by Mingmei Yip
Partially hidden in thick groves, the building looked like a modest woman peeking out to the world through a crack in the screen of her private chamber.
It wasn’t in our plan, but somehow I was intrigued by the half-hidden temple. I suggested to Michael that we take a quick look.
“I was just thinking the same.”
So I asked the driver to make a detour. He made a U-turn onto a meandering dirt road and followed it for another ten minutes, frequently expressing doubt that we’d find anything. Finally, we spotted a flight of narrow stone steps and he pulled up and let us out.
“Miss, I’m afraid you two have to climb your way up. I’ll wait here.”
Slowly Michael and I made our tortuous ascent of the steep, heaven-bound, zigzagging stairs. The day was getting hot, but luckily, heavy canopies of foliage shaded us from the sun. It took us ten minutes before we finally emerged onto level ground, sweating and panting.
Michael smiled, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief. “We made it, Meng Ning.”
Dressed in running shoes, jeans, and a pale green T-shirt, Michael looked relaxed and happy, blending perfectly with the tall bamboo and its dappled, dark green shadow.
We walked along the level path until we reached a moon-shaped gate made of old gray stones, the lower portion overgrown with plants. On top of the arched structure were large Chinese characters in seal script: Universe of Empty Nature. Once through the round gate, between patches of leaves we could spy fragments of a distant temple with upturned eaves. Inhaling the fragrance of unknown blossoms, I felt far from the dusty world, as if we had just found the fabled Peach Blossom Garden.
Peach Blossom Garden, a lost Chinese utopia, was the subject of a famous poem by the Six Dynasties poet Tao Yuanming, who, at forty-five, had become disgusted by his official life and decided to become a farmer. Thereafter, he enjoyed a simple life: he tended his garden, read, drank wine when he had a few coins to pay for it, and wrote poetry.
Tao Yuanming told of a fisherman from Wuling who used to boat along a nearby river. One day, forgetful of how far he had gone, he spied a grove of blossoming peach trees. He beached his boat and entered the garden. At once he found himself inside a secluded world forgotten by time. The small village was inhabited by farm families living simple, honest lives, unaware even of the passing of the dynasties over the centuries.
Tao’s poem was immensely popular over the ensuing centuries, for it spoke of a paradise where people unselfconsciously appreciated the simple joys of spring: blooming flowers, singing birds, and the clouds passing over distant peaks. The Confucian moral rules were unnecessary because the people were naturally good. All lived for more than one hundred years because of their closeness to nature and freedom from stress. As the day grew late, the fisherman returned home, intending to revisit. Yet, though he knew the river well and searched earnestly, he could never again find the Peach Blossom Garden.
We approached the temple. Red paint was peeling off the wooden pillars supporting the bluish-green roof. Beside the entrance ancient pine trees towered like guardian gods.
“Michael, come take a look,” I said.
We hurried up to the temple and peeked through the wooden-latticed windows. An antique bronze Buddha, unsurprised by my intrusion, stared back at me, smiling compassionately.
“Let’s go in.” He took my hand and we stepped inside the courtyard.
The first thing we saw was a plum tree with pink blossoms. As we looked up at the petals, Michael started to recite, “‘In the past, we frequently met in the emperor’s house. Many times, I heard you sing in the grand hall. Now south of the river, I meet you in this season of falling petals.’”
It felt strange to hear Du Fu’s famous poem from Michael’s mouth. I sighed, feeling lost in the familiar dream of a past life where we, as lovers, had lain down in a petal-strewn, sweet-scented garden, singing and reciting poetry.
The temple floor was well swept, leaving an impression of venerable age, but not decay. There were also inscribed stone tablets. I did my best to translate to Michael those I thought would interest him.
One told the story of a young man whose beloved, a village lass, had married someone else. Having recognized the delusive nature of worldly desire, he had taken refuge in this very temple.
After my translation, Michael shook his head. “That’s not a good reason to be a monk-”
Just then a gentle voice breathed at our back. “Honorable visitors, may I be of service?”
