Petals From The Sky Part 35

"Hmmm..." I stuttered, "soon...Yi Kong Shifu." Then, following the Chinese saying that when you hit a snake, let it crawl up the stick, I asked, "And, Shifu...I'll be very grateful if...if..." I mustered up all my courage and blurted out, "You can take the time and trouble to perform a Buddhist wedding for us."

She looked at me for a few moments with her penetrating eyes, nodding. "Yes." Then, "What is the date of the wedding?"

"Early next year, February nineteenth."

"Then I can arrange for the wedding to be held at our new Hall of Grand Heroic Treasures." She lifted her cup to her lips. "Let's have more tea now, then I'll take you to see the murals in the new hall."

After we had finished our third round of tea and flattened the mountain of nuts, she stood up from her chair and cast me a sidelong glance. "Well, be happy." Then, "Come, Meng Ning, let's go."

I hurriedly followed her out of the office. Together we strolled past the library, the nursing home, the orphanage, the elementary school, and the half-finished construction site. She walked steadily with her back straight and her head held high. On the way, half a dozen workers and pa.s.sersby stopped to bow to her with their hands held together in the adoration gesture; she returned a nod and a smile. Though she'd put on some weight, her gait was still as graceful as a crane's. It pleased me to watch her heels mysteriously playing hide-and-seek from under her robe. I wondered what the arches of her feet looked like wrapped inside those soft slippers. The hollow of a bridge, or the curve of a fish?

"Here we are. This is the Hall of Grand Heroic Treasures." Yi Kong's voice cut off my idle thoughts. She was already stepping across the threshold into the hall; I quickened my pace to fall into step behind the undulating hem of her robe. Cold air blasted from within, raising gooseflesh on my arms. A mixture of raw wood, wet cement, paint, oil, and turpentine stung my nostrils.

The hall was huge-seven or eight thousand square feet. Round, thick red pillars like giants' legs soared from its four corners to the high ceiling above. The entire wall was covered with an enormous mural-a whirlwind of pink, gold, and periwinkle. Turning my head in a circle to take it all in, I discovered it was filled with G.o.ddesses; hundreds, possibly thousands of them: flying while strumming a mandolin, bowing a fiddle, plucking a harp, tapping a drum. I could almost hear the tw.a.n.g of a plucked string, the lingering echo of a vibrato, the wailing of a fiddle, the distant thunder of a drum. The G.o.ddesses' supple bodies and limbs curved in graceful arcs; their clothes with long-flowing ribbons rippled in between ornamental clouds. I could almost feel the sensuous caress of the silk strips against my bare arms.

"Very impressive," I said, dropping my gaze back to earth, to Yi Kong.

Except in some rare, lavish art books, I had never seen frescos so beautiful and complex. The entire wall from floor to ceiling was filled with Bodhisattvas, G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses, people of all sorts, birds and auspicious animals. This huge ma.s.s of human forms and animals moved gracefully in a seemingly endless procession. Elegantly dressed Guan Yins marched abreast with sumptuously attired emperors, empresses, and lords. Some Bodhisattvas rode on white elephants, others on lions, with birds hovering above and peac.o.c.ks trailing behind, fanning their thousand-eyed feathers. Farther back in the procession strolled poets and scholars, followed by servant boys with stacks of books weighing down their backs. Farmers held spades; fishermen, buckets filled with squirming fish; woodcutters with axes resting on thick shoulders walked here and there. Sailors and pirates fresh from the sea hastily fell in line to join the long queue, soon approached by prost.i.tutes with pouting lips and flirtatious smiles.

I let out a gasp. "Yi Kong Shifu, I've never seen a modern Buddhist painting so magnificent."

But as we came closer to the mural, I discovered that lurking in corners and shadows were the outcasts: beggars, lepers, cripples and, almost hidden from sight, the ugly and the diseased, the old and dying.

