by Gao Xingjian
“Abandon what?” A smile lingers on his face.
“Abandon the human world.” After I say this, he and I both laugh.
“The human world can be abandoned just by saying it.” His response is straightforward.
“That’s indeed so,” I say nodding, “but I would like to know how the Venerable Master was able to abandon it.”
Without holding anything back, he then tells me about his experience.
He says that when he was sixteen, and still at junior high school, he ran away from home to join the revolution and fought for a year as a guerilla in the mountains. At seventeen he went with the army into the city and was put in charge of a bank. He could have become a party leader but he had his mind set on studying medicine. After graduating he was allocated work as a cadre in the city health bureau although he really wanted to continue to work as a doctor. One day he offended the branch party secretary of the hospital and was expelled from the party, branded a rightist element and sent to work in the fields in the country. It was only when the village built a commune hospital that he got to work as a doctor for several years. During this time he married a village girl and three children in succession were born. However for some reason he wanted to convert to Catholicism and when he heard that a Vatican cardinal had arrived in Guangzhou, he travelled there to ask the cardinal about the faith. He ended up not seeing the cardinal and instead came under suspicion for illicit dealings with foreigners. For this crime he was expelled from the commune hospital and he had no option but to spend his time studying traditional medicine on his own and mixing with vagrants in order to eat. One day he came to a sudden realization – the Pope was far away in the West and inaccessible, so he might as well rely on Buddha. From that time he renounced society and became a monk. When he finishes telling this he gives a loud laugh.
“Do you still think of your family?” I ask.
“They can all feed themselves.”
“Don’t you have some lingering fondness for them?”
“Those who have renounced society have neither fondness nor hatred.”
“Then do they hate you?”
He says he never felt inclined to ask about them but some years after he entered the monastery, his eldest son came to tell him he had been exonerated from the charge of being a rightist element and having illicit dealings with foreigners. If he returned he would be treated as a senior cadre and veteran revolutionary, reinstated in his former position and also receive a large sum of unpaid salary due to him. He said he didn’t want any of the money and they could divide it up. The fact that his wife and children had not been unjustly treated could be considered recompense for his devotion to the Buddhist faith and thereafter they should not come again. After that he started wandering and they had no means of knowing his whereabouts.
“Do you now seek alms along the way to support yourself?”
He says people are mean-spirited nowadays. Seeking alms is worse than begging, if you seek alms you don’t get anything. He mainly supports himself by practising as an itinerant doctor. When practising he wears ordinary clothes, he doesn’t want to damage the image of the Buddhist order.
“Does Buddhism allow this flexibility?” I ask.
“Buddha is in your heart.” His face is serene and I believe he has achieved liberation from the worries of the inner heart. He is setting out on a distant journey and he is very happy.
I ask him how he finds lodgings on the way. He says wherever there are temples and monasteries he only needs to show his monk’s certificate to be accorded hospitality. However the situation at present is bad everywhere. There are not many monks and all of them have to work in order to feed and clothe themselves: generally long stays aren’t possible because no-one is providing support. Only the big temples and monasteries get any government subsidies but these are only minuscule amounts and, naturally, he doesn’t want to add to people’s burdens. He says he’s a traveller and has already been to many famous mountains. He thinks he is in good health and that he can still walk a ten-thousand li journey.
“Would it be possible for me to see your monk’s certificate?” It seems that this is more useful than the credentials I have.
“It’s not a secret document, the Buddhist order doesn’t have secrets and is open to all.”
He takes from a breast pocket a big piece of folded silk paper with an ink-print Buddha sitting with legs folded on the lotus throne in the top section. It is stamped with a large vermilion square seal. His Buddhist name at initiation, academic achievements and rank are all written on it. He has reached the rank of abbot and is permitted to lecture on the sutras and to deal with Buddhist matters.
“Maybe one day I’ll follow in your footsteps.” I don’t know whether I am joking or not.
“In that case we are linked in destiny.” He, however, is quite earnest. Saying this he gets up, presses his palms together, and bids me farewell.
He walks very quickly and I follow him for a while but in an instant he vanishes among the thronging sightseers. I am clearly aware that I am still rooted in the mundane world.
Later, while reading an inscriptions in the Abandon Profit Pagoda, built in the Sui Dynasty, which stands in front of the Guoqing Monastery at the foot of Tiantai Mountain, I suddenly overhear a conversation.
“You’d best return with me,” says a man’s voice from the other side of the brick wall.
“No, you should leave now.” It is also a man’s voice, but it is louder.
“It’s not for my sake, think of your mother.”
“Just tell her I’m doing very well.”
“Your mother asked me to come, she’s ill.”
“What illness is it?”
“She keeps saying she has pains in the chest.”
