I went to Zen practice today. It was the first since the Shifu’s visit. Week after next is our retreat, nice. Anyway back to here I digress.
Today there was a long time practitioner visiting from Taiwan. She has been doing Zen for 13 yrs I think she said. She gave a talk in the beginners class, which I missed, she did not want to just repeat the same for the advance session, so I missed the full story. What I got was that she had some kind of illness that the Shifu helped her with, when no one else could/would do anything. She was very sceptical in the beginning, until she witness her own change.
What she did in our session was just a short talk on choosing a Shifu and remembering our reasons for studying Zen in the first place so, we would not fall off the track, which can be easy to do. More so if your living a good, easy life. This cause me to think about my reasons for starting Shaolin Zen practice and why I chose this Style.
In a sense this style choose me. I am pleased with this style of Zen, because it for me, unlike some others covers the three levels of life, of our existence here. Physical, Mental and Spiritual. It is the missing link in my Shaolin training. As I said this style chose me. When the student is ready the teacher will come.




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May 12, 2008 at 12:23 am
Rick Matz
We choose, and are chosen. As with yin and yang, it’s one thing; not two.
May 12, 2008 at 12:24 am
Rick Matz
PS Your calligraphy?
May 12, 2008 at 8:26 am
Zen
My Shifu’s ( Paul Eng) calligraphy. Not his best, just something I asked for on a scrap.