Pictured above: The summit of Great White Mountains Taibaishan
first travel back in time.
It was somewhere in 1995, while he willingly worked on the pot in a trading company, tore a few days holiday in the gore in the holy Western Huashan 西岳 华山. After an overnight train ride, get off at 4:30 on the small, dirty train station, from which busik took me groggy, and after an hour of slow driving on a bumpy road dowiozl uphill. Gora is amazing - almost vertical cliffs, growing suddenly and climbing on to heaven, to die somewhere in the clouds and mists. Gora is not high, has a little over two thousand meters above sea level, but among the five famous mountains of Taoism is famous for its dangerous approaches, move along the vertical scale on the swaying planks, where only the strings that give a sense of security-such. Of course, to think about in high heels paniusiach extract was built on the north summit of the mountain, but when I stood before the gate leading to the trail, the ski was not yet.
Input on the gore was very laborious. Stairs very high, sometimes to the 70cm height, sometimes instead of the stairs were depressions in the rock, and climbed the chain. I started hiking around 7:30 am, and went up in late afternoon. I walked all the peaks of mountains, including the vertex, in the end I decided to stop for the night in a small little hotel on the East Summit. As it turned out, hotelik bordered with an old Taoist temple, so I went to her, say hello to me a young monk near twenty. He invited me for tea in his cell, we began a conversation, which rolled out late into the night, and ended Wspolna meditation. We talked about his decision to become a monk. He told me that he worked in a pub in the south of China, and saw the money, and corruption, and the emptiness of entertainment, which you can buy for the money, one day he decided to throw it all, and arrived at Huashan, in order to meditate. He found himself abandoned caves - the same, which 800 years earlier wydrazyl 郝大通 Hao Datong, one of the Seven Taoist Masters School Total reality. In this cave he survived the whole year, especially meditating. Life there was difficult - no source of water we had to collect rainwater, suffered from the winter frost, summer - the heat and the scorching heat. After a year under pressure from the local association took care of the Taoist temple at the summit. As he said, without a master, and the true message of a man just pale, but is ready for it, and does not intend to abandon the Way, or regret their decision. However, there is hope that the master will appear, and although some will be able to get closer to the ideal of immortal.
meeting with the monk, younger than me guy, but at the same time a very mature, and a remarkable aspiration, had a big impression on me. First of all, become aware that in China are still alive the traditions of a hermit, the traditions of meditation and the pursuit of immortality.
the next day we did together a photo (I have to find them, is somewhere in the chest), a boy gave me some tips how to get to the cave where he meditated, said goodbye, and already then there has never met.
Photo: Taoist temple on top of the Great White Mountains, the highest peak Gor Zhongnan:
year or two later met in Xi'an nice young couple from the USA. They have plans to enter Huashan, I give them some hints, how to get uphill, as the present FORMED. Also asked, in order to greet me friend the monk. While they went to Huashan, I went to the Cave of the Dragon's Gate in the county 龙 门洞 Long 陇县 (the place where he meditated famous Chuji 丘处机 Qiu, founder of Dragon Gate sect.) After a few days we met again in Xi'an - as it turned out they did not find a monk, also could not tell what happened to him.
But back to the present time. Last Tuesday I flew to Guangzhou for one day to work. Inspection of goods, discussions, negotiation. On the plane, yet I studied my preparatory materials for inspection, in the end I finished, and to pass the time I reached the CAAC Inflight Magazine, colorful magazine airlines. To the great surprise, among the ad Patek Philippe, Omega and Tissot found an article titled "In Search of Taoism in the Zhongnan Mountains" 寻道 终 南山. In one of the entries in the blog I mentioned these mountains - situated near the Xi'anu, were thousands of years the place to which we went to odosobienie August Taoist and Buddhist monks, in hermitages among inaccessible mountains devote themselves to meditation and inner alchemy practices. Perhaps the most famous recluse in the mountains was empty Zhongnan 虚云 法师 Cloud, who spent many years there. Empty Cloud wrote the diary, which became a kind of bible for many, it also described the collapse event in deep trance meditation. Now, one day he decided to cook the beans, meal, and that this is cooked long enough to not wasting time Empty Cloud sat down to meditate. After a moment of trance, he blurted out knocking on doors hermitage - that came to visit his friends, the monks living in hermitages located near 茅棚. Empty Cloud was very pleased, and invited them to join us for the meal. Imagine his surprise when it turned out that not only the fire in the hearth, and expired, but the beans in a pot was covered with a thick layer of mold. What seemed to him a moment, was in fact a dozen days ... NB
often talk about how the human lifespan has been extended due to the progress of science and medicine, we live much longer than our ancestors. But why it seems to us that time moves very quickly, slipping through her fingers, with before we look in August, passing many years? Some time ago I read an article the Chinese internal alchemy researcher, who claimed that the subjectively perceived our lives is not necessarily a longer run from the people living 100 or more years ago, the people who lived kalendarzowo less from us by 10 or 20 years. Wines for that impose on the haste of civilization, the number of entertainment and temptations that await us.
But back to the topic. Gory, once avoided in the absence of adequate tourism infrastructure, became the site of many pilgrimages mostly young people, after the release in China in 2006, the Chinese translation of the book by Bill Porter's Road to Heaven, "in which he describes his encounter with Zhongnan monks in the mountains. Article
already described the meeting the Taoist monk, living in a mountain hermitage. The further I read an article, the wider I opened my eyes - with astonishment and surprise. As it turned out, the monk was about 40 years old, came from southern China, where he worked in the city of Zhuhai, which the pub manager. Quit his job, went to the Mount Huashan, and after several years of their stay there, he started studies at the University of Taoism in Beijing. Studies, however, not graduated, he decided to lie low in the mountains and pay the meditation ...
fools it was the same monk, whom I met on Huashanie 15 years ago?
Photo: A wild and raw Zhongnan Mountains - in the upper right corner of the highest peak, Taibaishan, with a tiny dot Taoist temple:
NB sent me a book by Bill T from Seattle a few years ago, and I read in one breath. You would then the idea was born, in order to go in the Zhongnan Mountains. The first approach was the entrance to their highest peak, whose Bill failed to take, as you it was a closed area. NB peak is closed to this day, he can enter on only for special and difficult to get permission, but we bribed the guards yuanami paltry 100, and was among the first foreigners we entered the snorkelling itself - a trifle - 3768m above sea level vertex. At the top there is a - what else - Taoist temple. However, we did not meet any recluse, though we saw several caves of meditation. Entrance to the Great White Gore deserves 太白 山 on a separate entry, so I will not dwell here.
winter this year, while in Xi'an, I visited The Palace of Eight Immortals 八仙 宫, and there - also by a curious coincidence - zgadalem August with the monk, with whom - as it turned out - we were "brothers" when training the same faction Taijiquan. The monk offered to be my guide in the mountains Zhongnan. This is a valuable aid in a country where knowledge can open doors normally closed (although they may also open to close ...)
Photo: "Brother" in Taijiquan, and can guide a prospective Zhongnan Mountains:
In each If an article in the journal did his. I have more than one reason to finally go in search of Taoism in the Zhongnan Mountains ...
PS.Stare pictures I did on films, so this record shows only photos of the Great White Mountains of June ub Incidentally, the banner at the top blog is also a photo taken during that trip.