We turned and saw a muscular young monk. He was clad in a gray top and pants, with a white sash tied around his middle, perhaps a touch of vanity to accentuate his lean waist. His manner seemed refined, his bald head glowed, and intelligence emanated from his almond eyes.
Placing our hands in the prayer gesture, Michael and I bowed respectfully. Then I said, “Shifu, we’ve just been looking around and appreciating the temple.”
With equal respect, the monk bowed back with his hands together. “Thanks, you are welcome here,” he said. “I apologize that I did not meet you at the gate. It has been a long time since we have had visitors. Stay as long as you like. Please join us for tea?”
“Thank you, Shifu, we’d love to,” I said, then translated our conversation to Michael, whose face lit up instantly.
We followed the young monk through another moon gate. He pointed out a stone lion, an enormous bronze incense burner, and a tower with a green encrusted bell, so ancient it looked as if it had been last struck a thousand years ago.
Then, when we passed a small pond laced with weeds, the monk stopped and pointed to what I’d thought was a stone ornament covered with moss. “My honorable guests, I would like you to meet Perfect Merit, our enlightened tortoise. We believe he is the direct descendent of that tortoise who lived on the bed of the Eastern Sea and carried the Five Divine Mountains on his back.”
Before I could express my amazement, he went on. “Perfect Merit has witnessed the vicissitudes of many lives and is older than the three of us together.”
I translated this to Michael, and he exclaimed, “Is that so? How old-one hundred?”
I told the monk. He raised three fingers and smiled proudly. “No, three.”
I asked, “Can we touch it?”
“Sure. He’s achieved wisdom and compassion.”
Michael and I stooped to pat the tortoise’s shell, and the spiritual creature, instead of shrinking his head, cast us a slow soulful glance, as if saying, “Please leave me alone, you deluded mortals with your worldly entanglements!”
As I drank in the beauty of the place and inhaled its mingled fragrances, a sense of purity and freedom rose inside me.
The young monk led us from the sunlight into a cool, dim hall. Following him, we crossed another threshold into a sparse interior. The wooden furniture was plain and worn smooth. On one wall hung an ink painting of Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen, with an expression warning that he had no time for nonsense.
The young monk excused himself into an adjacent room.
The feeling here was quite special; there’d been nothing like it in the large cave temple that I’d documented with Enlightened to Emptiness. It was as if I’d somehow found myself in one of the remote mountain temples in a Song dynasty landscape.
Michael’s thoughts were echoing mine. “When I first looked at Chinese art, I imagined myself in a temple like this. I never thought it would really happen.” Smiling, he asked, “You think we’ll be able to find our way back?”
“Who cares?” I smiled. Perhaps, like me, he hoped that somehow we could live together in this simple place far from the confusion of the real world. But of course, a monastery would be the last place I could live with Michael!
A pause, then I went up to take a close look at another hanging scroll. The ink pale, the style effortless, it portrayed a dozen elegantly crisscrossing plum blossoms; in between their branches a big moon peeked through. The poem to its left read:
When cold chills every crack, p
urity arises.
Now I realize I was the moon in a past life.
I kept savoring “I was the moon in a past life,” until Michael asked, “What is it, Meng Ning? Can you translate it for me?”
After I did, he said, “If I were the moon in a past life, then you must be the Moon Goddess Chang E, who ascended to heaven and flew into my arms.”
“Sometimes I wish I were Chang E.”
Michael looked puzzled. “But what of her poor husband? Meng Ning, don’t go away to the moon. China is far enough away. I need you here on earth. With me.”
It felt strange to me, talking of earthly desire in this isolated temple. Strange to really be wanted by a man.
We went on joking for a while before my gaze was arrested by a piece of calligraphy. I went up to take a close look at the flowing characters executed in the running style.
So I have looped around. From the preciousness of sensation to the harmfulness of being attached to it.
Intrigued, I wondered who had written this poem and what the motivation was.
