conversations.from: human
conversations.value: a description for a book titled Zen Baggage about Zen, China, Baggage with the genre: Religion & Spirituality
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: In the spring of 2006, the author traveled through the heart of China, from Beijing to Hong Kong, on a pilgrimage to sites associated with the first six patriarchs of Zen. Zen Baggage is an account of that journey. Like most travel literature, the author takes readers to places few Westerners have ever ventured. He weaves together historical background, interviews with Zen masters, and translations of the earliest known records of Zen, along with personal vignettes. the author's account captures the transformations taking place at religious centers in China but also the abiding legacy they have somehow managed to preserve. the author brings wisdom and humor to every situation, whether visiting ancient caves containing the most complete collection of Buddhist texts ever uncovered, enduring a six-hour Buddhist ceremony, searching in vain for the ghost in his room, waking up the monk in charge of martial arts at Shaolin Temple, or meeting the abbess of China's first Zen nunnery. the author's previously published Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits has become recommended reading at Zen centers and universities throughout America and even in China (in its Chinese translation), and Zen Baggage is sure to follow suit.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: the author's previously published Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits has become recommended reading at Zen centers and universities throughout America and even in China (in its Chinese translation), and Zen Baggage is sure to follow suit. Zen Baggage is an account of that journey. Like most travel literature, the author takes readers to places few Westerners have ever ventured. He weaves together historical background, interviews with Zen masters, and translations of the earliest known records of Zen, along with personal vignettes. the author's account captures the transformations taking place at religious centers in China but also the abiding legacy they have somehow managed to preserve. the author brings wisdom and humor to every situation, whether visiting ancient caves containing the most complete collection of Buddhist texts ever uncovered, enduring a six-hour Buddhist ceremony, searching in vain for the ghost in his room, waking up the monk in charge of martial arts at Shaolin Temple, or meeting the abbess of China's first Zen nunnery.In the spring of 2006, the author traveled through the heart of China, from Beijing to Hong Kong, on a pilgrimage to sites associated with the first six patriarchs of Zen.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: the first four paragraphs for this book
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Zen Baggage
  Ted was just back from the States. He said there was lots of interest in his hermit documentary, but no money. His American roommate was having a dinner party: spaghetti and red wine. China was actually producing some drinkable stuff, especially cabernets. But I wasn't in the mood for wine and was too exhausted to carry on a conversation. I felt a cold coming on and went to bed. I think it was from standing in that freezing shrine hall for six hours.
  The next morning I woke up again before dawn—no morning ceremony, just jet lag. I wasn't alone. There were already people down in the courtyard doing their morning exercises and talking loudly enough to hear on the sixth floor. I finally got tired of listening and got up to find the stuff in the kitchen to make a cup of coffee: filter, filter holder, ground coffee, cup. Instant coffee was usually what I drank in China—it was all that was available on the road. Making coffee with a filter felt strange. But it worked. Afterwards, I stretched out on the living room sofa and thumbed through an English magazine about the Beijing foreigner scene and waited for Ted to get up.
  Foreigners got married in Beijing and had babies and announced promotions and had going-away parties and wrote about their travels. People can't keep from forming communities. And people who leave home and go abroad have an even greater need for the company of fellow countrymen. That was especially true in Asia, where relationships were everything.
  About the time I was going through the classified ads for English teachers and masseuses (noting how much the former made, and how much the latter charged), Ted came down from his attic bedroom. I told him I had a big day planned and had some places in mind where language, I thought, would surely reveal its true nature. I invited him to join me. He was game, and after another cup of coffee, we sallied forth.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: five more paragraphs
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: No one has ever explained why Zen rose to such prominence, why the very word became synonymous with Buddhism in China. Most people have assumed it was the result of historical forces or ideology. But over the years, I've visited just about every site associated with the beginning of Zen in China, and I've concluded that the success of Zen was more a matter of location than anything else. And the location that made all the difference was just beyond the bench where I was sitting. Zen didn't amount to much until its practitioners started working the land. And the land they chose to work was the mountain basin: relatively flat, well-watered land surrounded by mountains. And the Yangtze watershed was one mountain basin after another.
  In addition to possessing an ecological niche that didn't exist in the arid North and that only Zen masters had the good sense to exploit, the Yangtze watershed was far from the tiger's mouth and imperial whim, and also exempt from nomadic incursions. And it was where the emperor banished more wiseacre poets and political idealists than any other place in the empire. All of these factors helped. But they only helped because of what the Fourth Patriarch started. Tao-hsin was the one who introduced self-supporting communal practice as the Way of Zen.
  When people think about Zen, they usually think of it in external terms: nonsensical talk, spontaneous behavior, or minimalist art forms. But that would be to look at it from the outside. If you look at it from the inside, from your mind, Zen is just a way of living. And that way of living is far easier to realize in a communal setting with the support of others than it is alone. Seclusion has its place, especially once a person has practiced in a community, but it was its communal approach to spiritual cultivation that was the strength of Zen. That was why it overwhelmed all other Buddhist sects in China, both in terms of numbers and in terms of influence. Its success was Darwinian. It produced a better-trained monk and more of them. Other sects were ideology-driven. Zen didn't have an ideology. Zen was life-driven. Its motto was "No work, no food." Zen monasteries in China were slowly getting back to this approach that had made them possible in the first place. But not all of them have been able to do so—even Fourth Patriarch Temple had not yet managed to recover the land that made the work and the food of Zen possible.
  Thinking about the food part of the equation made me realize that maybe it was time to be getting back. Of course, I hadn't done anything to deserve it, but there were certain responsibilities that came with being a guest. I returned the way I came, through the front gate, past the welcoming committee, and back up the steps. As I walked around the outside of the main shrine hall, I met Ming-chi, the temple manager. He waved for me to follow him into the abbot's quarters. The abbot was Ching-hui, whom I had known since 1989, when I asked him if there were still hermits in China, and he told me there were and where to find them. Since then, we had become dharma friends.
  When he was still a novice, Ching-hui was the personal attendant of Empty Cloud. Ever since then, he had been involved in Buddhist politics, and Buddhism had become a big deal in China. Unlike Taoism, which was viewed with a certain amount of trepidation, having spawned many of the uprisings in Chinese history, Buddhism was considered a source of social stability. The government liked the Buddhists. They were peaceful, they encouraged people to lead upright lives, and their monasteries and nunneries were just about the only communes left in the country.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: the last four paragraphs
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Taoists; around Huangmei; center at Kuanyinsai; during Cultural Revolution; Ke Hung; on Tienchushan; on Wuaishan
  Tea: first use in Zen schools; Golden Fur; Iron Goddess; preparation in China; red teas; red twig; at Shaolin Temple; as source of monastery income; Tibetan; "Zen,"
  Zen monasteries: first; first self-supporting; of Fourth and Fifth Patriarchs; guest halls; how they work; with meditation halls; monestary store; plan for Third Patriarch Temple; rules; sites for; sources of income; in a volcano
  Zen monks: financial support; meetings; old abbot's advice; procedure for staying at monestaries; rooms; training