Sensei of Shambala. Anastasia Novykh

thing in the exercise with the ball is to achieve a complete calmness of the mind, like in the example with the lake?” Andrew asked again.

      “Absolutely correct, and make an effort so that not a single thought could enter that space.”

      “That’s hard.”

      “Hard, but possible.”

      “Stas said that the style of the ‘Old Lama’ is very ancient. Is that true?”

      “Yes.”

      “Does history record the names of those who mastered it?” asked Kostya.

      Sensei smiled, thinking about something and answered, “You might know only Buddha. And, of course, his first followers.”

      “Buddha?” said Kostya, surprised. “But I thought that he had a different kind of philosophy, the philosophy of good. Why did he need to fight?”

      “Even good people may need to fight,” Sensei answered calmly. “But to master that art doesn’t always mean to attack someone. For them it was sort of a stage in spiritual development.”

      Thus our additional training ended, and again we became witnesses to the valuable knowledge and abilities of Sensei. Our delight was endless. Having changed, we awaited the others near the sports hall. When the crowd came out to the street, Eugene glanced at Volodya and exclaimed with horror, “My God! Oho… What a shiner you have, beautiful.”

      At these words everybody directed his attention to Volodya. His eye was completely swollen, turning into a big, black spot.

      “Don’t worry,” Eugene tried to cheer him up, puffing up his chest, and declaring, “Bruises make men more attractive!”

      Volodya replied with a smile, “And how about you, don’t you want to become more attractive?”

      Everybody burst out in laughter.

      “Of course he wants to. And I’ll be like a witness in that joke,” Stas was developing the situation. “When he was asked, ‘Did you see how one man hit another on the head?’ he replied, ‘I don’t know if I saw, but I heard a sound, as if somebody hit something empty’.”

      Victor added, “And I will be a second witness. If I am asked why I didn’t come to help the victim during the fight, I will answer with a clean conscience, ‘How could I know who the victim was when they were fighting with each other so hard?!’”

      Another wave of laughter rolled through our crowd.

      “Come on, guys,” Eugene mimicked everyone. “Your jokes are good only for soldiers in barracks. Sensei, did you see, I hardly said a word, and they have already fabricated a case!”

      12

      Joking and poking fun at each other, the guys moved on. The weather was calm, and the sky was covered with scattered stars. Enjoying the evening cool after the intensive training, we didn’t noticed that our group was a little stretched out. Kostya and Tatyana had gone far ahead. Volodya, Eugene, and Stas dragged somewhere behind. And Victor, Andrew, Slava, Yura, and I were walking in the middle with Sensei chattering about trifles.

      Just around the corner, we came face-to-face with a group of miners, about eight of them, all considerably drunk. They seemed to have seriously angered Kostya in passing, as when we approached them, his face was red with rage. Kostya kept snapping at them, obviously annoyed with the drunks. Andrew added fuel to the fire in an attempt to defend his friend. The most impatient of the miners rushed towards the two to fight. Andrew and Kostya dashed at him. But Sensei arrived just in time and stopped them, addressing the miners, “Calm down, men! Why should you curse here, in the presense of women? Noblemen do not swear.”

      “What are you talking about?” A furious miner croaked, having seized Sensei. “Move along or else I’ll break all your bones!”

      At this point we could not stand it any more and moved in a crowd to the instigator. Even I flew into a rage towards these drunkards and was ready at that moment to tear them to pieces. The senior guys ran up to us, but unexpectedly Sensei stopped all our attempts and gave a sign to Victor for everyone to leave. We grumbled with indignation. But Victor, Stas, Eugene, and Volodya took us away like diligent shepherds leading a flock of sheep without letting us stop.

      I kept turning around, waiting for the Teacher to show off one of his supertricks against eight enemies. But Sensei only stood there smiling and explained something with gestures as if he were making excuses. When I glanced back the next time, I saw that the smiling miners were fraternizing with him, saying goodbye to him as good friends. “Well, really!” I thought. “What is the point of practicing Kung-fu for so many years?” Judging by the puzzled responses of my friends, I was not the only one who thought that.

      When Sensei came up to us, Andrew said with indignation, “Why did you make excuses to them? They were the ones who bothered us and stirred up trouble. We should have beaten them to teach them not to do it again. If you hadn’t stopped me, I would…”

      “Surely,” Sensei interrupted him, “if I hadn’t stopped you, they would have been seriously injured, not only in their soft tissues but also in their organs, and they might have even gotten a concussion of the brain. Do you realize that these are men who have families at home, who are probably the only bread-winners of these families? Do you realize that they are miners? Have you ever been in a mine?”

      “No,” Andrew replied.

      “I have been there… These guys, whom you wanted to break to pieces, they go down to a mine like to hell, to a depth of up to one kilometer and more. Just imagine the pressure on their bodies. Not to mention,” Sensei started to list on his fingers, “heat, lack of oxygen, very harmful methane… And despite all of this, they realize that they risk their lives every second. Because any moment they can be crushed, injured, or even killed. Injuries happen regularly in the mine. And people take it hard. Their mind is always on the brink, so to say, at the breaking point. This state of mind is comparable with the state of mind of soldiers on the front line during the war. That’s why Stalin used to say, ‘The mine is the second front.’ Do you know why they drink? In order to relieve somehow this stress, this internal feeling of permanent fear. That is why highly qualified specialists in psychology and medicine should work with miners for them to overcome this psychological block. But of course they don’t get this help. That’s why many of them drink.”