I translated to Michael and told him my thought. He said, “I think it’s just another Zen poem about nonattachment.”
Just then the young monk returned. With tender respect, he helped another monk, old and wrinkled, who was inching forward with a cane. As slow as the turtle, Old Monk settled down onto a chair. His brown leathery face, brown robe, and brown cane blended in with the chair and the room. If a guest entered the room now, I bet he’d have taken Old Monk merely as another piece of antique furniture!
The young monk invited us to join them at the table.
Old Monk looked at us and split a toothless smile from a mouth like a dried-up well. His eyes, though yellowed and clouded, still penetrated, as if transmitting the law of Dharma directly from his mind.
Young Monk was now busy arranging the teapot, teacups, and dried fruit. When finished, he knelt at the altar table, muttered a short prayer, then offered his tea and fruit to the Buddha with utmost piety and respect.
I felt moved by this act of sincerity and devotion.
Then he poured another cup of tea and went to the old monk. To my surprise, he knelt down and offered him tea with the same piety and respect he’d paid to the Buddha.
After these offerings, the young monk, now looking relaxed, poured us steaming tea. Then he introduced the old monk to us as Master Detached Dust and himself as Eternal Brightness. Old Monk responded with an innocent smile.
Eternal Brightness said, “In comparison to our tortoise, my Master Detached Dust is quite a young man at only one hundred and five.”
I translated this to Michael. He exclaimed disbelief, but then bowed respectfully to Detached Dust. And, I believed, to the mystery of his longevity.
Suddenly the master spoke. “Do you two watch TV?”
This question from a one-hundred-and-five-year-old Zen monk recluse really took me by surprise-he should have long transcended the seven emotions and the five desires.
I translated to Michael. He said, “I feel sorry for him; he must be extremely lonely here.”
Then I turned back to Detached Dust. “We have a TV, but we don’t watch much.”
The master surprised me again by saying, “I’ve heard about it, but I’ve never seen it.”
“Master, you mean never in your whole life, not even once?”
“No.”
Now this living fossil really intrigued me. “Aren’t you curious to watch TV?”
Instead of directly answering my question, he smiled contentedly. “I have my garden, my sutras, the sky and the clouds.”
I translated this to Michael and he said, “Ask him whether he’s bored sometimes.”
I turned and asked the master.
His reply was, “Night after night the moon shines on the pond.”
Eternal Brightness eagerly chimed in. “Since his youth, Master’s eyesight has been weak,” as if an apology were needed for Master’s not watching TV, and not connecting to the modern world.
“Then how can he read his sutras?” I asked.
“He’d already memorized most of them before he reached twenty.” He paused, then added, “But Master possesses the Buddha eye.”
I translated this to Michael and he nodded, looking deep in thought.
A brief silence. Then the young monk stood up, went to the cauldron, and held out a bamboo tray on top of which lay fat, snowy-white buns. The bun, hot and steaming in my hands, seemed alive and palpitating.
Michael, probably very hungry by now after our long climb under the sun, was devouring the bun and gulping down the tea with relish.
“Mmm.” He raised his thumb to the monks.
Eternal Brightness smiled back politely, while Master Detached Dust cupped his mouth with his gnarled hand and giggled.
Then, seeing that I was not eating, Detached Dust cast me a meaningful glance. “Miss, eat! Eat while it’s still hot.” Then he added, “Don’t wait till it gets cool.”
Was it a metaphor for my being indecisive about marrying Michael?
I smiled at him, then split open the bun. Paste of red beans spilled to peek at the world outside and immediately I stuck out my tongue to take them into this Mortal’s Field of Red Hot Passion.
When we finished our snack, Master Detached Dust said, “Honorable guests, I now have to work.”
Work? At one hundred and five?
Seeing that I was staring doubtfully at his master, the young monk explained, “Master is going to tend to his garden.” After that, he helped Detached Dust outside.
