What lies beyond?

I have no power to dream the future.  The present bears little resemblance to anything I expected.  The past has sunk rapidly leaving insubstantial traces and echoes that have no power except what I give them. Like a fisherman I cast my line over the waters and begin to reel in my destiny.  Here's what it might look like.
In July I am joyfully re-connected to my family.  The grandkids have grown, of course, and continue to delight the eye.  They have launched with a trio of splashes, their whole lives to live.  My children have plenty to keep them busy: houses, mortgages, jobs and dreams.  The summer is sprinkled with sparkling gatherings with family and friends; stories are shared, the bottle is passed, feelings of time-sanded affection, warmth and belonging.  I pass my days in sun-baked bicycle rides, walks by the waves, reading extraordinary novels with coffee in the morning.
I love my eagle nest condo.  Its so beautiful.   But its been sitting empty long enough and must be placed on the open market to see what it may fetch.  Realtors, lawyers and storage providers must be consulted; maybe even engineers and who knows who else.  The future stretches ahead and more of it will take place in China than in Vancouver.  With any luck my equity can find its way into a more productive eagle nest.  Alison's plans involve selling their house and investing in something more ambitious.  Suits me just fine.
During the summer I also have connections to forge.  What about the chances of starting a Canadian school in China? (Timeline: late in 2016)  In the short term I will be in Xi'an in September - ready to teach English to students who really want to learn.  I need a comfortable room with private shower and an electric scooter.  If we are lucky, Alison and Calvin will come visit in October.  Alice will return from Australia and they will finally meet.  From that point onwards things become much more murky.  Can I survive a Xi'an winter with any level of comfort?  Will money be an issue or does it just continue to be a sidebar compared to what is really important in life?  Can I keep my focus on dhamma?  "Be present with every breath" "May all beings be happy".  What did the Buddha really imply with the concept of 'no self'?  I'm curious as to who would be having this absence of self.
Big question: (drum roll).... am I done with women?  I mean, is the domestic bliss of two against the world a dream from my past, never to be repeated?  What about sex?  As someone famously said in "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" ... "Its never over."  My feelings on that one are subject to change.

     The world goes this way and that.  Ideas are in fashion or not, and those who should prevail are often defeated.  But it doesn't matter. The virtues remain uncorrupted and uncorruptible.  They are rewards in themselves, the bulwarks with which we protect our vision of beauty that we may stand, unperturbed, in the storm that comes when seeking God.   -  Mark Helprin, Winter's Tale

The joy as it flies

As I look back on my time in Taiwan I feel as if  I have learned so much, but I need to reflect on it, consolidate it so that such rich nutrition can be properly digested.  The images of places, the food and the kaleidoscope of sense impressions all tend to overwhelm my memory.  Yet it is not the external impressions which hold the greater significance.  What really endures is the relationships with so many different people.  Some encounters were short, some longer.  Some encounters were shallow, but some ran deep and strong.
    I feel a reluctance to use names at this point.  Maybe its better to create fictional characters who can embody various aspects of humanity without having to worry about misrepresenting or offending actual people.  I have seen tremendous kindness expressed not only in small expressions of consideration and also in extravagant generosity that can only be explained as genuine compassion.  I have also seen stunning demonstrations of pettiness and blatant dishonesty.  Who are the Taiwanese people?  Well, of course, like all other people they contain within them elements of light and darkness.  In all of this I have been aware of the mirror factor.  I perceive other people in terms of my own experience.  I interpret their words and behaviour in the context of the way my own mind works.  So it has been transcendently joyful and at times deeply painful.
    Possibly I have learned a lot about Taiwan, but certainly I have learned a lot about myself.  A central theme has been to honour the power and importance of the present moment.  At times when I have been able to set aside the biases of memory I have been able to experience life anew, like the brightness of the sunlit streets in the late afternoon following a heavy fall of rain. Still, talking about the power of the present moment - its all about the people.
   Tonight was the TTC inauguration party.  Taichung Toastmasters.  I took my Mongolian friends Beima and Arje.  Beima is an attractive young lady who speaks very good English.  She also has lots of Toastmasters experience in Mongolia and loved the whole thing.  The night was vintage TTC.  It had excellent speeches, musical entertainment, special guests and lots of laughter and fun.  We ended up in a kind of Taiwanese folk dance - a TTC family of 40 or so people.  It made me feel very much at home in my new home.  Ironic that my departure from Taiwan is now drawing near.  Ironic, but typical of my path.  Kiss the joy as it flies.

Yuan Fen - Apparently random, but significant karmic encounters

 The photo on the right shows my meeting with Benjamin Chen, the Chairmen of Taichung's Chinese Overseas University.  Its a nice breezy campus near Feng Jia University founded about 50 years ago.  How did I end up meeting the Chairperson?

