WUDANG FIVE IMMORTALS TEMPLE

This is the Way

There is a saying in China, 夏练三伏，冬练三九 (Xià liàn sānfú, dōng liàn sānjiǔ), in the three hottest days of the year, practice gong, in the three coldest days of the year, practice gong.

The winter brings a new challenge every day. Some days we have no electricity. Most days we don’t have running water. That really makes you ponder how much it takes to produce and carry such a simple thing up the mountain for us to use as well as our consumption habits. Without electricity, the batteries on our phones and flashlights soon run empty and we rely on candlelight.

Once this winter, to fix the electricity we trekked down the stairs and into the forest to follow the power lines. A tree had fallen on the lines, and with the help of one of the villagers from down the mountain we cut and pulled it off. We then continued to track the power lines down the mountain and found some branches, weighed down by snow, upon which they hanged. We didn’t want to take the lives of these trees, so using a hook and rope to grab the branches, we pulled and either broke them or tied them away from the line. These are not experiences one gets when living in the city. Shifu teaches us:

“that the Dao is sought within bitterness”

Inside the bitterness, you grind and temper yourself. Aside from the unexpected challenges, we are taught that everyday living is where your studying is. The direction is to make yourself tired, everyday sweeping, chopping wood, gathering water, maintaining the temple, taking care of visitors, etc and within these acts we endeavor to always practice searching for “point zero”; by unifying our bodies and minds with Heaven and Earth every moment, trying to correct ourselves and keep our awareness inside, cultivating calmness and stability in every situation. The high Daoist requirement is to have at least half of our consciousness in our dantian at all times, so when its calm with few people around, it’s a precious time to try building a foundation for this very difficult practice. As Shifu says the simplest things are usually the hardest.

Point Zero, Shifu teaches us, is the space between being awake and asleep. At point zero, it takes just a few seconds for our energy to return to full. This capacity is within everyone – as common people, we train to reach it. Getting up in the winter before sunrise is not an easy task for some, yet the thought to light the morning incense and offer to the spirits fuels will power as it is a very special ritual to connect with spirits and express your prayers. At that time, it is very tranquil and usually no one is up yet. However, there is still movement. Out in the darkness there is light—the light of the spirit lamp, the most important light in the temple. It is the connection to the spirit realm. Keeping it lit up is the most important task within our responsibilities of minding the temple.

The most precious gift of staying at the temple over the winter is spending time with Shifu outside the confines of a class framework—there is time and space to speak in depth as we spend our day-to-day life together. Sometimes Shifu has to be off of the mountain, and our practice at those times also includes maintaining our collective field and collective practice without our teacher present, and this makes the power of his presence even more obvious. We are grateful for the opportunity to be here now.

Thank you, Shifu.

Written by a temple’s student