The Hidden School

by Dan Millman

  On impulse, drawing on the persona of my college days, I put my bowl down dramatically, stood, and then pressed up to a handstand on the table. Upside-down, seeing no one behind me, I did a snap down to my feet followed by a back handspring into a somersault. Then, as if nothing had happened, I strolled back to my table, sat down, and continued eating.

  After a moment of dead silence, the room erupted with shrieks, laughter, and boisterous comments. The students near me bowed and smiled. A moment before, I had been the Foreign Stranger; now I was the Acrobat.

  During the two-hour rest period, I busied myself washing pants, shirts, socks, and underwear behind the main house. While my clothing dried in the sun, draped over low branches, I returned to my nook, as I’d begun to think of it. Too tired from unaccustomed labor to think about studying Soc’s notes, I slept until it was time for t’ai chi practice.

  As the afternoon sun began its descent from the top of the hazy blue sky, dipping in the direction of Mongolia far to the west, I stepped into the white pavilion, where young field-workers had transformed into martial artists. All were dressed in identical blue pants and tops, so I stood out like a sore American. Which I was, after the morning work shift.

  Mei Bao appeared by my side. “Master Ch’an would like you to observe for the next few days until the routine is familiar to you.”

  Disappointed but also relieved, I crouched down in a corner and watched the students warm up. They moved and stretched in unison while singing a rhythmic song, which Mei Bao, in passing, explained was a way to unify the group in breathing and movement.

  After the warm-up, they all sat still with their eyes closed for a few minutes of deep, slow breathing, which, Mei Bao told me later, included a visualization of what they wanted to accomplish. They rose in unison and began the t’ai chi form. I noticed that Master Ch’an observed the students with a relaxed attentiveness. He stayed in the front of the room, while Mei Bao wandered among the students, occasionally returning to speak with Ch’an.

  Just after class, Mei Bao told me a little of the history of t’ai chi to put my training into context: “The traditional practice of t’ai chi comes from the Chen Village, originally located near the Shaolin Temple area of Zhengzhou. Yang Luchan, a servant boy in the Chen household, was the first person outside the Chen family to learn this style. It’s said that he mastered it so thoroughly that he eventually traveled to the capital of Peking, now called Beijing, and defeated so many Imperial Guards that he became known as Invincible Yang. He eventually created a Yang family dynasty.

  “Legend has it that Yang Luchan taught a superficial method to the public of his time, reserving a secret indoor Yang style for his descendants and closest disciples. As it happens, Hua Chi trained with a student of this indoor style well after the collapse of the Qing dynasty. This sifu, or teacher, was quite old when Hua Chi met him, and he desired to pass on its methods to her, a devoted practitioner.”

  Turning back to me, Mei Bao said, “You’ll first need to learn the precise set of one hundred and eight movements until you can embody and demonstrate six essential principles: relaxation, upright torso, separate weighting on each leg, fair lady’s hand, turning at the waist, with arms and torso working in unison. At first the form is primary, and remains the foundation of internal training—opening the body and nervous system to gather energy from heaven and earth, letting it surge along the energy meridians. This improves health and also power. That’s why this practice, which appears merely dancelike to the casual eye, is called t’ai chi chuan, or grand ultimate fist.”

  Over the coming days, I adapted to the routines and rhythms of the farm. After the evening meal, I returned to my quarters to study the journal and began to make preliminary notes in my notebook.

  Just after breakfast one morning, I finally had the chance to talk more with Mei Bao. Curious about my fellow workers and students, I asked, “Where did all these young people come from? And how did they find their way here?”

  “Hua Chi has many contacts, including several orphanages,” she explained. “She was able to hand-select children with few prospects of adoption but with strong energy, and invite them to the farm. This isn’t strictly legal, but the authorities’ single-minded focus on ‘revolutionary leaps’ has left them with little attention to give to what happens to a few stray orphans. As you’ve seen, the students are grateful to be here and to work in exchange for their subsistence and t’ai chi training. Anyone who chooses to leave—and eventually most of them do leave—will have skills to serve in farming or teaching t’ai chi. Or perhaps, with your help, they can perform or even teach acrobatics.”

