As we continued walking, my thinking shifted. I no longer felt small in my teacher’s strong presence. Our karmas were about to diverge. Yes, Yi Kong had been my mentor and I would always respect her for that. But already the hold she’d had over me was weakening. Now I could feel sympathy for those parts of her life as a nun I’d only recently understood, like the need to attract donations from vulgar businessmen like Sunny Au. From there, my magnanimity continued to expand to the late Professor Fulton and his daughter Lisa, Philip Noble, even the taxi driver…
Feeling free, I smiled.
Yi Kong cast me a curious glance.
As if my hands were directed by some higher force, I snapped open my handbag, took out the brocade bag with the jade bracelet, and handed it to her. “Yi Kong Shifu, remember you said the temple welcomes any nice stone?” I slid the bracelet out from the bag. “Here’s my offering.”
But Yi Kong didn’t take it; she didn’t even look at it. “Meng Ning, please go to the general office for any business related to a donation.”
Embarrassed, I dropped the bracelet back into my pocketbook. Then, trying to fill the awkward silence, I asked, “Shifu, what’s the title of this mural?”
“Ten Thousand Miles of Red Dust.” She turned to face me and placed her hands together. “A Mi Tuo Fo,” she said, and was gone.
I had just given the jade bracelet to Enlightened to Emptiness and she was studying it like a little girl given a Barbie. “Thank you so much, Miss Du; it’s very generous of you to donate this.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Nan Mo A Mi Tuo Fo,” Hail to the Merciful Buddha, the novice said as she walked me to the door.
I made a deep bow to her and she bowed back. After that, I stepped through the door into the courtyard, which led to the stone garden.
I was listening to the clicks of my high heels on the gravel path in the garden leading toward the temple’s exit, when I saw my carp-viewing bench and suddenly remembered Chan Lan, Dai Nam’s great-aunt. Where was she? As I was wondering, there appeared the familiar face of the nurse who had helped Chan Lan the last time I saw the centenarian.
I hurried up to her.
She smiled.
I smiled back. “Where is Chan Lan?”
“Oh, don’t you know?”
“Something happened?”
“She died yesterday morning.”
“What?”
“Miss, don’t feel bad. She was one hundred and one; it was a happy death.” The nurse scrutinized me behind her thick glasses. “Oh, by the way, we found in her drawer this letter for you from her great-niece the Wonderful Countenance Shifu. You’re Miss Du Meng Ning, right?”
I nodded. “Thank you.” I took it from her and saw my name in neat penmanship on the envelope. “Do you have any news about Shifu?”
“No. I only heard that she still doesn’t talk.” The nurse smiled at me and continued down the path.
After I’d torn open the envelope and fished out the letter, my gaze fell on a poem:
I held the letter to my chest and a sigh escaped from my mouth. Then I read the poem again and again, like reciting a mantra, until I’d memorized it.
Relief washed over me.
I knew Dam Nam was fine. And I knew that she’d know that I knew, too.
Epilogue
Three weeks later, Michael arrived in Hong Kong, this time to plan for our wedding. The meeting between Mother and Michael was, to my surprise and relief, cordial and comfortable. I could only say that once she had laid her eyes on Michael, it seemed her tongue had suddenly gone itchy and her prejudice against gweilo had been thrown beyond the highest heavens. It reminded me of the Chinese saying, “When mother-in-law sees son-in-law, her mouth water can’t help but fall.”
One late evening, I took Michael to see the newly constructed nunnery so he could meditate with the Buddha, Bodhisattvas, and all the sentient beings in front of the Ten Thousand Miles of Red Dust mural. Watching his half-closed eyes and his legs in full lotus position, I suddenly realized that Michael was the real Bodhisattva: alive, struggling for balance, patiently inhaling and exhaling, not a well-preserved dead nun clothed in gold and silk.
After we stepped beyond the threshold of the main gate, I turned back to gaze at the temple. Under the moonlight, everything looked as if in a distant dream. The crescent moon hanging on one of the ancient trees silently echoed the graceful arcs of upturned eaves. The windows, though ablaze with lights, seemed to seal in a thousand secret tales.
An unknown nun’s shadow flitted past that of a huge bronze incense burner. I idly wondered what her reason was for willingly entering the empty gate and passing her life endlessly reciting sutras under a solitary lamp.
My wandering gaze fell on a stupa in the distance. This was the second time-the first was during the fire-that I noticed its sensuous shape like the curve of a woman’s body. I stopped and turned to face Michael, feeling a tingling sensation rise in my body.
“Michael?”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
He pulled me toward him and kissed me deeply. “I love you, too, Meng Ning, very much,” he whispered.
As we walked along together, I turned back to watch the nunnery’s wooden gate and its mysterious skyline recede in the moonlight, feeling sad that part of my life was now irrevocably gone. Then I looked at Michael’s beaming face under the moon’s silvery sprinkle and felt my sadness overlaid by happiness that another kind of life was beginning…
Discussion Questions
1. Why did Meng Ning consider becoming a nun?
2. What is the significance of these two early accidents: Meng Ning’s falling into the well when she was thirteen, and the fire in the Golden Lotus Temple?
3. Although Meng Ning’s true love was Michael, why was she also attracted to Philip Noble? Why do you think he tried to seduce his best friend’s fiancée?
4. Michael is a scientifically educated medical doctor. How did he react to the visit to the fortune-teller?
5. How would you characterize the relationship between Meng Ning and her mother?
6. Meng Ning’s father plagiarized poems and gambled away everything. Did he have any redeeming traits?
7. When Meng Ning found out her conservative Chinese mother had had an affair with an American ambassador and betrayed her father, how did Meng Ning react, and why?
8. What is the significance of the scarred nun Dai Nam’s role in this novel?
9. How did Meng Ning’s nun mentor, Depending on Emptiness, try to stop Meng Ning from marrying Michael? Why did she do this?
10. Buddhist temples sometimes preserve the bodies of famous monks and nuns. What is the motive for this custom and what is your reaction to it?
11. To what degree does Depending on Emptiness exemplify Buddhist virtues of nonattachment, compassion, and selflessness?
12. Why did Meng Ning finally decide to marry Michael instead of become a nun? What roles did the car accident and elevator fall play?
13. Enlightened to Emptiness, like many nuns, was given to the nunnery by her family before she had had much experience of the world. How do you feel about parents deciding for their children what sort of lives they will lead?
14. What do Meng Ning and Michael experience in the small temple near the end of the novel, and what is the significance of their being unable to find it again?
15. How is Buddhism depicted in the novel?
Mingmei Yip