 Well, Alice and  have a friend Chou Jia) who is in the process of graduating.  He's the handsome fellow in the cap and gown and also in the film project on the right.  He invited us to his graduation.  Somehow, after the flowers and the photos, we were to able to get in.  This seemed a bit disappointing to say the least; although Chou Jia and his parents seemed quite unconcerned as the ceremony commenced with us still outside.  Next we waited a bit and then I followed the parents to the President's office.  She was very nice and took us onto the stage.  We were immediately given VIP seats as you can see from the photo above right.  Afterwards the Chairperson invited us back to his office where I was served coffee and had a long conversation with Ben (the Chairperson) about China, the University and the Terracotta Warriors.  He spoke perfect English, is immensely knowledgeable and has a daughter living in California.  He liked the story about how we met Chou Jia on a street in Taitung last Spring.  We also met the venerable Professor Tsung Tzu Shih  and Max, the Dean of International Cross Straight Affairs (on the right in the group photo). Needless to say, all this seemed to go down well with Chou Jia's parents who subsequently took us out for a delicious dinner.  The Evening wound down with a visit to Lohan's French Eclair stall in the night market.  Lohan was charming and delightful as usual.  His eclairs are very authentic and quite delicious. We waited in seething crowds for a bus, gave up and took a taxi and arrived home to our respective dormitories.
What is so ironic to me is that right after I have planned next year inXi'an I suddenly develop these top notch contacts in Taichung.  It must be, as Ben told me, a case of 'Yuan Fen' - a Chinese concept about seemingly random encounters that for karmic reasons, turn out to be important in life.

And now for something...completely different.  I end this entry with my 'Tongxue' (fellow students and partners in crime) Harbert and Kevin who are of course drinking beer in celebration of the end of our course.  It helps me to balance my paradoxical reflections of self provided by my life in Taichung.  Everything happens for a reason.  Perhaps Yuan Fen applies to everyone I meet.

The middle of the world

As we drove through the lush countryside SW of Xi'an it occurred to me that each field, with an industrious farmer working away at the soil, has seen thousands of years of continuous cultivation.  As we entered the Qinling Mountains which due to their central location, figure prominently in much of Chinese history.  I feel very welcome here, as if the universe has decided this is the place I should be for a while.

Xia'an has a palpable thirst for English language teachers.  Mostly, what they get is young foreigners who want a little adventure, to make some money, meet Chinese girls and drink
a lot of beer.  I have nothing against this, but what they do NOT get is experienced teachers who are native English speakers.  There's something about being needed that is very appealing when one is retired.  They won't pay me much, but that's not my purpose.  Actually, after a while, I could probably make good money doing private tutoring, but my main purpose is to learn Chinese, help people to improve their English and explore the mysteries of China.
All the berries, mountainous countryside, and natural beauty are an unexpected bonus.  The lower right picture of a hostel is not precisely where I stayed but it is similar.  There's a huge tendency in Xi'an to celebrate the past by creating environments that look ancient.  They are actually built recently, but the details are quite authentic.

 I appreciate the atmosphere and the respect for the past which gives everything here a unique flavour.  The photo below captures the feeling of the wall in the late afternoon.  I imagine soldiers of the Qing dynasty patrolling its length, bored out of their skulls while absolutely nothing happens.  In the mid 1700s the Chinese Empire was vast and unassailable.  Xi'an occupies a position in the middle of China; China, to the guards on the wall, was the middle of the world.

 Where is it all going now?  Where am I going?  Have I learned anything in the past five months?  How about this: in the exploration of extraordinary sights and experiences it turns out that it is the people, not the places, which are important to me. Not too surprising really, but if you look at tourist brochures they routinely suggest the opposite.  I always photograph places, out of respect for the privacy of the inhabitants, but a building is just a building; a view is just a view.  I appreciated the berries in the mountains, but

 more than that I enjoyed the delight with which other people enjoyed them (left).
At one point we came to a place for viewing monkeys.  The monkeys were fun, but at a certain distance away.  They were not easy to photograph.  So the Chinese tourists (well of course they're all Chinese - the waiguoren do not get to a place like this) decided they would take photos of me.  They put their children in the photos too.  Its a very typical situation and proceeds with a lot of warmth and humour on both sides.  What struck me is that they are seeing the same thing that I see, only from the other side.  People are interesting.  Making contact with people who are different is VERY interesting.  I think this point may possibly lie at the root of my passion for studying Chinese.  We know intuitively that underlying the vast diversity of humanity we are one world.

You can sense the life force all around you - in everything - but in people it finds its most available expression.  Are we all one family?  Is the 'I' that animates you any different from the 'I' which animates me?  Does one see one's self in another oneself?  When the realization hits you, in a flash at times, there is an upsurge of joy.  Someone asked me how I can travel so far by myself.  In China I never feel alone.