Petals from the Sky Read online

  “Sure,” I said. “And thanks again.” While I was turning away to follow the nun, I felt his eyes on my back. I was still wondering, why was this foreigner so generous to a total stranger?

  With rapid steps, the young nun led me out of the lobby, then through a back passageway lined with potted plants and flowers. We passed groups at work: nuns washing vegetables or preparing tea; women dusting; others lighting incense; young girls washing plates in outdoor sinks or doing laundry in large wooden buckets.

  An elderly nun loaded down with plastic bags of vegetables and food lumbered toward us. I put my hands together in the prayer gesture and smiled. “Good morning, Shifu.” “Shifu” means teacher, or master, the title of respect for Buddhist nuns and monks.

  She smiled back. “Good morning, miss. Here for the retreat?”

  “Yes,” I said, looking at the sunlight reflecting from the big beads of perspiration on her forehead.

  “Hope you enjoy it,” she said sincerely.

  “Thank you, Shifu. I will,” I answered respectfully.

  Once she had passed by us, the young nun said, “She’s Wonderful Voyage Shifu, supervisor of the cooking for the retreat.”

  “I see.” I turned around to look at the elderly nun’s receding back.

  I always wanted to live a significant life like a nun’s. But Mother once asked, when we had just finished dinner, “What kind of success is it if you have no one to share it with? Look at your grandmother. She had cash in her purse and diamonds on her fingers, but no man in her heart to love. You want that kind of life?” Then she threw a big plate of fish bones into the garbage can, where it landed with a thump. “I don’t want to see my only daughter die a lonely old woman!” I understood her warning-if I didn’t get married, my destiny would be the same as that anonymous collection of fish bones.

  The nun and I continued to walk toward the dormitory. We entered a small hall and ascended a broad wooden staircase. The nun climbed fast; I had to take two steps at a time to keep up.

  She smiled back at me apologetically. “Do you know you are not allowed to make conversation during the whole retreat?”

  “Oh, really?” The steepness of the steps made the climb a physical ordeal.

  On the stairs, the nun’s cloth slippers thudded softly, like secrets told in whispers. She lowered her voice, her tone didactic. “Unless it’s absolutely necessary, talking is not permitted after the retreat has formally started. Also, one is not supposed to make noise during meals, like smacking lips or slurping noodles. Not that we want to be mean, we just try to show respect to the Dharma.”

  I was amused by the idea of this little “meanness” committed in the name of Buddha’s law or, like the registration woman, in the name of knowing the truth.

  We arrived at the top of the stairs and the beginning of a long corridor leading into different rooms. She spoke again, her voice high and excited, and her face flushed. “You know, because people come here to meditate, to find peace of mind, it is important to remain silent. Since both the sound and the content of speech can be distracting. Modern people who are under a lot of stress usually talk nonstop, to vent their frustrations and fill up their minds, so they won’t feel nervous and restless. But their conversations are mostly about worldly things: TV programs, soap operas, gossip columns…”

  “I see.”

  She finally stopped. “Here’s your dormitory.”

  The room was huge and crowded with rows of steel bunks. The walls were empty except for a large photograph of a statue of Guan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy. Her half-closed eyes gazed down at the roomful of women. Under the picture the sweet smell of sandalwood wafted up from a bronze burner.

  The nun showed me the location of the bathroom and my bunk bed. Back in the corridor, she continued, “Many people still talk even when they’re meditating. They don’t talk aloud, they chatter inside. We call this monkey mind, because it’s compulsive, like a monkey jumping from tree to tree.”

  Suddenly she stopped to stick her head inside a doorway. “Ma’am, please don’t hang your underwear on the bunk. It’s not a very nice sight!”

  Tired of her jabbering, I felt relieved that we’d arrived at the rows of stacked lockers. The nun handed me a key, looked at me intently, and instructed me not to lose it.

  As she turned to leave, I called, “Shifu, what’s your name?”

  She turned back. “Miao Ci.”

  Compassionate Speech.

  “Thank you very much, Miao Ci Shifu.” I tried my key in the locker while pondering the contrast between the symbolism of her name and her persistent chatter.

  Irritated, I pushed hard on the locker door; it shut with a loud clang.

  The nun startled, flashing an embarrassed grin. “Miss, I think you’re all set now.”

  Sorry for my rudeness, I put my hands together and bowed deeply to her.

