His Holiness Grandmaster Professor Thomas Lin Yun was in town recently to give a presentation entitled 'An informal talk on meditation from the perspective of Black Sect Tantric Buddhism'. Professor Lin is often described as the man who took fung shui to the United States. In 1977, while he was teaching Putonghua in Hong Kong he had an American student called Sarah Rossbach, who became interested in the practice of fung shui. Six years later, Rossbach wrote a book called Feng Shui: The Chinese Art Of Placement, and in 1986 she wrote a second book, Interior Design With Feng Shui, with an introduction by Professor Lin, after which few households in California and New York were free of mirrors, crystal pendants and wind chimes.
Professor Lin named his brand of fung shui Black Hat and I have to report that a number of rival fung shui practitioners in the US have accused him of talking through it. The air of grumpiness seems to focus on both the ubiquity of his teachings - 'McFung Shui' has been the term sniffily bandied about - and his resultant prosperity. I tend to take the logical view, evidently shared by the professor, that if you advise people about their money corners, it doesn't inspire confidence to book into Chungking Mansions, which is why we met in his suite at the Island Shangri-La.
As far as personal fung shui goes, I can't say our meeting's art of placement was such as to induce an air of relaxation. The doorbell rang constantly, there were never less than seven people in the room at any one time (some of them agitatedly scribbling down transcripts of our conversation), and a variety of tape recorders bristled on the table between the professor and me. He says he doesn't speak English, so an obliging man called Jonathan volunteered his services as an interpreter. I had a feeling the professor understood more than he let on - he has, after all, lived in California since 1986 - but wanted to make sure that everything was accurately channeled through a receptive medium.
'Professor says the foremost topic he will talk about is religion and not fung shui,' announced Jonathan, after a brief exchange with the professor, who smiled benignly and resumed staring out of the window. 'And not on any political topics or on the current Taiwan-China tension.' This, while a bit of a blow (I had been curious to find out, for instance, how, as a fung shui master, he had felt when the Californian property he had purchased burned to the ground during the great Berkeley-Oakland Hills fire of 1991) was not an insuperable one.
What I really wanted to know was what he thought of the Falun Gong. Had he ever met its leader, Li Hongzhi? 'Professor says he is not sure if he has met Li Hongzhi in public, but some people have mentioned that Li has attended his lectures. According to what he has heard, Li Hongzhi is interested in researching different aspects of qi gong and meditation, and given that the professor gives a lot of lectures in Africa, Australia and Europe, it is possible Li could have attended these lectures. But there are always a lot of people so even if he was introduced to Mr Li, he may not remember.' A circumspect answer, you will agree. The professor then gave an equally careful description of fourth-stage Black Sect Tantric Buddhism: how Black Sect Tantric Buddhism had originated from the Bon religion, which is still practised in Tibet, how it evolved with the introduction of Buddhism, and how he had developed the fourth stage by 'incorporating Western knowledge of medicine, physiology, psychology, architecture, ecology, the study of colours and social sciences'. (A pamphlet handed to me by one of the throng in the room listed the professor's own doctrines, such as the Theory of Chi, the Theory of Ling Particles and the Theory of Multi-Causes of Karmic Generation, which had also been added to the fourth-stage brew.) The professor began studying with Buddhist lamas when he was six, the child of Taiwanese parents living in Beijing, next to a monastery - the significance of placement thus exhibiting an early influence. When he was 17, he went to Taiwan and obtained degrees in city planning and law. 'However, the locals considered him an outsider,' said Jonathan. 'As a result there was very little room for him to progress professionally.' So he came first to Hong Kong, to teach at the Yale-in-China Language programme at the Chinese University, and then he went to Hawaii where he was invited to teach 'on the mainland, the US mainland, and to establish a centre'.
How many followers does he have? 'Very hard to say,' whispered a woman sitting next to me in an attitude of alert reverence. Jonathan added: 'Since 1973, Professor has been travelling extensively to lecture and give classes. He doesn't have a good count, it may be up to 10,000.' Later on, the esteemed name of Jean-Claude Van Damme came up ('He is a good friend') without whom, of course, no Eastern religion these days can claim to be truly complete.