  I doubted I’d be around long enough to learn or teach much, but I left that unsaid. Instead I asked, “Have any students chosen to leave early?”

  Mei Bao hesitated before speaking. “Not everyone is temperamentally suited for the life here. A few years ago, one young woman elected to return to her home city of Guangzhou. I accompanied her to Taishan Village, and we were able to arrange her passage back. And . . . just before your arrival, one of the young men, Chang Li, ran off. I hope he found his way out of the forest.”

  “I hope so too,” I said, thinking about the bear and my own difficult journey.

  Changing the subject, I asked, “Did Hua Chi’s letter to Master Ch’an relate anything about my travels?” Mei Bao looked puzzled, so I told her a little about my professional purpose and—skipping over my recent adventures—shared a little about Socrates and my search for a hidden school.

  “You think this might be the school your teacher meant?” she asked, not sounding convinced.

  “I really don’t know,” I said. “But here I am. And while I’m here, it’s likely that my mentor would encourage me to study directly with the Master of Taishan Forest. Does Master Ch’an ever take on private students?”

  I thought I saw Mei Bao’s lips curve upward in a smile, but it disappeared quickly. “Not likely,” she answered, standing up to leave. “But I believe he’ll appreciate your interest. In the meantime, you’ll have to settle for whatever suggestions I can offer—and your fellow students, of course.”

  The following day I was invited to participate in the afternoon t’ai chi session. I knew the Buddhist saying “Comparison is a form of suffering,” but I compared anyway, perhaps naturally given the stark contrast between my beginner’s struggles and the graceful movements of the advanced students. Mei Bao translated Master Ch’an’s reminder to focus on the proper positions and movement until I was ready for internal training. Which might be never at my current rate of progress, I thought.

  Later, when Mei Bao asked for a show of hands from those who wished to train with me in acrobatics during the second afternoon session, every hand shot up. From one moment to the next, I went from bumbling student of t’ai chi to “distinguished teacher of acrobatics,” in the words of Master Ch’an.

  As it turned out, teaching here was easier and more fun than I’d thought it would be. Mei Bao was always on hand, and the students were orderly and attentive. I spoke, she translated; I demonstrated, they imitated. Meanwhile, Master Ch’an sat quietly, observing it all. Best of all, Mei Bao changed into her white tunic and joined in as my student!

  She and the other students loved trying new moves involving balance, rolls, cartwheels, and, soon, basic tumbling. Unlike the stable routines of t’ai chi, the possibilities of acrobatic maneuvers were endless.

  “Poetry and calligraphy are refinements of writing,” I said through my translator, “and singing is a refinement of speaking. Similarly, the acrobat refines everyday movement, expanding the boundaries of physical agility and balance.”

  I noticed the barrel-chested fellow about my age watching me and listening intently. Later, as I finished demonstrating a move, our eyes met. He covered his fist with his other hand in the traditional martial arts bow.

  Just after practice, he placed his hand on my shoulder and, with a gesture, beckoned me to walk back with him to the meal. He pounded
his chest with enthusiasm and said, “Chun Han!” I also pounded my chest like Tarzan as I said my name. He pounded his chest again, and gave a short, hoarse bark, a peculiar laughter I’d hear many more times.

  He and I entered the dining hall together and sat down to our main meal for the day. After that, despite knowing only a few words of each other’s language, we worked together and often ate meals side by side. The other students, mostly younger, viewed Chun Han as a kind of big brother. Laid-back even in the midst of farmwork, he seemed to radiate good cheer.

  One morning I wandered behind the main house and saw Chun Han doing handstand push-ups on a log, his face a mask of determination. When he caught sight of me, he quickly stopped, smiling broadly as he climbed to his feet. I invited him to do another handstand and he did so, followed by a standing back somersault. I chose him as my assistant and soon discovered that he had a gift for spotting and assisting other students through their initial work with somersaults. He pointed out two other students who also had a little acrobatic experience, and they joined in demonstrating and helping the others.

