This morning we were late in getting into the Dim Sum House for breakfast with Chang and her husband. It was scheduled for 8am but we didn’t get there till 9am. On the ride over on the cab the driver attempted to take detours on the road as to rack up more money on the meter. Mrs. Liang threatened to get off the cab if the driver does not know where he was going. It was only then that the driver behaved and started to drive towards the restaurant.
Chang’s husband wanted to check me out so that he can approve his wife’s travel with in to PuTuoShan. He was a thin man who is from ShanDong but looked more Cantonese than any Cantonese I know. He smoked the whole time. He left shortly after checking me out. I spent the rest of the 7 hours at the Dim Sum House talking to my two female GuangDong friends. It's amazing we can just keep chatting. Dim Sum House is one of those places where the food just keep getting carted in front of you hot and delicious and the Pu Rh tea just keep getting poured. We ate and chatted from breakfast to lunch to afternoon tea.
The husbands all wanted to know what traumatic experiences I had come across in my life to become a vegetarian and to get into Buddhism. The wives wanted to know what my pilgrimage, trip was about having visited so many Buddhist Holy places. I said in general it was about gratitude. It was difficult to explain on my part because it was just that simple and nothing more, it was difficult for them to understand because it was so simple and difficult to grasp all in the same time.
Mrs. Liang wanted to know why I was leaving so soon. She wanted to know if she had done something wrong as a host etc… I told her I wanted to get going to head up to Huang Shan in Anhui before my visa expired in China and make it all the way to Shanghai to see my friends there.
On the way to the train station on the cab, Chang asked me about meditation and wanted a quick crash course in our entire 7 minute cab ride over. I told her if she really wanted to learn about meditation I would stay longer to work with her. I was serious about it and was committed to it. But she wasn’t or maybe she was but all the energy that was obstructing her wasn’t in agreement to the new found liberation from the practices of meditation. She pursued the topic some more while we were in line to get my train ticket on the terminal. I told her the train terminal really isn’t the most ideal place to have a crash course on meditation.
