Mingmei Yip - Petals from the Sky

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 goddesses; hundreds, possibly thousands of them: flying while strumming a mandolin, bowing a fiddle, plucking a harp, tapping a drum. I could almost hear the twang of a plucked string, the lingering echo of a vibrato, the wailing of a fiddle, the distant thunder of a drum. The goddesses’ 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, gods and goddesses, people of all sorts, birds and auspicious animals. This huge mass 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 peacocks 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 prostitutes 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 rectitude and compassion-if he had been unattractive. I wouldn’t have gone out with Philip Noble 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 compassion 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 hell-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 and nirvana, all exist together.

Yi Kong was right to teach that we shouldn’t discriminate. Life just is. So it’s pointless to reject the world, hoping to escape 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 passion, 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 compassion 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 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.