Soul Mountain

by Gao Xingjian

  “You go if you like, but there’s no way I’m going.”

  “But you’re here to accompany me!”

  “I was sent by the ranger.”

  “He sent you because of me.” I don’t tell him I’m the one paying for his porter fee.

  “If anything happens, it’ll be hard explaining it to the ranger.”

  “You don’t have to explain to the ranger, he’s not my ranger and he doesn’t have to be responsible for me. I’m the only person responsible for me. And I want to see Nine Dragon Lake!”

  He says it’s not a lake, it’s just a few ponds.

  I say, lake or ponds, I want to look at the gold hair moss there, I’ve come to this mountain to look at the one-foot-high gold hair moss, I want to somersault on the thick gold hair moss.

  He says you can’t sleep there, it is all waterweeds.

  I go to say that it was the ranger who told me it was softer than tumbling on carpet, but it is pointless for me to try to explain what carpet is.

  He stops talking and head bowed walks on ahead. I am therefore on the road again, this is a victory for me, I am capable of unnecessarily forcing my will upon a guide whose legs I am paying a fee for. I simply want to prove I have my own will which is precisely why I have come to this place where even ghosts wouldn’t come.

  As soon as I relax and fall a few steps behind, he vanishes in this white miasmic mist. I must hurry after his shadowy form but drawing near I discover it is a mountain oak. I don’t know where I’ll end up if I try finding my way back through this grassy marshland, I’ve completely lost my bearings and I start yelling out to him as loudly as I can.

  He finally emerges in the mist, gesticulating wildly at me, and it is only after I come right up to him that I hear he is shouting. It’s this damn mist.

  “Are you angry with me?” I ask, thinking I should be apologetic.

  “I’m not angry, even if I were I’m not angry with you, it’s you who are angry with me!” He is still gesticulating wildly and yelling but the sound is muffled by the dense mist. I am aware that I am in the wrong.

  I’d best follow close behind, virtually treading on his heels. It’s impossible to go very far and it’s very uncomfortable walking like this, and I certainly haven’t come up this mountain to look at his heels. Then why have I come? It seems to have something to do with the dream, the demon shadow, my soaking wet clothing, my not having slept all night and this frustration, that I have a foreboding premonition. I reach into the pocket of my shirt which is clinging to my skin for the medicinal root to fend off snakes. I can’t find it.

  “Let’s turn back.”

  He doesn’t hear and I have to shout out, “Let’s go back!”

  This is all quite ridiculous but he doesn’t laugh and just mumbles, “Should’ve turned back long ago.”

  So I end up obeying him. Turning around, I follow after him. He lights a fire as soon as he gets into the cave. The air pressure is so low that the smoke can’t escape and soon the cave fills with smoke and we can barely open our eyes. He sits down in front of the fire and begins chanting, nan-nan na-na.

  “What are you saying to the fire?” I ask.

  “I’m saying that humans can’t overcome fate.”

  He then climbs onto the plank bed to sleep and before long I hear him snoring loudly. He is a spontaneous creature with an untrammelled mind I think to myself. My predicament lies in my always seeking to be self-activated and wanting to search for my soul. However, the problem is if my soul manifested itself, would I be able to comprehend it? And even if I were able to comprehend it, what would it lead to?

  I am utterly foolish and helpless in this damp cave and my wet underwear clings cold and clammy to me. Right now I realize that all I want is a window, a window with a light, where it is warm inside and someone I love who also loves me is there. This would be enough and anything else would be an invention. But that window too is only an illusion.

