128-Start part 5 - Buddhism in daily life

Start part 5

The monk woke me up early, it was still dark, of course I had not yet gotten used to the place, but Shi Yan Zi was very lenient with me, he saw that I was not yet "with me". His day began at 5 a.m. for morning prayer, which I did not yet participate in that day, I had to wake up my limbs first, sleeping in such cold was most unusual (today I sleep with the window open even in winter, remember my time in the temple fondly).

There was some kind of breakfast, again the delicious woo long tea, plus some kind of porridge. The hot tea brought me back to life, the energy came back into my body, life seemed "good" again, I suddenly didn't worry so much about my being here.

I got along better and better with my new master thanks to the translation computer, we slowly got into conversation, so to speak, short and concise, but clearly understandable, he meant to me that today would be my first training.

Well, I wanted to go through with it now, that's why I traveled so far, took a lot on myself, was in a completely foreign country, not on a package vacation, no, independently and without a "tour guide" I had come to this moment. I wanted to do like my great idol Bruce Lee, that's why I came here, I wanted to do the training of Shaolin, to learn Kung Fu at the source, in the world famous Shaolin Temple, together with the famous monks. The Rainer from Stuttgart, here in China, together with the monk Shi Yan Zi.

The master began to show me smaller movements, we practiced first directly in the monk's hermitage, here it was at least not windy. I was supposed to copy the movements, over and over again, he started correcting me, lower in the stance, the hand position this way or that, the legs, the feet, the pelvis, my head was buzzing.

The exercises were completely different from the ones I knew from the German training. The muscles began to burn, the thighs felt like fire, the master probably noticed that I was getting weaker and weaker, but was not interested in it at all, his orders still echo through my head today, he counted off the exercises, "Yī'èrsānsì" (one, two, three, four), it sounded in the barracks yard tone through the hermitage.

Again and again the same sequences, the muscles burned even more, but in the spirit pride arose, I had made it, to the Shaolin Temple in China, I trained with a real Shaolin monk. What I didn't know at that time was that in 1989, after a long time, I was the first foreigner (at least in "Red" China) to be accepted here, but more about that later and in more detail.

The path became my goal!

He who remains faithful to the holy trail will reach the other shore.

- Buddha - honorary name of Siddharta Gautama - 560 to 480 before the year zero

Copyright: https://shaolin-rainer.de

(Please also download my app "Buddha-Blog English" from the Apple and Android stores)