  After she disappeared down the stairs, I sighed with relief-my first moment alone to find peace of mind since I’d entered the temple.

  4. The Scarred Nun

  At ten o’clock, refreshed from a nap in the dormitory, I ambled back to the Meditation Hall. In the throng ahead of me, a couple gestured in sign language, making Eh! Eh! sounds with their throats. I wondered how it would feel to be unable to give voice to thoughts. The mute couple turned around to let an elderly man behind them pass. When I saw their faces, the truth clicked-they were the silently loving couple I’d seen gazing into each other’s eyes. It saddened me that they had not voluntarily chosen silence over speech. I felt even sadder that sometimes even seeing and believing could still fail me in trying to find the truth. If I became a nun, would that help me to perceive things better?

  At the door, a monk handed out books for chanting and programs for the opening ceremony. Inside, trails of heavy incense paled the peoples’ black robes while emitting a sweet, drowsy fragrance. Stripes of red embroidered streamers fluttered in the artificial currents generated by slowly revolving fans. Monks, nuns, workers, and volunteers shuffled here and there, arranging the flowers, the fruit, the cushions, the musical instruments.

  I settled down on a cushion a few rows from the front. I looked around and saw a woman whose features reminded me of my longtime nun friend Yi Kong. I’d heard her disciples describe her with a Chinese saying, that the fish sink to the bottom of the pond and the geese descend to the sandbank in despair at competing with her beauty.

  Yi Kong was that beautiful. Besides, she was a gifted painter, calligrapher, photographer, and connoisseur of art. No one understood why, at the age of eighteen when most girls’ deepest concerns are boyfriends and pimples, she had chosen to shave her head to become a nun. Some said she had been jilted by her childhood sweetheart. Some said she had a rare form of cancer and would have lost all her waist-length hair anyway. Some said she rebelled against her wealthy, overpowering father, who had forced her into an arranged marriage with a crude businessman twenty years older than she. Others said she had a gangster boyfriend who had been killed in a street fight, and she’d become the target of the opposing gang. She had no place to hide but within the empty gate.

  Although my mother knew about Yi Kong, she had no idea that the nun was my close friend and guide, nor that she had such a mysterious background. Once, when Mother saw Yi Kong on TV talking about the illusory nature of life and the transience of human passion, she pointed to the scars scorched into Yi Kong’s scalp by incense during her initiation into nunhood and exclaimed, “So pretty, what a waste to enter the empty gate!”

  I believed Mother had a split personality, for although she disliked nuns, she was fascinated by Yi Kong. Another time she said, her eyes glued to the nun on the screen, “No Name, deserted by her handsome fiancé, was just as pretty.” She motioned her head toward Yi Kong. “This one must also have been rejected by someone very handsome.”

  Mother believed all women’s unhappiness was caused by men in one way or another. So she would never have believed the reason I wanted to be a nun had
nothing to do with a man, but with a woman. I wanted to be like Yi Kong, to be free of men’s crushing power, to attain spirituality, to control my own life and destiny, and most important of all, to push away the ordinary so as to live the life of a poet, a mystic, a goddess.

  Mother believed that when people share the same face, they’ll share the same fate. This logic scared me, for I had my mother’s face, and I didn’t want to let a man into my life just to ruin it. A man who would perhaps, like my father, gamble away everything. Even the jade bracelet treasured by Grandmother and Mother and which would have been passed on to me.

  Mother had often lamented the loss of the bracelet. “Ah, what a pity! It was made from the finest jade, translucent, spotless, and so green. Your grandmother searched for this piece her whole life. It was not the price she’d paid; many rich people could pay that. It was her eye.

  “Your grandmother had a third eye; she could see things most people can’t. She knew she’d have no future living in a small town, so she moved from Hualian to the big city of Taipei. Chinese like gold for ornaments and investment, so she opened one gold store after another. People liked to bargain, to pull someone down, so she’d always mark up her prices and give them the pleasure of talking her down. She could see everything; that’s why she was so successful. Now I’m sure that, from her grave, she can see you’ll fall in love with a nice man, marry, have many children and a good life.”

  One time I asked her, “Could Grandmother see that Baba would gamble away the jade bracelet?” Mother was speechless. Feeling ashamed of my meanness, I secretly promised myself that I would retrieve the bracelet some day, but I had no idea how. Could Grandmother’s ghost foresee this, too?

