Huashan, bits and pieces of my experience

Craig’s experience on Huashan.

Due to some prompting I am hereby relaying some of my experience of Huashan.
Really impossible to encompass it all in words, and also not possible to separate from the entire experience of China.

A bit of background, I have studied Chi Kung and Alchemy first with Mantak Chia starting in approximately 1985-86 and through basic teacher training in 1993 at which time a became a certified HT instructor (not very active though). Subsequently I began to study Michael Winn’s material extensively as soon as he began to release it, and have been on two other retreats led by Michael prior to the 2004 China trip. My experience of working with Michaels material is that it brought me from a place of being stuck in a certain place with the practice to a place of movement and joyful exploration again.
I always give proper gratitude to M.Chia though, and I have had some very good training and experience of meditation directly with him through the late 80’s.

I had a very close relationship with the person who wrote the anonymous story of his experience which M.Winn then posted. We were in entirely different locations from each other during my first two days in the caves.

I had the honor of staying in a cave which is embedded in the actual rock of Mt. Huashan.
The other cave/temples of Betuping (spelling?) are across and well above from the cave I stayed in. The other honor attached to this cave was that it was the actual cave of which M.Winn has written about his experience of his first retreat on Huashan. I stayed for two days in this cave with a gentleman from Western Canada, who had been to China once before. Actually on the same trip with Plato, and also his roommate. So I got a special perspective of Plato second hand, in addition to my long relationship through the medium of this forum. I am a long time lurker and VERY intermittent contributor.

Michael was kind enough to accompany C.D. and myself to this cave and “introduce” us to the elementals there. My experience of this cave was perhaps not as “otherworldly” as Marty’s description of his experience, but we are all going through different things in different ways, or perhaps processing on different levels.

Partly this may have been as aspect of intention coming into play here. It was my intention to link up with the living mountain and not necessarily any humanlike manifestation of immortals or what have you.

To answer one question which was posed directly to me, no I did not have any encounter with Foxes, spiritual or otherwise.

My experience of the cave was that of being enveloped in a very powerful force as soon as stepping inside it. It was very tangible just to move in and out of the cave was the experience of moving into and out of a very strong energy body.

I fasted for the entire three days in which I was in two different caves. Some comments on this. I was prepared to have plenty of food in case I was not able to fast. Though I have virtually no experience with fasting I found that it was accomplished with no effort.

One day prior to beginning the cave experience part of the trip I accompanied five others in an arduous trek from the base of Huashan to the pinnacle of the South Peak. We did this from before dawn until late that same morning. Everyone else took the lift-car more than halfway up the mountain while we were trekking up. This was quite strenuous for me, which doesn’t really capture the effort it took. I am 40 and not in great shape lately and was the oldest of the group by several years. However it was a good test of will and also the traditional way of pilgrimage onto Huashan. It provided a very real way of connecting with the Mountain.

Having just done that the day before followed by hiking up the mountain again the next day to Qingkeping (spelling?) which is about halfway, I was fully expecting that my body would need food to be able to maintain and recover while I was in the cave. So it was a pleasant surprise to find myself feasting on chi for fuel instead.

Another thing I did was fast from speaking for over 1.5 days while in the cave. This was quite a revelation as well. The desire to do so arose spontaneously while doing practice.
I had a great experience of coming down out of the cave to do Chi Kung with the group who was staying in the Monastery but not in the caves. I felt like something only part of this world when I came down to practice with them. It was quite extraordinary. Really experiencing my whole energy body and feeling light and glowing.

My overall experience was of connecting to a VERY powerful force of nature, and not really with human or spirit of immortals in any sense. Also my experience revolved more around the physical aspects of trusting that I could be nourished and sustained by chi acquired and processed internally.

I did observe a change among people on Huashan. There were several people with whom I had formed close bonds during the trip. Because of that I was able to sense them in more subtle ways than can easily be described, partly because of dissolution of some of the barriers which would ordinarily be there among strangers or even ordinary friends. It seemed that after the three days on Huashan that everyone in my circle had somehow shifted their presence away from the physical and into the spiritual. Hard to describe, but definitely perceived that way by me. Lighter seeming and not having the same physical resonance as before.

In closing my experience of Huashan was powerful, but not easily describable. I felt at the time like things were set in motion which continue to be digested. I definitely absorbed a tremendous amount of energy, and this continued for some time after coming down off the mountain.