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HENG SURE: May 25, 1977. At 2 p.m. we came swinging out to bow on a crowded shopping street--the "Miracle Mile" thick with tension (both the street and me) people recognize us buzzing about our pre-noon bowing in that place. Immediately they pick up on us: "What they doing?" "What the hell?” "They’re prayin’.” "What are they praying to?" "They’re praying to themselves, not to anyone else. They don’t belong to this world.” (Pretty profound, although he doesn’t know it.)
Twenty feet further I bow in front of a driveway. Suddenly a fancy car slides out, stops, and a silvering templed middle-aged executive totally uptight with himself and with me fumbles for words to vent his anger: "Ah, ah, you’re ah, interrupting the street, gentlemen." (Curious: who did he see? I was bowing along at the time). I stood up to pace across the drive and continue to bow on the other side but as I rounded his car he deliberately threw it in reverse and backed up, trying to knock me down or run me off the walk. I walked wider and quickened my pace but he came on back, slowly or else he surely would have knocked me down. I made it around and continued my bowing. He revved his engine and slid out into the traffic river.
More May 25. The street is high-charged with negative tension. We bow through the center of it. Trying not to cause more tension; instead of purging it through our work. Suddenly a big wind blows up. High gusts rip at our sashes and robes, blowing hard against our eyes and legs so even walking is difficult, but we continue our pacing and bowing. Before long the people ahead of us and on all sides just disappear before the wind. All the junk in the air--all the tension--is blown away down the street.
Once the street is clean, the wind dies, too, and the bowing continues as always.
Voice I: Real cultivation has to be a determination to do it and nothing else. You must be mindful of your Dharma method all the time. You can’t take a break, a vacation, a holiday; you can’t "reward" yourself for good work by stopping the work. This is defeat. So once you begin you must keep on pushing. Right up and over the edge. Anything less will not get you there. It is difficult and unnatural.
Voice II: Cultivation when it’s real is a gradual natural process which should come in stages. As you breath in and out, your cultivation should allow for effort and rest, effort and rest, never retreating but not forcing the way either. Excess force leads to a strong reaction, just like the circles in t’ai chi: the faster the punch the harder the return punch.