I told Michael about my conversation with the monks while we, amazed, watched Detached Dust at work. Though slow in his movements, he transmitted his special energy, his whole being spilling happiness. He moved deliberately but with a carefree air, watering, pulling out dead roots, cutting off yellowed leaves. He seemed not to feel the hot sun over his head or the baking earth under his straw-sandaled feet. He chanted in a faint voice as he went about his work.
Michael exclaimed, “Amazing! I hope I will live to his age and stay that active.”
When Eternal Brightness came back to the room, I asked, “Shifu, don’t you think that Master Detached Dust should…retire?”
“I’ve begged Master many times not to work, but his reply is always to recite the Zen rule: a day without work is a day without food. So”-the young monk shrugged and smiled wryly-“there’s nothing I can do. He always tells me that by cultivating the garden, he’s cultivating the Way. So how can he stop?” A pause, then, “Master says that he’s the guest of wind and dust. And his mind the ashes of dead fire.”
We stood together watching Detached Dust.
Then Eternal Brightness spoke. “I must work also. Please stay in our temple as long as you like.”
Suddenly I remembered the stone inscription in the main hall. “Shifu, that inscription about the young man who fell in love with a village girl, then took refuge after she’d married someone else…”
The monk had already guessed my question. “That young man is my master, Detached Dust.”
I was shocked to hear this. “Oh,” I blurted out, “what a sad story.”
The young monk cast me a curious glance, then corrected me. “No. Master determined to cut off all attachment after he realized his folly of falling into the entanglement of human desire.” He pointed to the calligraphy and recited, “‘So I have looped around. From the preciousness of sensation to the harmfulness of being attached to it.’”
He turned to look out the window. “So look how happy Master is now.” He smiled. “Moreover, that’s why he lived to this ripe age.”
I followed Eternal Brightness’s affectionate gaze and saw Detached Dust now talking cheerily to an orchid.
“It’s Master’s habit to recite his mantra of Amita Buddha to the plants and rocks here. He believes they also have Buddha nature.”
I turned back to the young monk. “So, Shifu, is this also the same reason you’re…here?”
Hi
s face beamed. “Oh, yes. I am extremely fortunate, for Master was very strict in choosing his disciple.”
Just then the old monk came in, studied each of us, and split a big, panting smile. “Tomorrow is another day; I’ll take a nap today.”
Eternal Brightness hurried to help him go back to his room.
After I’d translated everything to Michael, he said, “No matter how hard monks and nuns try to cut off from worldly desire, love still sneaks its way back in.”
“What do you mean?”
Michael answered my question with another one. “The monk’s love story is inscribed here in the temple, right?”
Not wishing to further disturb the two monks, we took our leave. The young monk walked us all the way to the level land and the steps.
Michael and I bowed deeply with our hands together. I said, “Thank you, Shifu. We really appreciate your and Master Detached Dust’s hospitality.”
Under the warm sun, his tanned, healthy face seemed to shine with wisdom and detachment. “You’re welcome. Please come back and visit us again.”
“We certainly will.”
Michael asked me to tell him that he really enjoyed his bun and that he wished the Master good health and longevity.
I told the young monk and he said, “Thank you, but the master’s health and longevity depend on karma, not men’s wishes.” A pause. Then he added, “By the way, it’s master who cooked those buns, not me.”
We silently picked our way down the long flight of steps. I felt depressed to leave this separate world of the small temple and plunge back into the dusty world.
Michael took my hand. “Meng Ning, let’s hurry to the taxi. It’s going to rain.”
At the bottom of the steps, our taxi driver was fast asleep, curled up in the backseat. As we began to quicken our steps, the rain was already pelting mercilessly. We pounded on the door of the taxi, awakening the surprised driver, who quickly got out and let us, now dripping, into the back. Through the smudged window I watched the raindrops plunge, hiss, and bounce on the ground. I felt a rush of nostalgia. Their natural energy made me think of the two mountain monks. Their temple, though only up the nearby flight of steps, already seemed so distant. Would we have the chance to return to that simple beauty in this lifetime?