While I was pampered like a little princess, the two boys who’d knocked me down the well during their game of police-chasing-thieves were severely punished-each had his bottom whacked ten times with a thick stick. My plea that I actually had a good time down in the well landed on deaf ears. The villagers thought I was just being nice and adored me all the more. My neighbor Mrs. Wong gave me the best Iron Goddess of Mercy tea with rose petals, and a roasted chicken like the one she had offered to Guan Yin. Believing that they’d share my good luck, several villagers went to buy lottery tickets. After the banquet, my father took all my lucky money and slipped out to the gambling house.
I almost wished I would fall into the well again, so that Father would stop gambling and fighting with Mother. So I’d always be loved and treated like a goddess. So I could be left alone with just Guan Yin in that quiet place underground.
A few days later, I ran into Mrs. Wong. She told me that near my house was a nunnery dedicated to Guan Yin; she regularly went to pay her respects to the gilded Guan Yin statue sitting on a golden lotus. I soon began to visit the temple after school. Surrounded by glimmering candles and the fragrance of long-burning incense, I’d look up and pour out all my heart’s troubles to the Goddess’s beautiful image. I’d also watch the nuns’ kind faces as they housed and nurtured the orphans, fed the poor, cared for the old, prayed for the dead. Like Guan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, they plunged into the Ten Thousand Miles of Red Dust-the mortals’ field of passion-having sworn never to enter paradise even if only one soul was still left unsaved.
3. To Accumulate More Merit
Now inside the lobby of the Fragrant Spirit Temple, the line continued to move very slowly and people were starting to fidget. Electronic Buddhist music-the “Incantation of Great Compassion”-boomed from every corner of the monastery.
Because I had been too poor to afford it in the past, this was the first time I’d joined a retreat. I had little money, but I thought that at thirty, it was now or never. So I paid with the money I’d saved during my five years of study in Paris as a scholarship student and by doing odd jobs-assisting part-time in a small art gallery, sketching portraits for three francs each in Montmartre, and waitressing.
The temple quickly filled up with people of all ages, including quite a number of children. Some were sitting; others strutted around in their little black robes, their oversized sleeves trailing on the floor, making dry, brushing sounds. A few of the boys exhibited cleanly shaved heads; their pale scalps looked like strangely enlarged eggs under the hot July sun. Groups of men talked animatedly while waiting. I wondered what they were talking about, Buddhism or the stock market? Women whispered and giggled. Were they comparing the charitable deeds of the Goddess of Mercy to those of Princess Diana?
Next to a huge bronze incense burner a young couple gazed silently into each other’s eyes. After a while, the woman pulled out a tissue and wiped the moisture from the man’s face. The man gave her a grateful smile and patted her hand. Neither uttered a word. Buddhists say xinxin xiangyin, two hearts merge into one. However, their affection made me sad. It reminded me of the many times Mother looked at Father with silent admiration and affection when he was writing poems for her, able to forget for just a moment whatever else she knew about him. Or that our rice vat was almost empty.
It was finally my turn at the registration desk. A sour-faced woman with unruly wisps of black hair stabbed a meaty finger at my name on the thick registration sheet. “Miss Du Meng Ning, your fee for our Summer Buddhist Retreat is two thousand Hong Kong dollars. Have you brought your own Buddhist robe?”
I hadn’t. But if I chose to be a nun, I would be wearing the kasaya, the gray patchwork vestment. I feared I might miss the color, fabric, taste, and mood of all my other clothes. Especially the dress I was wearing now-purple flowers amid patches of green; whenever I wore it, I imagined myself in a purple dream shimmering with lotuses.
Moreover, I would also be given a Buddhist name. I wondered which would suit me best: Observing Mind, Solitary Light, Enlightened to Suchness, No Dust, or Empty Cloud? I hoped I wouldn’t be given the name of my great-great-grandfather’s daughter-No Name.
“Miss, have you brought your own Buddhist robe?” the registration woman repeated, waking me from my reverie. “It’s fifty dollars.”
“Oh, no, I’m sorry, since I’ve just come back from Paris -”
“All right, you don’t have one, no need to explain.”
The woman turned to search hastily among a pile of plastic-wrapped packages, pulled one out, tore it open, shook out a robe, scrutinized the inside collar, and handed it to me. Her quick action manifested like the single brush stroke of a Zen painting.
I carefully counted and handed her the money.
She frowned. “Don’t worry, miss, even if you pay more; it’s a donation to the monastery, and you’ll accumulate more merit for yourself.”
She emphasized the last word by raising her already loud voice. Was she trying to amplify the same benefit-nobody-but-yourself message to the people waiting behind me, or was it a self-interested version of the ancient wisdom, “To lose in order to gain”?
I turned and saw in the line behind me a lanky middle-aged man, a young woman talking rapidly with an elderly one, a couple with two bored-looking teenage boys, and two young girls, holding hands and giggling. I smiled at them, but all ignored my cordiality. What should I expect? Buddhist retreat or not, I was in Hong Kong, a city notorious for rudeness, crowding, and money craving. Then why had they come to the retreat? The woman’s words clanged like a bell in my ears-To Accumulate Your Own Merit. They saddened me; I’d never thought of joining the retreat to accumulate merit. I had come only to test my karma to be a nun.
Right then, something stirred outside. A shaft of sunlight dappled the temple’s rooftop. The amber tiles appeared to be rising and falling, resembling golden dragons in flight. A young nun floated by, her bald scalp glistening under the hot sun, her robe fluttering in the breeze. She looked happy and peaceful.
Had great-great-grandfather’s daughter No Name really been unhappy as a nun?
“Of course,” Mother had once said. “Since the day she entered the nunnery, she was never seen again. She refused to receive any visitors, not even her parents. They could only communicate with her through other nuns. And she refused to talk about anything but illusion, delusion, and emptiness. No Name died of brain cancer at twenty-eight. On her deathbed, she instructed that her body be cremated. So the nuns took her ashes to a high mountain and scattered them into the air. Her relatives said that was her karma-to have entered the empty gate so she would become emptiness.”
Mother had made a face. “But isn’t it funny that, if she thought about nothing but emptiness all day, she would die with her brain full of tumors?” She paused, widening her eyes. “I know she didn’t really die of a brain tumor”-Mother pointed to her chest-“but a broken heart.”
I let out a sigh.
The registration woman studied me with a worried look. “Miss, are you not feeling well?”
“Oh, I’m fine, thank you.”