  I recall it is not just once that I have had this dream: I am looking for the house where I once lived as a child, looking for those warm memories. Courtyards, one after the other, go deeper and deeper like a maze with their narrow and winding dark corridors, but I can never find a path which is the same so that I can come out by the way I came in. Every time I enter the courtyard in this dream, it is always by a different path. Sometimes my family’s courtyard is a passageway for families living at the front and at the back and I can’t do anything for myself that others won’t know about, I am never able to experience the warm intimacy of just being myself. Even in my own room the partitions either do not go to the ceiling, or the papered walls have holes, or one of the walls has collapsed. I climb up a ladder against an upstairs room and look inside the house – it is all rubble. There used to be a pumpkin patch outside and once when I was climbing among the vines to catch crickets, my neck and arms rubbed on the hairy vines and I itched all over. That was in the sunshine and this is in the cold and rain. The empty lot which used to be all rubble is now full of houses belonging to different families. I have no idea when they were put up but the windows are all shut. Below this half of an upstairs room without any walls, my maternal grandmother is emptying clothes from a red wooden chest which is as old as herself, and she has been dead many years. I should look for warm memories such as my childhood dreams, or more precisely dreams about my childhood. I want to look for the friends I had when I was small, the little playmates whose names I have forgotten. There was a boy with a scar from a fall on his lower lip, he was kind and generous and had a purple earthenware pot for his crickets which he said had been left to him by his grandfather. I also liked his older sister, she was a very gentle person but I didn’t ever speak to her. I know she later married and even if I went to her home I’d certainly come away empty-handed and wouldn’t even be able to meet with that playmate with the scar on his lower lip.

  I walk past small streets with houses all huddled closely together, the eaves of the roofs all hang low and stretch almost to the middle of the road. I have to hurry home, my maternal grandmother is waiting for me. When it’s time for dinner she yells out to me, she always sounds like she’s arguing with someone. She often had rows with my mother, she had a quick temper and it got worse as she got older. She couldn’t get on with her own daughter, and went off in a huff to look for some of my maternal relatives. Afterwards they said she died in an old people’s home. I must find out what happened to her to do the right thing by my dead mother. My thinking all the time of people who are dead on this occasion is probably because usually I don’t ever think about them, yet in fact they are closest to me. In this cave in the mountains, by the fire, the dancing sparks induce reminiscences. I rub my eyes which are stinging from the smoke and won’t open.

  I get up and go outside, the mist is a little lighter and it is possible to see ten paces away. Fine rain is drifting in the air. I discover some ends of burnt incense sticks poked into the cracks of the cliff, there is also a branch tied with pieces of red cloth poked into a crack. I think to myself this must be the place where women pray for sons which the mountain people call Lingyan.

  The huge heaven-propping pillars on the peak completely vanish in the mist. I walk along the mountain ridge and suddenly in the mist a dead city appears.

  Can’t you talk about anything else?

  You say these ruins overgrown with weeds are assailed by mountain winds, moss and lichen cover broken slabs of rock and there’s a gecko running on one of them.

  It is said that in those times, the sound of bells at dawn, the boom of drums at dusk and the smoke of incense filled the air and there were a thousand monk dormitories and nine hundred and ninety-nine monks sworn to solitary existence. The monastery was ruled by a venerable monk and on the day he died there was a grand Buddhist gathering.

  It is said that incense burned in each of the censers of the monastery, filling a circumference of several hundred li with its aroma, so that devotees smelling it in the wind fought to witness the ol
d monk transform as he sat there and rose to heaven. The tracks and paths through this wooded Buddhist territory were crammed with devout men and women hastening to worship.

  It is said that the chanting of sutras filled the air and drifted beyond the mountain pass. There were no vacant cushions in the halls and latecomers knelt on the floor to pray. Those who came even later waited outside the halls. An endless stream kept coming up behind the crowds who couldn’t get inside the monastery gates. It was a gathering such as had never been seen before.

  It is said that the devout all wanted to receive the grace of the old monk and the multitude of disciples all wanted to receive his rendition of the dharma truth. Before the Venerable Master died he would give an exposition of the dharma from the Sutra Hall which was on the floor below the Sutra Library, to the left of the Hall of Magnificent Treasures.

  It is said that in the courtyard in front of the Sutra Hall two cassia trees were in bloom, one a golden red and the other a moonlight white, each exuding a subtle fragrance. Rush cushions were spread from the Sutra Hall into the courtyard and monks sitting with legs folded, hearts immaculate, in the warm rays of the autumn sun calmly waited for the old monk’s last exposition of the dharma.

