Travels in China 2007
Midair Monastery
It is very difficult to leave the profound beauty and tranquility of Wutai Mountain, but we need to start our journey back to Beijing. Yun is intent upon stopping at the Midair Monastery on the way, which is a three-hour drive from the mountain or one and a half days by horseback in the old days. Built 1,500 years ago, the monastery is literally suspended in midair by some amazing feat of architectural and structural imagination and expertise. We just stand gazing up at the 1,500-year-old wooden poles supporting the extended structure, trying to envision in our mind's eye the process of creation, each of us having a different and more impossible idea of how it came into being.
We know that the people of the river valley invited the monks to their village for protection from potential flooding of the once rapidly flowing river and supported them with food and necessities. Yun also visited this sacred site 14 years ago, and he showed us the room where he slept. Now the monks have moved to a temple at Wutai Mountain, and this site is open to the public. However, each step we all take on the sagging structure seems like a leap of faith, knowing that only seven monks at any one time over the centuries actually inhabited this complex of interior spaces and walkways, living in silence and treading very lightly upon this wood and stone. That is why starting in January of 2008, it will be closed to the public. How fortunate we are to have seen this sacred wonder and walked its narrow pathways and hanging porches.
After a few more hours driving, we reach Datong and the Huayan Monastery. In its long history, Datong has been a town of great strategic importance. Located far outside the Great Wall of China, it was the town that the early Manchurians conquered to gain access to the riches of China. It is a crossroads town of many cultures and contains a diversity of Chinese racial minorities who have made this place a beautiful and prosperous environment.
The Huayan Monastery is over 1,000 years old, built originally in the Liao and Jin Dynasties. It is considered a treasure of Chinese art with its elegant clay Buddhist figures, unique carvings, rare frescoes of the Qing Dynasty, and huge Grand Hall. The Grand Hall is the largest of any Buddhist temple in China. In the center of the hall, the Buddhas of the Five Directions sit on their lotus thrones surrounded by 32 clay attendants, protectors and heavenly kings of the Ming Dynasty.
In the entrance courtyard, this beautiful stone Buddha greets us, and I take this picture of Yun in this tranquil garden of stone and flowers to send to you.
We climb back into our now all-too-familiar min-van to continue our journey on to Beijing. I take this opportunity of being in very close proximity to Liu Wei, the young Golden Courage staff person who has accompanied us on this journey, helping us in every moment to negotiate the logistics of such a long journey, to interview him about his background and work with the Golden Courage children. Stay tuned for messages from Beijing, interviews with Liu Wei and Zhouyan, the staff director of Golden Courage, and interviews with Golden Courage children.