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HENG CH’AU: June 15, 1977.
Malibu
Experiment: Have found less food and more cultivation leaves me with a lighter body and mind. There is less pain. Especially noticeable in bowing, an easy weightless touch down and lift off from knees and elbows.
After eating too much home Chinese cooking for lunch I had a chance to check the variables (i.e. greed). More food and less cultivation go hand in hand. Together body and mind felt like a careful blend of cement and mashed potatoes, more…
"Gathering the light" creates more energy. If you can circulate this energy properly somehow it changes into concentration and then wisdom. But as it builds so does the desire to spill it through talking, sex, anger, and yes, overeating (my case yesterday.) Where before lunch I felt like Tinkerbell, rarified, air-light after rigging-out my energy dropped to stagnant water. I was unsettled, heavy, full of desire thoughts, and in pain on the gravel.
This energy "light" I feel coming from the bowing feels like fuel--fuel to cut off and cross over my afflictions and yin energy. There’s literally little room for food--it somehow is replaced by another source of power.
A neatly dressed man in business suit started to climb into his sports car but saw us coming and stopped to watch. "Can I ask what you’re doing?" he asked politely.
"We’re Buddhist monks making a pilgrimage." I gave him a release.
"What kind of Buddhist?"
"Really there is only one kind. Everybody and everything is included."
"I know," he pressed, "But give me a handle, something I can grab onto."
"OK. Practicing. We’re practicing Buddhists from Gold Mountain Monastery in San Francisco."
"Well I want you gentlemen to know I really respect what you are doing."
A little later he came back… "My wife saw you out on the highway last night, could we get you some food? Do you need anything?"
"Well we only eat once a day at noon and we never ask for anything. If people would like to make offerings we accept; if they don’t, that’s ok too. We never ask."
"Well I would like to!" He goes inside and returns with some fruit and a bottle of apple juice. "No meat or dairy products, is that right?" (I don’t know how he knew that.) "Can you shake hands?" We both smile and shake. "I want you to know that what you are doing is really good. I just came out to go to work and just seeing you bowing here made me feel different--better and more peaceful. I hope others will feel the same way, too. Then we really will have a better, less hateful world. I mean it. Good luck to you!"
A truck loaded full of just picked bright yellow lemons rolled by. I fake thought, "Ah, if one or two fell off we could cool off with some lemonade." Shortly after, another truck rolled by loaded with Navy fighter jets. I thought again, "If one of those jets fell off what good would it be?" In fact when it gets to where and whom it’s going, what good will it do? On the other hand, that truck could have carried enough lemons to cool off a whole army. Dharma delivery trucks I didn’t see, but the lemons were closer than fighter jets.
A voice sounds from the sky, "You fellows with a religious group or something?" I hesitate to look up. I mean hearing voices from the skies--could be the gods. I chance it. An old carpenter is peeking over the roof edge waiting for an answer. We give him a release. "Wouldn’t it be more pleasant to walk along the beach and do it?"
"Well, we’re out to do hard work at our monastery. And it’s designed to be unpleasant--that’s the work."
"Well, I really admire you. Thanks!" He disappears again.
Two Dharma protecting Upasikas from Los Angeles brought a meal offering. One of them had just finished a one-week fast--just water. Really something considering she started to cultivate under the Master’s guidance only a short time ago. She runs a busy home and is swimming in a mess of activities and groups. Pretty remarkable. Sounds simple until you try it.
We were bowing a little fast this A.M., but after a tune up we slowed into our regular pace. As we broke for lunch we walked past a wipeout accident involving three cars. Looked like one missed the curve and slid into two others on the side. Had we maintained our earlier fast pace we might have been right about there when it happened.
About 2:00 P.M. Heng Sure and I came up slowly from a bow and found ourselves completely surrounded by police cars. Four squad cars and a special four-wheel-drive paddy wagon. Sheriff deputies were jumping and rushing towards us, nervous and ready for action, each with one hand on his nightstick. "Watch out Bill he’s got a bag behind his back." (Inside was The Vinaya).
"Careful, Charlie, the one in front’s got something concealed under his robe." (Heng Sure’s pack--Buddha sharira and Avatamsaka Sutra). Before I know it I’m being frisked and "patted" from two sides. "Where is the knife? No weapons?"
In the din someone hollers, "You Krishnas or Buddhists?"
"Buddhists," we reply. "We’re Buddist monks."
"Oh, they’re Buddhists!--the Buddhists." Everything subsides and mellows. "It’s ok fellows, relax, they aren’t the Krishnas."
Then the questions roll. We hand out releases and letters. They read and wonder:
"Only one meal a day?"
"Vegetarian, too."
"Really?"
"To a monastery in Mendocino?"
One of them wants to know if there’s more to read. He’s been reading the entire release carefully. We get advice of routes, traffic, etc. ahead. "Watch out for the dogs, they’re worse than the cars."
"Well good luck to you."
"Yeah, have a good trip." And as quickly as they appeared, they disappeared. What made all the difference between a bust and a lot of bad vibes and what happened? Precepts. "We aren’t allowed to carry weapons." +1
"We don’t use drug or alcohol." +2
"We don’t beg or solicit--it’s against our rules." +3
In fact as soon as they knew we were Buddhists, they never even finished searching us. "No lying." +4 The word spreads.
The next result of all this police "contact" has been positive. They expect the worst and find otherwise and in that kind of work, that’s something to talk about. I don’t know diddle about the Krishnas, but it’s clear the precepts would help them and I was real glad I wasn’t one today.