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HENG CH’AU: May 14, 1977. We are parking at different places each night and trying to avoid contact with people. Last night it was a laundry on Sunset Drive. Tonight we finally find a place, but I hadn’t done standing meditation yet. Where in this crammed, speed-city at 9:30 PM was I going to find an inconspicuous place? I wanted to sleep. Fought it. Got out of the van and right across the street was an empty log, gradated levels protected by a retaining wall in high rear. Ideal!
This a.m. Tai Chi and exercise near L.A.P.D.Academy overlooking Dodger Stadium. Bowing into Chinatown today. L.A.P.D. cam out and photographed us on N. Broadway. No contact.
We do 379 steps per hour which equals 126 bows per hour or about one bow sequence every 30 seconds. Did this calculation allowing for bridges, delays, detours, etc.
Lunch: Picnic with laypeople. Lots of food, lots of change for meters, phone, etc. Where are we in the group with all their rituals, protocol, and unabashed candor? In Chinatown an old Mandarin couple see us and exclaim, “Why, they’re foreigners!” No, you just forgot to bring Buddhism with you when you came…
Heng Sure’s padded pants are back. Wow! Bright Hawaiian flora – nightclub circus hobo. Thank god for the long robe. The kids in Lincoln Heights would have eaten us up if we went through with those on. Steering the Middle Way regarding offerings is not always easy. When you get junk you fix it; when you get fold, you tarnish it. I think we’ll dye the pants…
Layperson: “Well, I think you are going to be out of L.A. in a month.”
Monk: “Oh?”
Layperson: “Yes. The hardest part is passed (Lincoln Heights). Chinatown is not so rough. Beverly Hills is easy.”
Monk: “The hardest part is inside.”
Layperson: “Oh.: (smile of recognition.)
All the laypeople are talking about rejoining at the end near the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. One upasika says she will walk ten blocks. Another says if that one can walk, ten, she can bow ten, etc. Such fine people. It shows in their kids – bright, sharp, well-behaved, spontaneous.
Bowing: Sometimes after countless coming and going on the cement there is simply nothing. Sounds, conversations, smells from restaurants, cigarette butts – not problem. Every now and then my “self” gets unimportant, lost, blended into it all and yet untouched and separate. Patience and humility come easy when I’m bumping noses with ants in between lumps of welded bubble gum and broken wine bottles. It’s just fine. Just the place to be now. Cleaning house inside out.
Chinatown: weird!
1) It is in some ways the least Buddhist of all. Even Lincoln Heights yielded a 33 cents offering…
2) On main corner comes together all at once, a funeral parade send off, the band playing a derge “Will We Not See You Again?” motorcycle cops, crowds, circus peanut grinder scene on right, strawberry cake on a chair in front of us, a Chinese TV newsman. Heng Sure and I bow right under and through. Maybe a handful notice.
3) Bowing two feet from fish in window tank at market waiting to be killed. Blubbering with their mouths, watching Heng Sure and I bowing in our tank.
4) Crazy lady in blue, laughing maniacally kicks me in a key acupuncture point between scrotum and anus. Lights and tingling shoot up my body and but my head. Her laughter echoes. I don’t move, keeping bowing, hoping there’s not more. Time to stop.
5) Drove around the corner, passing through an intersection and pulled over the curb space to park. Screech! Bang! Big accident in that same intersection.; we just missed it by seconds. A Chinese street gang swaggers by in Chinatown. Be sure to see Chinatown when you come…