What I Found Up There

Just a short post tonight, and something a little humbling to contemplate. On Tuesday of the previous week was the Ching Ming Festival here in Hong Kong. This is also known as Tomb Sweeping Day. It's the day when Hong Kongers head to the family burial spot of their family members who have passed away. 

It's a day for contemplation about mortality and life's meaning.

Well, I don't have any dead people to talk to in Hong Kong, so I headed out the back of my apartment block here in Discovery Bay, Lantau Island, and hiked up into the hills. I have found a nice little meditation spot there to contemplate things. It takes about half an hour to get up there, and it is quite a steep hike (in fact a little dangerous in places). You can see it in the video below.

You may not have thought of Hong Kong as having such a place of solitude. Now you know better. In fact there are many fantastic hikes all around Hong Kong. Lantau Island is quite big, and there are several peaks one can ascend here.

It was while sitting on my little rock that something dawned upon me. The very rocks that I was seeing and experiencing connectedness with would out"live" me by many tens of thousands of years. In fact thy might even out-exist the entire human race. And as I sat there my focus fell upon a small plant rising from the grass. As I allowed my own consciousness to relax and connect with the plant, another thought entered my mind. This little plant was millions of years in the making in evolutionary terms (as is my physical form, and much of the way I experience consciousness). I wonder if you too can feel that connectedness, by watching that little plant in the video below? Even if you can't, try this little process soon. Sit down with a plant somewhere in nature (or you can even do it with a pot plant or in the garden), and allow yourself to connect with it. Relax, bring yourself into presence by focusing upon your breath for a few moments, then feel yourself collapsing into the plant. Jut feel whatever comes to you. It's good practice for activating what I call the Feeling Sense. The exercise will take you out out of the head, and into the heart. If nothing else, I guarantee you will find it very peaceful.

Now, one final thought for the day. What if human futures were not mostly about connecting with machine interfaces, the glass screens of the gadgets in our palms, or soon (probably) embedded in our brains? What if we learned to value connection with nature, with the body, and with the spirit? Are these things not just as important as going online? Perhaps they are even more important.

You will find my little plant friend at about 30 seconds into the video. It's rather windy up there, as you will note...

The Other Side of Hong Kong

 A smaller island, off Chen Chau (island), seen through the trees near the Trappist Monastery on Lantau Island, Hong Kong

Note: first video may not show up on home page - if so, click "read more" to see it. You will find several other short videos there, also. Double click on the video if you can't see the whole thing on your screen.

Hong Kong is a very busy place. When most people think of this territory where I live,  images of glittering high-rises and international bankers in flashy business suits come to mind.

There are 7 million people crammed into a relatively small area in Hong Kong. Most of them live on Hong Kong Island, and Kowloon, which is just across the harbor from the island. I have often lamented the extreme urbanisation of Hong Kong, and how much of the population has lost touch with nature, and the inner worlds of the human spirit. Life has become over-commercialised and over-techlologised. It appears that most Hong Kong people are either unable or unwilling to extract themselves from their busy work life, contsant mobile phone chattering and SMS texting, internet surfing, shopping and eating/sleeping to explore life at a deeper level. In part, one can point the finger at the government, and its policy makers, who have fully bought into the idea that human futures are  predominantly about more money and more machines for everyone. Yet there are other choices that are available,to the general public, even in extremely urbanised environments like Hong Kong.

Few people outside Hong Kong know that there are many rural areas around the city. including many fascinating islands.

Fully 40% of the territory is designated as national park. Yet even the locals seem reluctant to explore them. Yesterday, Sunday, my wife Emma and I went on a short hike from our home on Lantau Island, just a 23-minute ferry ride away from Central. It was a wonderfully cool summers day, thanks to some high cloud and low humidity. Yet on the entire hike, we saw no more than a dozen or so other hikers. On the little beach you will see in one of the videos below, my wife and I were literally the only people . We stayed there for half an hour and enjoyed the serenity. In contrast, the shopping malls of Hong Kong are so packed on Sundays, that one can often barely squeeze past other shoppers.

Somehow, something vitally important has been forgotten here.

So here is evidence that this other side of Hong Kong does indeed exist!.Please excuse the sound of my breathing here and there! This is quite hilly terrain, and is slightly aerobically challenging.

The village in this first video is situated by the ocean, and is just five minutes away from where I live. The first time we went here a couple of weeks ago, my wife refused to pass through, because of the dogs… as you shall see.

About fifteen minutes more of walking, and the track goes up into the hills, where there is a quaint Trappist (Christian) monastery. This is a very pretty little place. I have been told that the monks have taken a vow of silence – expect for the singing. I snuck my video camera in there for a few seconds!