When people come to visit this school, they often come with either experience in some other meditation-type tradition or preconceived notions of what meditation is. They want to know what we 'see' when we meditate, what Shifu teaches about spirit travel, or share stories of visions they've had.

I've often wondered where people get these ideas from. Meditation, at least for the first many years is pretty much a matter of sitting and breathing. That's it. Shifu tells us that learning to sit and learning patience are a beginners only concern. He also tells us that in order for any feeling from meditating to be "real" it must come from your body, not your mind. If it comes from your mind, it is a hallucination created to entertain you. Perhaps you read in a book about an ecstatic experience someone had and your mind thought you should be feeling the same thing.

I've started reading a book by Livia Kohn called Early Chinese Mysticism and in the introduction she explained perfectly to me why so many westerners that visit the school have these wild expectations about our internal practice. From the writings of Christian mystics, there is a fixation on "peak experiences", visions of the divine, ecstatic union with God. Chinese scriptures focus more on the transformation of body and mind. This comes from a completely different worldview. The Christian tradition has a god completely separate from us, who we can see only through his mercy and all of these experiences are otherworldly. Chinese philosophy, however, speaks of the Tao, within and without all of us. The Tao is completely natural and to be in union with the Tao is the most natural of states for every being, a more everyday kind of experience. From what I understand of Buddhism, the basics are quite similar, instead of searching for something outside oneself, the goal is to accept all as it is and without judgement. This early Christian mysticism has influenced us westerners in way we don't even realize. Even for those who are neither Christian, nor religious, our very identity has been influenced by our past roots. Very interesting.

There are many other traditions such as shamanism where one goes on vision quests and experiences sensual wonders and I don't wish to devalue those but I don't think they've influenced our cultural identity in the same ways as Christianity. One thing about living in a place so far removed from home is that it really gives you a new perspective with which to view your culture.