  It is said that he had bathed and fasted, neither eating nor drinking, for seven days and seven nights. Eyes closed, he sat with legs folded on the lotus-shaped altar of carved black sandalwood, a voluminous cassock covered in patches draped over his shoulders. Sandalwood chips burned in the bronze upright censer before the altar, spreading their pure fragrance throughout the Sutra Hall. His two senior disciples stood on either side of him and a score of monks he had personally tonsured waited with absolute reverence below the altar. His left hand held a string of Buddha beads and his right hand a Buddha bell. As he gently struck the bell with the steel pin in his hand a magnificent note rippled among the Buddha pennants hanging above the hall.

  It is said that the multitude of monks thereupon heard the sound of his mellifluous voice: Buddha tells those awaiting enlightenment that Buddha cannot be perceived by manifestations of the physical body. Buddha says all existing phenomena are illusions, manifestations of the physical body. If manifestations are erroneous manifestations then they are also not erroneous manifestations. All that I teach is what the Buddha ancestor has said and what Buddha has said cannot be grasped and cannot not be grasped, and also cannot be verbally transmitted. This which cannot be verbally transmitted and which cannot be grasped is what I transmit to all of you, and is the Great Dharma transmitted by Buddha. Are there any questions?

  It is said that among this multitude of Buddhist disciples not one understood and not one dared ask. Most troubled were the two disciples on either side who had attended him for seven days and seven nights, not daring to relax even a little, just waiting for him to give instructions for the funeral and to pass on his cassock and alms bowl. However, he said nothing about these, and in the censer the last stick of incense for calculating the time had burnt down to the wood. Finally it was the more senior disciple who plucked up the courage, took a step forward, kneeled with his palms pressed together, then prostrated himself and said: This disciple has a question but doesn’t know whether or not he should ask.

  It is said that the old monk opened his eyes a little and asked what it was that he wanted to ask. This senior disciple raised his head, looked around and asked whether the cassock and bowl would be handed over before he ended his life. Everyone understood what was implied – someone had to receive the cassock and bowl to govern this huge monastery with its multitude of monks and wealth of incense. How could there not be a successor in a whole generation of monks?

  It is said that the old monk nodded and took out the bowl from his cassock. As soon as he uttered the words “Take the bowl”, the slender stick of incense burnt right down. The smoke slowly rose, trembled, formed an incomplete circle, then vanished. In the Hall of Magnificent Treasures, the 1200-catty iron bell made under supervision of the monks during the Zhengyuan reign of the Tang Dynasty sounded. Immediately drums began to boom and the multitude of monks in the Sutra Hall hastened to beat their wooden clappers and bronze chimes. When the monks saw that the old monk had already handed over his cassock and bowl the sutra chant Namo Amitofu rose into the air from every mouth.

  It is said that the two senior disciples were dull-witted and neither had heard the old monk say “and go begging” after the words “Take the bowl”. When they saw the old monk’s lips tremble neither was interested in obtaining the true teaching but grabbed the alms bowl and wouldn’t let go. Consequently, it quietly disintegrated. The two were alarmed and realized that the old monk had willed it and didn’t dare to say anything. Only the venerable old monk knew the monastery would be destroyed that day. He couldn’t bear to watch, closed his eyes and stopped breathing as he sat there sedately on the lotus seat, one hand resting in the other, staring at the gate of life on his abdomen, and silently willing the end of his life.

  It is said that inside and outside the Sutra Hall bells and drums loudly sounded and the chanting of the sutras by the monks in the hall reached the courtyard, whereupon the masses of monks in the courtyard began chanting which spread out all around to the three great halls and to the two side halls and then drifted out to the front of the monastery to the square which was crammed with sedan chairs, donkeys, horses and worshippers. The devout men and women who couldn’t get through the mountain pass refused to be left out and, chanting Namo Amitofu as loudly as they could, made a mighty charge through the pass!

