Entries from June 2006 ↓

I started training with Fong Ha last Saturday and signed up for a month of class. Fong is very kind, full of energy, sharp and quick, but not frenetic in the least bit. A very grounded man. He started class with various sitting and standing in stillness postures, then moved to joint warm ups, 8 brocade style, a walking, balancing practice and then a 108 piece Taichi form that will take me a dozen years to learn half of. Hah!

Last Tuesday, when I showed up for the early morning class, I was surprised to see Fong alone, sitting at a bench in the park with a hooded sweatshirt on, hood over his head, deep in meditation. I stood in front of him for a minute before he opened his eyes. I expected him to be startled or disoriented from moving from deep meditation to having to face and communicate with another person. He was not startled in the least, nor put off by the lack of attendance, he immediately stood and started teaching me with his full attention. It was funny, at one point he asked me my last name and I said “Omlor”, and he says “Omlor. Omlor. Om. Om. Aum-lor. Aum. Very nice. You have sacred sound in your name. This is good. Good name.” :)

Today Leslie and I attended a workshop with Liu Ming. The class was called Introduction to Chinese Mantic Arts and I wouldn’t have gone had it not been for the fact that Liu Ming’s name was brought to my attention by two different people who don’t know each other and within a three day period of time. I am so happy fortune led me to this workshop, it was very impressive. Mantic is another name for divinatory arts and in the Chinese system covers astrology, fengshui and Iching. Ming is a veritable encyclopedia of detailed knowledge on Chinese history, philosophy, cosmology, government, divination, Taoism, etc, etc. His style of presentation is engaging and filled with cleverness and humor. He poked fun at Berkeley/Marin style Taoism in good taste more than once. In the end this workshop ended up really being an introduction to an introduction. Ming took a poll after class to see if enough students in attendance were interested in a 6 month in depth study of the subject and enough said yes (including Leslie and I) so once a month for the next half a year we will be studying this fascinating subject with Ming.

Part of the content of the workshop I thought was particularly interesting was something he spoke about regarding ancestral Qi, and how, for example, untold stories from your family history can have a strong bearing on one’s fate. So it is within one’s interest to get in touch with these ancestral parts and hear and heal their stories so as to bring more relative freedom to our destiny.

I also spoke with Ming after class about his meditation teachings and arranged a private class with him next Sunday where he will teach me his method of meditation. If I am drawn to practice it daily perhaps I will commit to a year of study under him, which is the requirement to be considered for inclusion in his meditation circle.