  I’ve often wondered whether some people possess more innate energy than others, whether it’s a genetic trait or luck of the draw. Whatever it was, Chun Han had it. His vitality and high spirits inspired and sometimes frustrated me. I once asked him, with Mei Bao as an interpreter, why he smiled so much. He barked and said something back to her in Mandarin, which she interpreted with a smile: “Just a bad habit.”

  The daily routines brought incremental progress measured in crop growth, harvested stores, t’ai chi refinements, and, now, tumbling skills. On Sundays we worked a shorter shift and spent the rest of the day on special repairs, odd jobs, and mending clothing.

  Mei Bao would occasionally leave the farm—to find medicinal herbs for Master Ch’an or any students who might be ill, she explained. She also went into the village once a month—“to pick up a few essential supplies and to overhear ‘footpath news,’ passed as gossip, about the larger political situation,” she told me. “So far, we’ve been spared any turmoil.”

  Here on this hidden farm, the world of politics seemed far away.

  A few days later, on a crisp autumn day, Chun Han gestured that I should join him on a walk into the forest near the main pavilion. He led me through a stand of trees. I waited while he moved a tangle of tied-together branches to reveal a hidden path past a small temple in the woods. Fifty yards beyond that, we arrived at the crystal-blue surface of a small lake, which reminded me of Walden Pond in Massachusetts, and the peace and inspiration Henry David Thoreau had found there.

  We walked slowly together around its shore, shadowed by limbs reaching out over the water. We ducked under low-hanging branches, which dropped a carpet of leaves at our feet. Although we walked in silence, I understood an unspoken message—that by sharing with me this place he clearly loved, Chun Han deepened an empathy and friendship that transcended differences in language or culture.

  Meanwhile, as I pursued my teaching duties, I continued to refine the way I offered guidance so that my students could truly make use of it. When I’d coached elite gymnasts, I often gave lengthy explanations about technique until a U.S. Olympian on my team, who’d trained for a year in Japan, quipped: “I’ve noticed that a Japanese coach will tell you one thing and have you practice it a hundred times. An American coach will tell you a hundred things and have you practice them once.” My memory of this witty exaggeration guided me toward an economy of speech so that Mei Bao wouldn’t have to spend her own practice time translating my words. Fortunately, once I’d helped my students build a foundation of proper basic movements, their learning took on its own momentum. There’s a saying in the martial arts, “Learn one day, teach one day,” which they did naturally, each playing the role of student and teacher for one another.

  I had not at all forgotten my primary goal here—to translate and flesh out the notes and outline from Soc’s journal in my own notebook, page by page. It weighed on me more each day, until I knew I had to begin. Soon, I told myself. Very soon.

  After class a few days later, I decided to share a larger message with the students. After reminding them that they must not only dedicate their lives to their training but dedicate their training to their lives—and how acrobatic practice develops not only physical agility but a flexible state of mind—I taught them a simple warm-up song in English, which Mei Bao translated so they understood the meaning of each phrase. After that, before each practice began, we would sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”

  “Many children learn this song in my country,” I said, “but few people understand its deeper truths. These truths apply, as you’ll see, not only to acrobatics or t’ai chi training but to all of life. The words ‘Row, row, row your boat’ remind us to build our lives on a foundation of action and effort, not on positive thoughts or feelings. Thinking about doing something is the same as not doing it. Our lives are shaped by what we actually do—by rowing our boat. Only effort over time brings results in training and in everyday life.”

  One of the students volunteered a Chinese proverb, shyly at first and then with growing enthusiasm: “With enough time and patience, one can level a mountain with a spoon!”

  “Exactly!” I said, hearing myself echo Papa Joe’s ¡Exactamente!

