Chapter 96 [Young Instructors at the Academy] (8800 characters)
Chuyi got up from bed before dawn.
The routine and biological clock he developed from living in a rundown temple on the mountain for many years made his daily schedule very fixed and precise, completely unlike the young people in the city of his age.
When he opened the curtains, it was still dark outside. He wasn’t quite used to the quiet environment — if he were at the rundown temple on the mountain, he would already hear the roosters crowing and the dogs barking from the village at the foot of the hill.
In the countryside, it’s like that; before daybreak, as long as one rooster crows, soon all the other roosters in the village will follow — in that environment, you can’t sleep even if you want to.
After washing up, Chuyi quickly went out. He swiped his academy card in the large kitchen canteen in the backyard and got his breakfast: steamed bun + egg + white porridge.
It wasn’t until Chuyi was almost done eating that he saw other students from the meditation class walk in.
This was already Chuyi’s fifth day at "Luoyun Academy."
Even though he wasn’t very bright, he gradually understood that this place Chen Yan had sent him to was far from ordinary.
The students here were much older than him and seemed to have unusual backgrounds. Some were big business owners, some were senior executives at large companies, and some were retired officials.
These people also meditated and did morning and evening exercises like him, drank plain tea and ate simple food, and lived in small single rooms every day...
Chuyi didn’t quite understand: What were these rich people here for?
But the good thing about being simple-minded is that he didn’t dwell on things he couldn’t understand; he’d just forget about them in no time.
However, the other students in the meditation class were somewhat curious to see such a young person at the academy.
These wealthy students, seasoned in life, could tell with just a bit of observation that this young man named Chuyi wasn’t from a wealthy family but truly from the grassroots level.
His simple clothing and basic lifestyle were genuinely modest, not pretentious.
His speech and behavior also showed that he hadn’t seen much of the world.
Some seasoned individuals began to speculate about Chuyi’s background. However, later when Chu Keqing came to give a lecture in the meditation class, she inadvertently revealed that Chuyi was a young disciple of hers, which dispelled many students’ doubts.
Chuyi was in a Basic Zen Meditation Class, starting with the most fundamental practices of sitting and calming the mind, and then learning some methods of breath control and body technique. He was very diligent and practiced earnestly, never missing or being late for any morning or evening exercises.
He even practiced sitting meditation in his room until midnight before going to sleep.
He quietly and meticulously completed daily tasks like cleaning, washing clothes, and cooking.
Among the meditation students, some wealthy people inevitably complained, but Chuyi appeared to enjoy it all — to him, this so-called ascetic life was much better compared to the poverty at the rundown temple on the mountain.
At least the rooms here had air conditioning, unlike the thin-walled old tile house in the rundown temple on the mountain, where in the cold winter, you had to hold a warmed kettle to sleep at night. Getting up in the middle of the night meant shivering to the outside latrine and occasionally getting up to tend to the old monk by adding firewood to the stove in his room...
It was nothing like here, where the warm rooms made it comfortable even in light clothes.
As for the morning and evening classes, many of the beginners in the class couldn’t endure the two hours of sitting meditation, but for Chuyi, who had been a monk for several years, it was hardly any hardship.
Moreover, practicing mindfulness and meditation seemed to suit his nature well. Being simple-minded, he had fewer distractions and could quickly enter a state of calm and meditation.
For him, these morning and evening classes were immersive experiences, and he even found the time to be too short.
On the other hand, he struggled with the afternoon lectures.
The afternoon lectures in the meditation class were not about practice but about philosophical ideas and traditional Eastern theories of personal cultivation — similar to cultural lessons.
Chuyi had a very weak educational background, having missed out on proper schooling in his early years. Firstly, the quality of education in rural schools was poor, and secondly, he wasn’t very bright and struggled to learn.
During the afternoon lectures at the academy, he understood only a fraction of what the invited teachers taught.
Things like Wang Yangming’s "Unity of Knowledge and Action," Zuozi’s "Act with propriety, behave with righteousness, do not turn for profit, do not be ashamed of righteousness," and Zhu Zi’s "Preserve heavenly principles and eliminate human desires"...
Almost every time he attended a lecture, he had to pinch his thigh to keep himself from dozing off.
Fortunately, in these meditation classes, the instructors were casual and did not follow the traditional rigid school atmosphere that Chuyi feared.
Instructors just lectured, and you could listen if you wished, as long as you maintained silence. They didn’t ask questions or assign homework — it seemed there wouldn’t be any exams either.
Thus, Chuyi spent five quiet days at the academy.