I’m sitting in a carpeted temple-ish space, with three Buddhas looking down peaceably
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I wasn’t sure I’d recognise the whereabouts of the Shaolin monk in north London, but the martial arts temple was bedecked with a splashy red arch. Heng Dao is not a monk; he is a practiser of Shaolin, an ancient combination of Zen Buddhism and martial arts. What is this place, anyway? On one side, a long boxing gym: very Fight Club. In another, a room with a sprung floor and a kung fu class. Heng Dao and I sit in a windowless, carpeted temple-ish space, with loads of fruit and three Buddhas looking down on us peaceably.
According to Shaolin, we are all made of the elements fire, water, earth and air, and they have to be in balance. I find these ideas quite calming. I don’t fully understand, because I’ll never understand, and I can’t leave because someone is talking to me. This is as close to letting go and inhabiting the moment as I will ever get.
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