Suddenly I realized something. For my whole life I'd been obsessed with beauty, especially female beauty, beginning with my girlhood crush on Yi Kong. Chasing after these floating, transitory images had unsettled my mind, so that I'd neglected what was really meant for me in this life. But hadn't my obsession with beauty later extended itself to men? I didn't think I would have fallen in love with Michael-despite his rect.i.tude and compa.s.sion-if he had been unattractive. I wouldn't have gone out with Philip n.o.ble if he'd had greasy hair and a crude face. I wondered: Would I have forgiven my father despite what he did to our family, if he had been wrinkled and ugly? If Lisa was plain-looking, would I have so easily been taken in by her?

And yes, also Guan Yin. Whenever I visited a temple, I'd always prayed just to Guan Yin, so I could admire her elongated eyes, curving brows, and crescent-moon lips. It was not so much her compa.s.sion as her beauty that I'd worshipped.

At last I saw that I'd missed the real lesson from my fall into the well. Spirituality for me had always been connected to things beautiful. Enlightenment was a jeweled paradise, a multicolored wonderland where beautiful celestial maidens danced to ethereal music and drank sweet elixirs. I'd ignored that it also includes h.e.l.l-smelly and filled with trash, filth, rotting flesh. Though I'd been told many times over that enlightenment leads not to heaven, but to where I was now, I'd never accepted it. Enlightenment happens in the Ten Thousand Miles of Red Dust-where sin and virtue, dreams and nightmares, truth and delusion, nun and not nun, samsara samsara and and nirvana, nirvana, all exist together. all exist together.

Yi Kong was right to teach that we shouldn't discriminate. Life just is is. So it's pointless to reject the world, hoping to escape samsara samsara-suffering. All we can do is keep to our ordinary mind.

So, what's all the fuss about?

I was feeling expansive when Yi Kong softly said, "Let's look some more," and resumed walking.

I reached to touch the Guan Yin pendant hanging around my neck.

Yi Kong cast me a meaningful glance. "Time never stops. It's been seventeen years since the day I threw the pendant to you into the well."

Then I thought of something else and blurted out, "Yi Kong Shifu, since you've always talked about the illusion of human pa.s.sion, then you must have experienced-"

"No, nothing like that." She cut me off, her voice calm, her gaze as clear as a cloudless sky.

A light dawned in me, illuminating what had been in shadow before. There are different ways for people to see their "original face"-to perceive their different callings in life. Hers was to shave her head to become a nun-perhaps a worldly nun who gathered large donations for charitable projects. Dai Nam's karma was to taste bitter love, then become a recluse, far from this dusty world. And mine was to be awakened to the spirituality of this Ten Thousand Miles of Red Dust through the love and compa.s.sion of a man. All of us: Dai Nam, an ascetic nun meditating on a high mountain; Yi Kong, ambitiously gathering large donations and carrying out huge projects; Enlightened to Emptiness, who, though happy in the empty gate, knew she would never have the chance to love; or me, simply a woman in the world, about to be married and starting a career-we were just a few of the myriad sentient beings struggling with our own problems and striving for enlightenment in this unsatisfactory world.

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 n.o.ble, 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."

Embarra.s.sed, I dropped the bracelet back into my pocketbook. Then, trying to fill the awkward silence, I asked, "Shifu, what's the t.i.tle of this mural?"

"Ten Thousand Miles of Red Dust." She turned to face me and placed her hands together. "A Mi Tuo Fo," "A Mi Tuo Fo," she said, and was gone. 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. 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 gla.s.ses. "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: Hundred flowers in spring and a moon in autumnCool breeze in summer and snow in winterIf there's no worry in your mindthat's your good time on earth.

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 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." 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 pa.s.sing her life endlessly reciting sutras sutras under a solitary lamp. under a solitary lamp.

My wandering gaze fell on a stupa 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. 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....

A READING GROUP GUIDE.

PETALS FROM THE SKY.

MINGMEI YIP.

ABOUT THIS GUIDE.

The questions and discussion topics that follow are intended to enhance your group's reading of this book.

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 n.o.ble? Why do you think he tried to seduce his best friend's fiancee?

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 amba.s.sador 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, compa.s.sion, 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?

ALSO BY M MINGMEI Y YIP.

Peach Blossom Pavilion