Xu Xiaobin - Dunhuang Dream

“Anyone can see that I have been sick.” Zhang Shu smiled with disdain. “That celestial eye is nothing but feudal superstition.”

She was startled. “Superstition you say? So you don’t believe in the human soul? We are taught that when a person sleeps, their soul becomes a silver band, casts off the flesh, and floats away. When a person dreams, this is what the soul experiences. When I look at you now, I can see a light around you. By the color of the light I can judge whether you are a gentleman or a jerk, intelligent or stupid, healthy or not, but you can’t see my light. This is not strange; it is like a solar corona that can only be seen with a telescope, unlike a solar eclipse which can be seen by one and all. Can you say a solar corona doesn’t exist simply because you cannot see it?”

Zhang Shu looked at her in amazement. This dark-skinned girl had received an unusual education. She spoke logically and with an air of nobility.

“I can use my skill to enhance the effectiveness of the pyramid. Try; you’ll get better real soon.” She quickly tore up a hard cardboard box and cut the cardboard into ten four-sided pyramids on each side of which she pasted a round piece of red, yellow, or blue paper. Then on the bottom, she wrote something in a language he didn’t understand, which he guessed was Tibetan.

14

Science and mysticism are but two sides of the same coin.

Science, as it has developed to this today, is returning to the mystical.

It was only years later that Zhang Shu felt that what Ahyuexi told him was not myth.

Today, Eastern mysticism is in good graces with the entire world. Its value transcends categorization as either philosophy or religion, making it a focal point of cultural research. Zhang Shu subsequently wrote two articles after leaving Dunhuang: “The Yutian Style of Painting as Represented by Yu-Chi Yiseng” and “A Brief Discussion of Tibetan Tantric Qigong,” which were both praised in academic circles. Subsequently, Zhang Shu joined the ranks of scholars. Naturally, Zhang Shu did not forget to whom he was indebted for the two articles. He included Ahyuexi’s name as coauthor, but it was deleted by the editor. Later, he sent copies of the magazines to her to express his gratitude. But it was like casting a stone into the sea — he never received a reply. This made him very uneasy. Even his wife, Wang Xiyi was very concerned about what had become of her. Although Wang Xiyi had her shortcomings, she did not suffer from one that most women suffered from: jealousy. She loved to laugh at what people didn’t have, but was never jealous of what they possessed, especially after she saw Ahyuexi’s photograph, from which she determined Ahyuexi was extremely intelligent and noble. She insisted that Zhang Shu get in touch with the woman for her, as she wanted to find a place for Ahyuexi in the drama troupe and so on. Of course, this all happened later.

The sun rises in the East, and Eastern mysticism is inextricably linked with the sun. Nearly all ancient civilizations possess creation myths that are related to the sun. Humanity views the sun and light as the primal creative force. And Tibet, on the ridge of the world, is bathed in the full light of the sun like no other place on earth.

It is said that inspiration coincides with the solar cycle. The important discoveries of Newton, Leibnitz, Lomonosov, Krumlov, and Faraday that occurred at eleven-year intervals certainly did not occur as a matter of chance. In 1830, solar activity reached a peak, when Chopin and Mendelssohn both completed major works.

For thousands of years, yoga adepts have believed in a famous legend that holds that a huge storehouse exists between the base of the spine and the pelvis, which is called kundalini. It is the “serpent of life” that gives men strength. Normally it is asleep, but the yoga adept cultivates himself to awaken the serpent, which provides unusual spiritual powers, as is the case with those whose celestial eye is open. They can see the approach of death when the “silver band” that binds the soul to the body grows weak and breaks and the “light of life” begins to fade, starting at the top of the head. As Bateson said, soul is not for the flesh alone; worldly passage and information possess souls, too. Soul finds expression in manifold ways in which the individual soul is only a subsystem of the universal soul, while what is known as universal soul is but a dynamic state structured by the universe.

Then there is Einstein’s famous paradox: “The most incomprehensible thing in the world is that the world can be understood.”

15

Copying a large fresco is exceedingly difficult. Tang Renxia had thrown some light on the history of copying the frescoes in the caves. In his view, there was no strict separation between artists and artisans. He believed that a true artist should also be an accomplished artisan, at least possessing the skills of an artisan, but an artisan cannot necessary be an real artist.

His so-called skills of an artisan can be traced to before 1949. The Dunhuang Cultural Research Institute had already been established, though it was lacking in funds sufficient to purchase even average Mali brand poster colors and was entirely reliant on a few individuals to bring bamboo paper from the inland areas. They themselves had to add vitriol, mount, improve paintbrushes, and even mix their own pigments. When they went to the caves to make copies of the frescoes, they would have to use oil lamps or candles. Some of the paintings were quite high, and they had to climb up on ladders to look at them and then come back down to paint; sometimes they made dozens of trips up and down.

Each time he would reminisce with a number of old friends about those days, lofty sentiments would spontaneously arise. It was under these difficult conditions that they produced the partial copies of the world-famous frescoes at Dunhuang. That is why when Xingxing came to the copy room, the first thing they did after expressing their initial delight was to contrast their past misery with their present happiness for her benefit.

“Look, today the easels and drawing boards are all fit for use; electric lights have been installed in the caves; and rough sketches can be enlarged with a projector. The young people will never have to smell the coal oil lamps of our day.”

Certainly the bamboo paper of the old days had been replaced by good quality alum paper specially made by Rongbaozhai. They got rid of poster colors and used mineral pigments — azurite, mineral green, cinnabar, and even gold foil and ink stick — all ordered from the Jiangsixu House in Suzhou. The ink sketch of The Transformation of the Western Paradise had been accomplished using projector enlargement. Once the sketch was completed, it was printed on paper, mounted on an easel, after which the colors could be applied.

Tang Renxia introduced her to two other colleagues. Then, smiling with satisfaction, he said, “Comrade Xingxing has finally compromised.”

Xingxing forced a smile. She hadn’t eaten, but she wasn’t hungry. She looked at all the bodhisattvas, children, musicians, and dancers in The Transformation of the Western Paradise and thought of the scriptural texts from of Dunhuang in which it was written about those who are reborn in the World of Ultimate Bliss that, “Thinking of clothes a thousand styles appear; thinking of food countless aromas appear.” Such a beautiful world was alluring, but getting there was no easy matter. The great bodhisattvas had good roots, had been born from lotuses, and would soon see the Buddha. But the aupapadaka, or transformation, children were different. It was clear that their good roots were not sufficient; they had to wait in a lotus for at least a short kalpa if not a long kalpa for the bud to open before they could enter the World of Ultimate Bliss. It appeared that the Buddha lands had a strict caste system. Even being saved had categories of gold and silver, didn’t it? She thought of that childhood dream and that secret channel to the World of Ultimate Bliss and had to smile. Yes, who could see the connections between a crack in the wall and the World of Ultimate Bliss?