. The road to Shaolin hadn't been completed yet so half the time we drove through countryside and farm fields and I thought now, this is the China I'm talking about. This is the China that I wanted to be in. Not the dismal cities but here in the beautiful countryside. There were majestic mountains and ancient villages along the way and finally when we arrived at Shaolin it seemed like I was dreaming. I couldn't believe that after all these years I made it to the Promised Land.
The Shaolin Temple looked just like it did in the movies and I was really excited to be there. Most of it was under reconstruction but you could still see the places where the monks practiced and I stopped and prayed at all of the Buddhas. I asked a monk what happened to the temple and he said that any good temple worth anything had been destroyed at least five times in China. I asked the monks if I could join Shaolin and they all said that they don't accept foreigners. I was extremely upset but what could I do. I tried to join some of the schools around the temple but no one would take me. They had never seen a white guy before and didn't know what to do with me so after a week or so I went to Beijing.
Beijing was brilliant, a real traditional Chinese city just like I was hoping for. The parks were beautiful and you could still see little old ladies walking around with tiny feet. Everyone wore the green or blue jackets and there were no cars, everyone rode bicycles and it was great. However, I went to Shaolin and I really wanted to become a disciple so I had to try it again.
After another grueling two days on the train and a bus to Shaolin they simply gave me the same answer, no foreigners allowed. I tried to beg and plea but they probably just though I was crazy and after a short while just ignored me. I got really mad and left for Zhengzhou.
The whole time I was on the bus I cursed China saying that I couldn't believe I came all the way to the Shaolin Temple and couldn't get in. I was going home. On my way to Zhengzhou I got sick again and checked into the Minorities Hotel. On this fateful day a Chinese man came to me who could speak a little English, which was really refreshing by then. He asked me who I was and when I told him my story he just laughed and said he wanted to introduce me to someone. He brought me to this room full of people and they asked me what I was doing in China. When I told them I came from America to join the Shaolin Temple they all laughed at me too. I guess it was pretty crazy but then they told me they were holding a class in Emei medical qigong at the hotel with three hundred and sixty doctors in attendance and if I wanted to join them I could, so I did.
After a couple of weeks they healed me of my sickness, taught me qigong and then a small group of us that included some government officials and teachers took a trip to the Shaolin Temple. This time not only did I get in the temple, but I was treated like royalty. We went into see the abbot Dechan who was eighty-four years old, had been laying in bed for six months and couldn't get up. One of the teachers used qigong tuina on him and Dechan sat up and said thanks for giving him a life extension. After a while the Abbot of the Shaolin Temple, Dechan, grabbed my hand, started telling me my past, present and future and filled my heart with a bright light. With tears of great joy he told me that martial arts is good training but it is more important to cultivate the inner light and obtain wisdom. This was one of the most crucial turning points in my life. I felt that Dechan washed away a lifetime of my American karma and brought me on to the path of Chan.
After meeting with the abbot of the Shaolin Temple, Dechan, we took ceremonial pictures, ate lunch and had a private tour of the temple. I thought that this was the perfect time to ask him if I could fulfill my life-long dream of joining Shaolin but he said that it would be better to stick to the Emei training that I had already started. The teacher who treated Dechan said that he will have another year to live and a year later he passed away but his love, compassion and wisdom will always live in my heart.
After my experience with the Abbot Dechan I lost my desire to practice martial arts for years but I devoted myself to the study of Emei Lin Ji Qigong, Traditional Chinese Medicine, culture, philosophy, and religion. Every year since then, I've taken tour groups from the west to study the ancient wisdom in China. It has been a very rewarding experience.
Twenty-seven years after my first visit to Shaolin I brought my wife and kids, who grew up practicing Shaolin Kungfu in New York City and Beijing, to the Shaolin Temple. It is now an amazing place and they've really done a fantastic job fixing it up. Walking around the temple we visited the pagoda forest where all the great master's are buried. I saw a tour guide talking about them and I asked her if Dechan's pagoda was there and she pointed right behind me and sure enough there it was. And, with deep reverence I bowed three times.
[You are welcome to share your China stories with China Daily website readers. We will publish two or three articles every week from April 8, 2011, and the authors will be paid 200 yuan ($30).Detail]
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