The son makes no response.
“Your mother got me to bring you a pair of shoes.”
“I’ve got shoes.”
“They’re the sports shoes you wanted, they’re for basketball.”
“They’re very expensive, why did you buy them?”
“Try them on.”
“I don’t play basketball now, I don’t have any use for them. You’d best take them back, nobody wears them here.”
In the early morning, birds in the forest are singing cheerfully. In the midst of the twittering of many sparrows, a single thrush warbles but it is concealed by the dense leaves of the nearby ginkgo tree so I can’t see which branch it’s on. Then a few magpies arrive and make a raucous clamour. It is silent for a long time by the brick pagoda and thinking they have gone I go around and see a youth looking up at the singing birds, his gleaming black shaven head does not yet have the initiation burns made with incense sticks. He is wearing a short monk’s jacket, and the ruddy complexion of his handsome face is unlike the dark yellowish complexions of monks who have been vegetarian for a long time. His young father, a peasant, is holding the new white-soled basketball shoes with red and blue striped uppers he has taken out of their box. He is breathing heavily. I surmise the father is putting pressure on his son to get married and I wonder if the youth will take his vows.
You want to tell her a biji tale of the Jin Dynasty. It’s about a powerful and overbearing Grand Marshall and a mendicant nun who comes to his mansion seeking alms. According to procedure, the guards notify the household manager who gives the nun a string of cash, however she declines it and announces that she wishes to see the giver of alms. The household manager notifies the chief overseer who orders a servant to take her a silver ingot and send her on her way once and for all. But the nun refuses this as well and insists on seeing the Grand Marshall, saying he is in trouble and that she has come especially to help him. The chief overseer is left with no choice but to report this to the Grand Marshall who orders that the nun be brought into the front hall.
The Grand Marshall sees that despite the dust and grime, the nun has refined features and doesn’t look like the lewd, sham religious, mischief-making type. He asks her why she has come. The
nun presses her palms together in greeting then withdraws. She replies: I have long heard of the Grand Marshall’s great benevolence so I have come from afar especially to perform the seven times seven equals forty-nine day fast for his deceased mother and at the same time to pray to the bodhisattvas to bring good fortune and to eliminate misfortune. The Grand Marshall then orders the chief overseer to arrange a room in the inner court and to have the servants install an incense table in the hall.
Thereafter, for days in succession, there is the endless sound of wooden clappers from morning till night in the house. The Grand Marshall becomes more relaxed, and with the passing of the days treats the nun with increasing respect. However, before changing the incense each afternoon, the nun insists on having a bath which always takes two hours. The Grand Marshall begins to think to himself, nuns have bald heads and unlike ordinary women, don’t need to spend time combing their hair and putting on make-up. The bath is just a ritual for cleansing the heart before changing the incense, why does it take so long? And when she has the bath there is the sound of splashing water, could she be stirring the water without actually bathing? Nagging doubts begin to grow in his mind.
One day while he is strolling in the courtyard, the sound of the wooden clappers suddenly stops. Instantly, he hears the sound of water and knows that the nun will soon be changing the incense sticks, so he goes into the hall to wait. The sound of the water becomes louder and louder, and even after a long time doesn’t stop. His suspicion overcomes him and before realizing it, he has descended the stairs and is walking past the door to her room. There is a crack in the door which doesn’t close properly, and he goes up and peers inside. He sees the nun facing the door, she has removed all her clothing and is sitting naked with her legs crossed in the tub, scooping water in both hands to wash herself. Her face is totally transformed, it is radiant and she has white teeth, pink cheeks and a jade-white neck, smooth shoulders and plump arms – a veritable beauty. He hurries away and returns to the hall in an attempt to compose himself . . .
But the sound of splashing water from her room continues, enticing him to have another look, so going back along the corridor he creeps stealthily to the door. Again, with bated breath, he goes up to the crack in the door and sees her delicate outstretched fingers rubbing her full breasts, which are white like snow and each adorned with a budding cherry flower. Her wet flesh is heaving and the line of life runs down from her navel. The Grand Marshall goes down on his knees and is transfixed. He then sees the white hands in the tub taking a pair of scissors and thrusting them hard into the navel and bright red blood instantly gushing out from it. He is aghast but doesn’t dare act hastily. He closes his eyes, unable to look.
Some time passes and the sound of splashing water starts again. He focuses his eyes and sees the bald-headed nun drenched in blood. Her hands are busily moving about as she pulls out her intestines and puts them into the tub!
This Grand Marshall, who comes from a famous family of generals and has been through many battles, doesn’t faint. He takes a deep breath and anxiously resolves to get a proper look. By this time the nun’s face is drained of colour, her eyelids droop and her eyelashes come together, and her blanched lips quiver as if she is groaning, but when he listens he can only hear the splashing of the water.
