Xu Xiaobin - Dunhuang Dream

The princess removed the gold crown from her head and from her piled hair removed the silkworms and then opened a medicine bag from which she extracted the mulberry seeds. Mixed together in this way, they had not been detected.

Delighted, Yu-Chi Mu asked, “What about the silk workers? Who will come and pick the mulberry leaves and raise the silkworms?”

The princess smiled and pointed to a group of attendant women. “Is there a woman from the Central Plains who cannot pick mulberry leaves and raise silkworms? They are all very good at it.”

Yu-Chi Mu roared with laughter and quickly informed the King of Yutian to make ready to welcome the princess with magnificent pomp and ceremony.

It was only after that that the raising silkworms, mulberries, and silk making spread to Yutian, and from there to India, and on to Europe.

5

“That’s very interesting. The Yutian princess married the general guarding the Hexi Corridor, and the King of Yutian married a princess from the Central Plains.”

Late at night, Zhang Shu looked up from his desk and gazed tenderly at Ahyuexi.

“Ahyuexi, I heard that in her youth, your mother was as beautiful as the princess from Yutian. But now. . How did she come to look the way she does? Can you tell me your mother’s story?”

“What is there to say? She looks that way on account of karma.”

“What do you mean, karma?”

“She and that bastard she’s with killed my father.”

“Ahyuexi! Don’t talk such nonsense unless you have proof!”

“It’s not nonsense. Someone who knows the story told me.”

“Who?”

Ahyuexi opened wide her slanted eyes and examined him for a while. “Bodhisattva Pan,” she replied with some hesitation.

“Her again! Pan. . Su. . min.” He frowned. He couldn’t say exactly why, but that bodhisattva face more and more resembled a mask, a rubber mask.

“The year I tuned ten and had my celestial eye opened, I began practicing yoga at the temple. My grandfather asked the best vajra master in Lhasa. He himself initiated me and I studied vajra breathing, precious vase qigong , and vajra chanting. . the master said I was the most promising yoga adept. But four years later, my grandfather died and his property was confiscated. By then, the master had transmitted everything he knew to me. It was then that my mother sent someone to Lhasa to get me. I had no choice, and I missed my mother, so I returned to Dunhuang. When I got back, I saw how much my mom had aged, but Dayejisi was just as young as ever. I urged her to leave him, but she said my little sister was still young and needed a father. I could see that she was afraid of him, so we argued. One day when I came home from the market, I found Dayejisi home alone. In a very nasty way he told me that I had been eating for free off of him and demanded that I polish his shoes. When I bent over to pick up his shoes, he attacked me from behind, trying to tear open my clothes. I pulled the knife I carried with me and threatened him. He squealed like a stuck pig. All of Dunhuang heard him. Bloodied, he ran out of the house to report me. That evening people from the Public Security Bureau showed up and took me away in handcuffs.

Her face was cold and expressionless, as if she were talking about someone else.

“Did you run away later?”

“No, I was rescued by the Bodhisattva Guanyin.”

“The Bodhisattva Guanyin? You mean Pan Sumin?” Zhang Shu asked, growing more alert.

“Yes, around here we all call her the living Guanyin because she is always helping those who are suffering!” She smiled piously.

“Would you tell me how she rescued you?”

“I was still young then and didn’t understand things. I had been locked up several days without a drink of water. Practicing yoga helped to get me through it. One day I was taken out for interrogation. Bodhisattva Pan was sitting there. After the interrogation, she took me away.”

“She’s not afraid of Dayejisi?”

“No. He’s more afraid of her.”

“Why should he be afraid of Pan?”

“He’s afraid of her the way a wolf is afraid of a hunter and an evil ghost is afraid of a bodhisattva.”

“Is she really a bodhisattva?”

“She is a bodhisattva incarnate. She got me out nine years ago and has always been good to me.”

“Good to you in what way?”

“What a strange question!” she said, arching her delicate eyebrows. “Good is good. She looks after me like my own mother. She encourages me to go to school and do a little work each day. After I turned eighteen, she found this great job for me.”

“Huh! More like raising a slave,” snorted Zhang Shu.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing. What I mean is if she really treated you well, why aren’t you still in school?”

She looked anxious.

“How. . how can you blame her? She herself has a family. Where would she get the money? Besides, I practiced yoga from an early age, so going to school or not is all the same. Even though I never went to high school, she taught me to read the sutras such as the Sutra on the Passage of Time and the like. My teacher never taught me, but she did.” Once again her face shone with a pious light. “Now I feel close to the Buddha, which is not the sort of happiness many people have.”

“Ahyuexi, I like you the way you are.” He took her in his arms and pulled her arms behind her. She looked like a beautiful long-necked vase. “But why are you so tough, without any pity? Is that what you learned from the Buddha?”

“Brother Shu, no matter how nice you are, you are still a Han Chinese. You know only the Buddha of the Chinese, but not ours. Your Shakyamuni became our Vairocana Buddha, just as your Guanyin became our Contemplating Ease. Even Lakshmi’s features. . oops! I’ve said too much.”

“I know what you are getting at. What you mean is that in Tibetan Buddhism, many Buddhas and bodhisattvas are depicted as fierce and angry, including even the beautiful Lakshmi, right?”

“Yes, Brother Shu. You are very smart.”

“But why is that?”

“I think. . it’s because our Buddha is more real. He possesses all sorts of Dharma-bodies. .”

“Just like there are all kinds of people.”

“Yes. The Wisdom Sutra tells us that in this world, nature is empty and the phenomenal unreal. That is profound wisdom.”

“I understand. Nature is empty means that everything is formed through cause. There is no real self nature; the phenomenal is unreal means that empty nature doesn’t mean that it is nothing; the appearance of the unreal exists. In other words, the reality we observe is empty but that which is commonly considered illusory is real. So, from this perspective, the Buddha is the Buddha. He possesses various Dharma-bodies, some angry and some pleasing, but all alike without significance. Right?”

“Yes.” Then she shook her head. “No, not entirely. I said that our Buddha is more real, which means that the Buddha of Tibetan Buddhism esteems natural strength more and that’s why there is a joyful Buddha. . Do you believe in the simultaneous cultivation of two states?”

Everything was quiet. Zhang Shu felt that her speech had a highly hypnotic effect. Lakshmi suddenly appeared in his mind’s eye. She was both beautiful and ferocious, but he didn’t know which was best.

6

Ahyuexi’s was a simple beauty.

A simple beauty of black or gray.

One day, as the sun was going down, Zhang Shu saw her sitting beside Yueya Spring. The setting sun coated her with a gold patina. Her deep gray hair stirred in the evening air, wafting a light fragrance. Her face was still and her eyes closed, like a serious female Buddha of unique character.