Bodhidharma’s Cave on Mount Song in China

Yesterday morning Rende, one of the Kungfu students from the Shaolin Wugulun Kungfu Academy, picked me and Naomi up at the crack of dawn – 6 am – but we had been up much earlier to prepare a picnic breakfast. It was a special day because I was going to attempt to climb up Wuru Peak (a mountain peak within the Shaolin Temple compound) to see at least the outside of Bodhidharma’s cave, the crude door to which is usually kept padlocked. I had been told that, while the climb was not as long nor as high as the one to San Huang Zhai Monastery, the path was much rougher and therefore more hazardess.

We went early for two reasons: firstly, Dengfeng’s capricious weather is at its best and clearest early in the morning and secondly, if we entered at that time, the guards at the Temple gates were not yet on duty so we could drive in without being stopped and asked to pay the exorbitant 100 yuan (£10.50) per person entrance fee.

That early the weather was indeed glorious: a clear blue sky against which the various mountain peaks were etched in sharp relief. We passed loads of Kungfu guys (some so young) doing their early morning training and then a small nunnery where there was a group of three westerners standing around. The older man started talking to us. He was Russian so I jokingly mentioned that he was following in Putin’s footsteps. (Putin visited here about 3 years ago – a big event in local annals.) We were surprised to hear from him that actually he was Putin’s translator for the event as he speaks fluent Chinese – as well as English, French and German.

Passing the nunnery a young nun came out of a back entrance and set off up the mountain path ahead of us. We took it slowly and, as the path became a staircase, I started to use the Kungfu students’way of climbing steps as I had seen in the BBC documentary. This worked extremely well and I climbed up endless steps without even having to pause to breathe for more than a few minutes. Also the legs didn’t complain at all.

On the way up, with all my awareness focused on the next step, I was greeted by a youngish monk who accompanied me part of the way and who tried to teach me to say a few Chinese words. I obliging repeated the words because he was so full of smiles it would have been churlish to refuse! (Later I found out he was teaching me to say ‘I am tired’! I wasn’t actually!)

As you can imagine the views in all directions were stunning in the fresh, clear, early morning light. When I first arrived in Dengfeng everything was so brown and dry but with the rain 10 days before, everything was now green and comparatively lush.

Finally the gateway to the cave in the rocky mountain face appeared and I stopped to savour the moment. This is where Zen began – mind-boggling to try to conceive of the huge importance of it all. And how many times did Osho tell the story of Bodhidharma sitting in this very cave?

On passing though the gateway I was amazed to find that actually the door to the cave was not padlocked but was in fact wide open – and the young nun was meditating inside. I cannot describe how I felt as I entered the cave and sat down next to her. Naomi stayed at the entrance and I told her I wanted to sit here for a while. As she left, the monk who I had met on the way up came into the cave too and sat down on the opposite side – the cave is small, about 10 feet wide and 12 feet high.

What happened next can be encompassed in one single word – Osho. This was the strongest I had felt his presence since he died so long ago and before long I was in tears – those tears we all shed at the wonder of his presence.

I wished I could have sat there longer, preferably forever, but I was aware of Naomi and Rende waiting outside so all too soon I left, promising myself I would come back again – alone, so I could spend more time there.

We made it up to the very ugly statue quite recently erected at the summit and ate our picnic breakfast although it was hard for me to act normally and talk of normal things.

On the way back down I had to do one last namaste in the cave and as I left again, the monk followed me out. I really wasn’t into talking but he started interrogating Naomi about me. (She has to put up with a lot of this kind of thing and is graciously patient as well as skillful.)

But then things took a strange and interesting turn. I heard the words Zen, Bodhidarma and Indu (India) so could guess what was being discussed but the monk didn’t appear to be satisfied and seemed to want more details so I then heard the word ‘Osho’ mentioned. Then there was a pause as he looked intently at me and then said that he had been reading Osho’s books in Chinese and thought he was, in Naomi’s words, ‘a very successful spiritual leader’.

How surreal can one get? Here I am just outside Bodhidharma’s cave, suffused with Osho energy, and the young monk who had been meditating at the same time as me (whose silent presence I also felt quite strongly) is telling me he has read all of Osho’s books that have been translated into Chinese! Needless to say the questions poured forth.

Apparently he was an itinerant monk, called Zhongzheng (pronounced jongjung), following his own path which has taken him all over China and to Singapore, Indonesia and the USA although he speaks no English. He has tried to go to India on three occasions but was disappointed to be refused a visa each time. He seemed well-educated and from a well-to-do background and his questions and comments revealed an intelligent, enquiring mind with perceptions based very obviously on his own real experience. He is the first person I have met here who shared my kind of ‘spiritual experience’ – my Kungfu ‘family’ are on a very different path.

He wanted to know all about Osho and his kind of meditation techniques and what my experience of being with Osho was like and what I experienced during meditation. I told him how Osho had called Bodhidharma ‘the greatest Zen Master’ and how I cried when I felt the energy in the cave. (He must have heard me.) Of course this is all very difficult to talk about in any normal situation but having to talk via Naomi made things much more difficult although she made a brilliant attempt to cope with the discussion.

How I wished we could have spoken directly. He was so alive and knowing, it was a rare treat to communicate with him.

And then, as he left, he really stunned me when he turned back and looked at me and said, ‘I think you were not crying because of the energy you felt in the cave but because you felt your Master. Even if he died twenty years ago his energy is still here.’

I was deeply touched at his understanding.

That evening, while lying on my bed still feeling full of Osho energy, Naomi came in to my room to say that Zhongzheng had just sent a text message – a poem. It was difficult for my Chinese friends to translate it but, with a bit of help from me, this, I think, is the essence of what Zhongzheng wrote:

Although the cave of meditation is as cold and lonely as the rock in heaven,
The Dhamma*, like a vast ocean, enlightens with no sound.
Although the space of the cave is small, it is like a universe – as boundless as a void,
The Dhamma, embedded in the rock, is passed from heart to heart.

The way of Osho is a mysterious and beautiful way.

*this has a meaning of ‘teachings’ of Buddha, Bodhidarma and no doubt Osho as the word ‘ocean’ is used – but the sense is of ‘teachings’ or ‘understandings’ that are transmitted from ‘from heart to heart’, (energy, vibes), rather than something studied from a scripture.

text by Veena – May 2009

You might want to read Veena’s article from her first visit to Song Mountain: A Journey to the Zen Source