She takes length after length of the soft intestines into her bloody hands, washes and untangles them, then winds them around her wrists. This goes on for a long time. When she finally finishes washing, she presses the intestines neatly together and crams them back into her stomach. Then, with a ladle, she washes in turn her arms, chest and abdomen, between her legs, her legs and feet, and even each of her toes. At the end of this, she is whole again. The Grand Marshall quickly gets to his feet, goes up the stairs into the hall, and stands there waiting for her.
Before long the door opens and the nun, holding sutra beads and clad in her nun’s robe, arrives in the hall at precisely the moment when the incense sticks in the censer burn right down. As black smoke from each stick vanishes she unhurriedly replaces it.
The Grand Marshall seems to be waking from a dream and, intrigued, is compelled to ask her about it. The nun is unmoved and replies: If you sir are thinking of usurping the state the situation will be like this. On hearing this, the ambitious Grand Marshall, who had indeed been planning to usurp the state, can’t help feeling disappointed, but doesn’t dare to act improperly and remains a loyal minister.
This story is a political warning.
You say if the ending of the story is changed it could become a morality tale to warn people against lechery and lust.
The story could also be turned into a religious tale to exhort people to convert to Buddhism.
The story can also serve as a philosophy for getting on in society – to teach the morally superior man that each day he should investigate his own personal conduct, or that human life is suffering, or that suffering in life derives from the self. Or the story could be developed into numerous intricate and complex theories. It all depends on how the storyteller tells it.
The Grand Marshall protagonist of the story has a name and surname so a great deal of textual research, examining historical texts and old books, could be carried out. But as you are not a historian, don’t have political aspirations, and certainly neither wish to become an expert in Buddhism, nor to preach religion, nor to become a paragon of virtue, what appeals to you is the superb purity of the story. Any explanation is irrelevant, you simply wanted to retell it in the spoken language.
In an old street of this county town, he has his calligraphy stall set up on planks laid on two wooden benches outside a general store. Strips of lucky couplets written on red glossy paper hang from the planks. “Dragon and phoenix manifest good fortune. Marriage celebrations arrive at the house”, “Going out the door happy events occur. Right on the ground silver is sprouting”, “Business flourishing as far as the four seas. Riches in abundance reaching the three rivers” – these are all old sayings which had for many years been replaced by revolutionary slogans and the sayings of Mao Zedong. There are also two strips with the words “Whoever you meet, laugh, and you will be happy. Whatever the problem, shrug it off, and misfortune will vanish”, which he could have thought up himself or which could be based on the accumulated experiences of his ancestors for getting along in society. This couplet has been written in a fancy style, the characters are well structured and look like those on Daoist talismans.
He is seated behind the planks, an old man in an old-style jacket fastened down the front who looks quite comical with his faded old army hat perched on the back of his head. I notice the Eight Trigram compass he is using as a paperweight and go up to chat with him.
“Venerable elder, how’s business?”
“All right.”
“How much does a set of characters cost?”
“Some are two yuan and some are three yuan, it costs more for more characters.”
“What about the single character for good fortune?”
“That would cost one yuan.”
“But wouldn’t that be only one character?”
“I’d have to write it for you on the spot.”
“What about drawing a talisman to dispel disaster and ward off evil?”
He looks up at me and says, “Can’t be done.”
“Why?”
“You’re a cadre, surely you know.”
“I’m not a cadre,” I say.
“But the state feeds you,” he says emphatically.
“Venerable elder,” I begin, I need to win him over, “are you a Daoist priest?”
“I gave it up a long time ago.”
“Of course,” I say. “Venerable elder, I’m asking if you know how to perform Daoist rituals.”
“Yes. But the government doesn’t allow the performance of superstitious practices.”
“Nobody’s asking you to. I’m collecting the music of scriptural texts which are sung, can you sing them? The Qingcheng Mountain
Daoist Association has been re-registered and is open again, what are you afraid of?”
“That’s a big temple, we torchlight Daoists aren’t allowed to practise.”
“Folk Daoists like you are just the people I’m looking for.” My interest has been further aroused. “Would you sing a couple of pieces for me? For example, scriptures for the Daoist funeral rites or for exorcising demons and spirits?”
He sings a couple of sentences but suddenly stops, and says, “Ghosts and spirits shouldn’t be disturbed without good reason and incense has to be burnt to invite them.”
While he was singing a crowd had gathered and someone shouts out, “Hey, old man, sing us a bawdy ditty!” The crowd laughs.
“I’ll sing you a mountain love song instead,” the old man says good-naturedly, declaring his boldness.