Black Sandalwood Balls

Yutang Lin

Black sandalwood balls are light and ready to turn around;
In either direction, circling on my palms via silent gliding.
Cultivating potential abilities in this way for over a decade,
An ingenious approach of using wood has been discovered.

Comment:

I have practiced health balls often for more than a decade, and am quite familiar with the exercise. I had even written about it in Chinese and English, and printed the articles for free distribution in order to spread its benefits. To ease the burden of carrying them during trips I asked a Buddhist in Taipei to order two pairs of wooden balls with diameter 6 cm each for me. Fortunate for me that Upasaka Xian Rong Lan agreed to undertake the hand making of these balls. He used black sandalwood and toiled on it for days. He ran back and forth several times to the factory to use the machines there, and then lacquered the balls for over ten times until he was satisfied with the results. Using wooden balls is lighter and swifter than using my original marble balls; that enables the fingers to move about more widely while the gliding is much quieter. The gentle noise is less likely to disturb beings nearby. Originally my intention aimed only at ease of transportation; unexpectedly, wooden balls turned out to be of much more benefits. Usually health balls are not made of wood; hence, this endeavor may be deemed a new contribution to this way of doing exercises.

Written in Chinese and translated on October 1, 2003
El Cerrito, California

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