  It is said that the monks carrying the altar on which the old monk in the sitting position had transformed himself were escorted under a canopy of embroidered satin banners. Two monks flourishing dusters and sprinkling mind-and-body cleansing Buddha water cleared the path before them. The devout men and women charging through the mountain pass fought desperately to catch a lucky glimpse of the old monk. Those who saw him praised his kindly visage so that those who hadn’t caught a glimpse became even more desperate. There was a chaotic surging mass of people standing on tiptoe and craning their necks, all crowding against one another. Hats were knocked off, shoes were trodden on and lost, incense burners were pushed over, and sacred precincts were violated.

  It is said that the altar was covered and placed on the brushwood pyre in front of the Hall of Magnificent Treasures. Before the lighting of the pyre there was still to be a session of fervent sutra chanting. None of the rituals could be missed, the smallest oversight was intolerable under Buddha’s law. However even a larger monastery could not have withstood the pushing and shoving of ten thousand people, even stronger men could not have stemmed the surging throng of people. Those who fell and were injured couldn’t help screaming and shouting and in this commotion emerged the tragic event! No-one could say for sure how the conflagration started, nor how many were burnt or trampled to death, so that whether more burnt to death or more had been trampled to death was never established. In any case for three days and three nights the vast inferno raged until the Lord of Heaven was filled with compassion and sent forth timely rains which left an expanse of ashes. Remaining after the catastrophe were only these ruins and part of a stone tablet for later generations of busybodies to carry out investigations.

  Behind this broken wall my dead father, mother and maternal grandmother are seated at the dinner table waiting for me to come and eat. I have been wandering endlessly and haven’t joined in a family gathering for a long time. I want to sit with them at the table to chat about ordinary family matters in the way that, when diagnosed with lung cancer, I would sit at my younger brother’s table talking about things one can’t talk about with strangers and can only discuss within the family. In those days, when it was time to eat, my niece would always want to watch television. She was too little to know that the programs were attacks on spiritual pollution, propaganda targeting all sections of society. Cultural celebrities would appear one after another to declare their position and to repeat the set slogans. T
hey weren’t programs for children and certainly didn’t go well with eating. I’d had enough of television news and newspapers, I just wanted to return to my own life, to chat about forgotten family matters, like my crazy great-grandfather who, determined to satisfy his craving to be an official, gave away a whole street of houses. He couldn’t manage to get even half an official position and, realizing he’d been cheated, went berserk and torched all the houses, even the one he was living in. He was much younger than I am now when he died after just turning thirty. Confucius talked about establishing oneself at the age of thirty, but this is a young and brittle age and if one doesn’t succeed one can have a nervous breakdown. Neither I nor my younger brother have ever seen photos of this great-grandfather. At the time probably the art of photography hadn’t yet come to China or else it was only the nobility who could have their photos taken. However, both I and my younger brother have eaten the wonderful meals grandmother prepared. What I remember most vividly are the drunken prawns: the flesh of the prawns was still twitching and it took a long time to pluck up the courage to eat just one of them. I also remember my grandfather who had a stroke and was paralysed. To escape the bombs of the Japanese planes we rented an old house in the countryside from a peasant and all day long he lay on a reclining rattan chair in the hall. The door was left open and a breeze went straight through the main room so that his white hair was moving all the time. When the air raid sirens went off he became distraught and my mother could only crouch next to his ear and say over and over that the Japanese don’t have many bombs and if they are dropping them they will only be dropping them on the cities. At the time I was smaller than this little niece of mine and was just learning to walk. I remember that to get to the back courtyard I had to cross a high sill and after crossing, there was also a step. I couldn’t crawl over it on my own so the back courtyard remained a mysterious place for me. Beyond the front door was a big threshing square and I recall tumbling in the hay with the children of peasant families. A small dog drowned in the quiet and beautiful river right next to it. Some nasty person had thrown it in or else it had fallen in by itself. In any case the carcass lay on the shore for a long time. My mother sternly forbade me to play near the river, it was only when the grown-ups went to the river-bank to fetch water that I could go and dig in the sand. They would dig holes in the sand and scoop up clear filtered water.