Look into your mind’s eye. That fleeting part of your awareness that can see remembered images and create new ones. You know how to do this. You’ve known it since you were a child. When you were young you called it pretending. “Let’s pretend we’re tigers.” yelled a friend, and a chorus of high pitched children’s roaring would sound. Your throat would become sore from roaring since it was a matter of compressing the vocal chords and throat to create the required ferociousness. Not only that, you were feeling ferocious so you could be sure the sound was coming out just right.
So, look into your mind’s eye. Create what is described here with the same vividness with which you became a tiger when you were a child.
You can see a wooden wall standing well above your height in front of you with a gate directly ahead. Entering the gate, you step from a the front yard of a suburban home onto a wooden walkway extending straight ahead. You walk along the walkway, which is suspended a few inches above trickling water, with well place plants and rocks on either side. The sound of the water is instantly soothing and you are aware of having left your normal world behind and entered a special place. It is quiet, peaceful and oddly foreign as if these surroundings had been transplanted from another time and place.
The walkway ends at a deck which forms the front yard of a two story building. A staircase runs up the left side of the building for access to the upper story. In the center of the building on the main floor is a single door with several square glass panes offering you a tantalizing glimpse to the interior. Above the doorway are large flags identifying this place with……actually you are not quite sure what the flags represent, but their prominent placement gives them obvious significance. To the right of building is a narrow area, flanked on its right with yet another closed gate. What is beyond this?
The door to the building now opens and you are bid entry along with several other travelers who have come to this place. You step across the threshold into a simple square room with a mirrored wall on the left, a plain wall on the right. On either side of the doorway are comfortable looking two-person couches. But what is most striking is the low, multi-tiered platform on the far wall with portrait photos, flowers, a beautiful small statue of an Asian woman, and various yet-to-be identified items. To the left of this platform is a large Chinese gong. To the right, a single wooden armchair with a tall back and beside this, a side table supporting metal bowls of various sizes.
All this decor creates a feeling of the mysterious and exotic. You wonder how exactly these things are used, and whether you will have a chance to find out first hand. These thoughts are cut short as it has been stated that is is time to go to “the garden”. You follow the others out the door, each person pausing briefly to turn and bow momentarily as if to say to the room “Thanks for being here.”.
You hear the gate latch opening on that gate to the right of the building and follow the other people through it. Again you step onto another wooden walkway, this one being a bridge suspended over a concrete culvert which runs beside the building. You can clearly see that this bridge takes you to another walled enclosure. So you walk the short distance across the bridge and through a gate on the other side.
This “garden” is in fact an outdoor training area. It is divided into three main sections, the first which you are standing in. It is a concrete surface inlaid with a beautiful large Yin-Yang symbol surrounded by the Eight Trigrams of the I Ching. The size of it is such that around 10 people could walk around its perimeter without crowding each other. A warm, gentle breeze washes over you, rustling the various trees inhabiting this place.
At the far left of this area one of those trees defines the border with the next area. This one consists of a loose gravel surface, various training tools such as balance beams, short stumps of varying heights and a section for the famous nine posts of Bagua. As you continue your tour of the garden, heading toward the third area, you feel the urge to enter the nine posts and begin weaving your way amongst them. And this feeling happens whether or not you know anything about the way the posts are used. It is a strange inner compulsion, almost as if the posts a drawing you inside them.
Beyond this is the third area, a wooden deck surrounded by beautiful plants, another statue of that beautiful woman whom you have now been told is Kwan Yin, the goddess of compassion. This deck has low benches along one side which are ideal for meditation. There are tall trees scattered throughout the garden such that if you look up, you see a stunning canopy of tree branches and leaves which offer protection from direct sunlight. This is feeling is comforting in its simultaneous offering of protection and natural openness.
The effect of all this is to feel transported to an ancient world where time has stopped and deep learning can take place. It is a place of rejuvenation and solace from your regular life that can revive even the most weary of life travelers. It is the Gompa. It truly is as it has been described yet many amazing details have been left out of this description.
Read this again from the beginning and imagine the sights and sounds as best you can. Remember the feeling of being a child pretending to be an animal and try to create the sensations of being in a place like this. For those who have been there, this will all be familiar and will evoke those warm memories of experiencing the Gompa. For those yet to go there, see it in your mind’s eye and know that it is possible to see the real thing.