  “The next four words, ‘gently down the stream,’ advise us to avoid unnecessary tension, to row with the flow of the Tao, the natural tides and currents of life—”

  “What we Chinese call wu wei, or nonresistance,” Mei Bao added.

  “And ‘merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily’ is a repeated reminder to live with a lighthearted spirit, to take ourselves less seriously, and to solve the problems of daily life with the same fun-loving attitude you bring to learning acrobatics.” With that, I dove into a handstand and clapped my feet together. The students followed enthusiastically. I heard Chun Han’s hoarse bark from the back of the group.

  “Finally, consider the last line of the song: ‘Life is but a dream.’ Please discuss its meaning with one another during the evening meal.”

  Before they departed, I asked my students to gather around me, and I reminded them of a Taoist folktale about Joshu, a worker in China who had to row his small boat up and across the Fen each day to reach his work. “In the morning,” I said, warming to the tale, “Joshu had to row against the current, but the trip home was far easier. One morning, as he pulled his oars, making his way upstream, he felt a sudden jolt as the craft of another boatman collided with his rowboat. Joshu shook his fist at the careless boatman, yelling, ‘Watch where you’re going!’ It took him many minutes to calm down as he thought about how people should pay better attention. No sooner had his anger subsided than he felt another jolt as a different craft struck his boat. He couldn’t believe it! Now fully enraged, he turned to berate another idiot. But his words fell away and his anger vanished as he saw an empty boat that must have pulled loose from its moorings and drifted downstream.

  “So what do you think this story means?” I asked as a smiling Mei Bao translated.

  The students discussed the story among themselves before one of them spoke. Mei Bao told me, “Hai Liang says we must treat everyone like an empty boat.”

  I smiled and nodded with approval, which seemed to make the students as proud as they had made me.

  Later, as I watched their animated conversation in the dining hall, Mei Bao told me, “They’re earnestly discussing how life might be a wonderful dream.”

  NINETEEN

  * * *

  Something about teaching these dedicated students made it easier for me to finally return to the journal. As I continued to study Soc’s notes and to find the thread of a theme, I started to believe, for the first time, that I might have something beyond acrobatics and children’s songs to share. Completing this journal would be a beginning. In the future I might write something more.

  I saw an image of Soc’s smiling face. For a moment, I actually felt his presence.

/>   That night, as I prepared to write in earnest, a stillness fell upon the farm. When I went outside the next morning, I discovered that snow had blanketed the fields and sharply angled rooftops. Winter had arrived early. Two months had already passed, and it now appeared likely that Hua Chi—if or when she came to fetch me—wouldn’t arrive until spring.

  I shared my concerns with Mei Bao, but she could only shrug. Neither she nor Master Ch’an had the means to get an American safely back to Hong Kong. I drew some small comfort from the knowledge that if Hua Chi did arrive after the spring thaw, I’d still have time for my Japan visit since I didn’t have to return to Ohio until June.

  The next evening I ate quickly, excused myself, and returned to the barn. Feeling my way to the small table, I retrieved my small box of matches. The room glowed as a match burst into flame. I carefully lit the oil lamp, then opened the journal. I transcribed the first short paragraph exactly as Soc had written it, most likely before the fever overcame him. He began:

  After a long preparation, the whole of life comes into view. Not only daily life, but a larger arena from which all wisdom springs, founded on an appreciation for paradox, humor, and change.

  Paradox, humor, and change: I recalled these three words printed on an unusual business card Socrates had given me years before, which I still carried in my wallet. On several occasions I’d been tempted to use the card to call him as he’d said I might, promising to appear “in some form” to offer guidance. Maybe now in the form of Master Ch’an, I thought. I opened my wallet and drew out the card; now dog-eared and ordinary-looking, it no longer glowed. (Had it ever? I was no longer certain.) I slid it back into my wallet as a reminder of our time together, and turned back to Soc’s notes and my writing.

  I thought about related fragments of text from parts of the journal Soc must have written after the fever took hold: