Mindful Walking on a Rainy Day at Shili Fangfei

This afternoon I hurried back to Shanghai from Shili Fangfei in Hangzhou for Professor Zhou Haihong's music appreciation class.

On the little path from Xunmeizhu to the Shilizhou pier, a fine drizzle was falling, and the moss-covered flagstones were slippery. Afraid of falling, I didn't dare get careless, let alone look at my phone. So I simply started "mindful walking" — or rather, "mindful speed-walking".

Before this, I had only dabbled in mindful walking through the Dedao app and a Bushiju course. Immersing myself in it again this afternoon was a truly wonderful experience.

It was as if a seed I had casually scattered some time ago had been nourished by an occasional bit of sunshine and rain, and had put out a tender little sprout.

The longer I live, the clearer it becomes how much "experience" matters to me. I stress "to me" because I've also gradually come to understand "the differences between individuals". Every life has its own path and way. Some people grasp a great deal without needing to experience it; some even prefer fewer experiences, so they can feel the purity of life.

I'm probably clumsy, and greedy too, so I want lots of experiences — and I need lots of them.

Experience is the way of growing that suits me best. Before I practised "mindfulness", for a very, very long time I didn't even know what "living in the present" meant. It's a principle I'd seen since childhood in books, on other people's walls and in calligraphy scrolls, and heard countless times, yet without experiencing it I could never have known — that walking can be just walking.

Real education is "people lighting each other up"; it's the power of example. With many things, the question isn't whether you do them, but to what degree. The degree determines the result, which in turn determines whether the feedback is positive or negative.

A good speech takes three months of preparation and 200 rounds of polishing. That simply wasn't part of my understanding before. Rehearsing 10 or 20 times was probably my limit, and I thought I was "well prepared". So without going through that kind of polishing and tempering, I would never have known how wonderful it is, once your craft is truly refined, to reach that state where emotion flows and you become one with what you're doing.

In the same way, I once didn't know what "thinking carefully" was, what "resting properly" was, what "focus" was, what "listening patiently" was…

For me, "unity of knowledge and action" has to begin as "unity of action and knowledge". You have to have loved to understand love; only after experiencing something once alongside a master do you know what the right degree is.

So I want to collect lots and lots of beautiful "experiences", even if just for a moment.

btw, Shili Fangfei really is a lovely place — recommended.

This is a video I took on a sunny afternoon as my boat glided into Shili Fangfei. Very healing.