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HENG CH’AU: May 12, 1977. To Dr. & Helen Woos for lunch. Hsia family, Art, Carol, & baby there. Up here in the heavens in comfort and polite company, we are above the dust. Heavenly beings above, don’t move; demons below, don’t move. Their baby kept bowing to Shih Fu’s picture and to us. Another hot lunch extravaganza, Bankamericard. “If the heavenly spirits bow to you, don’t be pleased; and if demons come don’t be angry.”
Feel very much like I am climbing on conditions. I have no virtue to accept such offerings, bows, etc. I must cultivate more sincerely, what use is anything else? Of what benefit is anything save attainment and rescuing?
So after lunch (heaven was empty, no rain, that is) we went back to Lincoln Heights and what? School was just letting out. So the crisis confrontation we had with fear been dreading and which had caused so much false thinking was smack in our faces. We were going to bow right through throngs of the toughest gangs in the city. Kids drinking brown paper bags on the corner clustered. It was heavy. We were ready for the worst. At first there was nothing--too shocked. But then the boys began. “What de hell you doin’ man?” “Two more blocks and you’re gonna be shot.” “What you boys doin’ in our ghetto?” No response. I think of Shih Fu, can feel enclosure of protection. Two wood bricks fizzle five feet short of me on the right. A large group gathered on the corner is smoking joints. It finally parts as Heng Sure spearheads through, unswerving. They don’t miss a thing. “Hey, man, those are $15 Converse.” They shout obscenities about us to one another. No response. “What’s with these guys, anyhow? They’re serious?”
We are encircled for the last block by about 40-50 of them. In mock imitation of us a string of 10 or more is bowing once every three steps behind us. Lots of laughs. Lincoln Heights gang toughs bowing to the Triple Jewel and the Avatamsaka Sutra. Truly inconceivable.
Bowing states: 1) I lose my body. I feel as if there is this body bowing but it’s not me. I’m watching but I am not it. Feels strong, real. No fear. 2) I am in a dream. Literally I feel as if I am dreaming this bowing through these kids. No injury or death matters, it’s a dream. 3) This a.m. parked in front of a blue dumpster on Solana in the beginning of Chinatown and had a flash beyond déjà vu and realized that my dreams all week include Shih Fu and lots of people and that the trip is more a dream than my dreams. What I am doing in L.A. I have seen or done it before, all of it. There are no surprises. I am just in the dream doing what I am. No problem.