  A nun with a twitch in her eye now stepped forward onto the platform in front of the altar and announced enthusiastically, “I represent the Fragrant Spirit Temple and welcome you to this Seven-Day-Temporary-Leave-Home-Retreat. Before we start our ceremony, let’s all stand up and bow to Buddha.”

  Everyone rose, hands together in the deferential prayer gesture, and bowed to the three figures on the altar: the Historical Buddha; the Medicine Buddha; and Amida Buddha. Next to the three Buddhas stood a small ceramic statue of Guan Yin; her hand held a jar and her eyes looked smilingly at the participants. I was impressed to see several hundred people stand up in one accord as if they were sharing the same body and mind. I could even feel the qihai, energy ocean, swell around me.

  After the audience resumed their seats, the eye-twitching nun gave her welcoming speech:

  “Honorable guests of faith, today I am pleased to welcome you to our retreat to experience the Buddhist Dharma as short-term monks and nuns. I am also very happy to tell you we have an American doctor with us, which shows that the Buddhist Dharma is not only prosperous in the East, it has also spread to the West. It not only attracts ordinary people, it also appeals to the highly educated.”

  The nun glanced at her notes, then began again in her self-satisfied voice. “We also have a young Chinese doctor with a Ph.D. in Oriental art history from the Sorbonne in France.”

  I smiled; that was me. But I really hadn’t received my degree yet. I still needed to go back to Paris for my oral defense. Hadn’t the nun mentioned the Ph.D. in order to make the temple look good? Jet lag made me too sleepy to quibble.

  My head jerked and I awoke to the chiming of bells. Now a different nun on the dais announced lunch. Still feeling drowsy, I mechanically shuffled along with the throng moving toward the dining hall.

  Tables and chairs were arranged in rows, with men and women seated on opposite sides of the hall. A dense aroma of vegetables, oil, rice, and condiments hung heavily in the air. After everyone had settled into their seats, a malnourished-looking monk came up to the microphone and quiet fell over the hall. He informed us about the etiquette of eating: we should wait until a Shifu, mentor, struck the bell before we began. We should refrain from making noise and from looking around. We should concentrate on our food, not take more than necessary, and eat all of it. We should clean our bowls and plates as well as we possibly could.

  A lot of rules for the first day. Did the monks and nuns ever break any of them?

  The monk went on to read the menu: steamed tofu with mushrooms, stir-fried lettuce with cashews and chestnuts, and soup with dried dates, seaweed, and lotus root.

  The Chinese call the taste of vegetarian dishes “widow’s taste”-like the numb feeling of having lost one’s beloved. My tongue felt dulled when I heard the menu, despite Yi Kong’s teaching that the killing of any sentient being results in very bad karma. You might end up eating your own mother, chewing on the intestines of your brother, sucking the bones of your grandfather, crunching the feet of your daughter, or swallowing the head of your son. Some close relative in a past life may now be a fish, a cow, a chicken, a sheep, a pig.

  The monk struck a small bell and we began to chant the “Five Reflections.”

  I was surprised to hear this frail-looking monk chant in a plummy, sonorous voice:

  “I reflect on the work that brings this food before me, let me see from where this food comes.

  I reflect on my imperfections, on whether I am deserving of this offering of food…”

  The group chanted more confidently as they continued:

  “I take this food as an effective medicine to keep my body in good health.

  I accept this food so that I will fulfill my task of enlightenment.”

  The chant ended in a crescendo, with everybody looking spirited; then another monk struck the bell to signal the beginning of lunch.

  Although we were not supposed to look around when eating, I still couldn’t help but scan the crowd when I lifted up my bowl to eat. Why not-weren’t rules made to be broken?

  A group of boys looked very cute as they hungrily shoved food into their mouths, forgetting not to smack their lips, nor slurp while drinking their water. The adults ate the mass-produced vegetarian dishes without enthusiasm-here in the renowned eating paradise of Hong Kong.

  While scraping rice into my mouth, I saw the American, Michael Fuller, in the front row opposite me. When would I have the chance to repay him the five hundred Hong Kong dollars? Being the only non-Chinese in the retreat, he had to be the doctor whom the nun had mentioned. To my surprise, he ate with a cheerful countenance and a lively rhythm, as if the bland, greasy dish were gourmet food. He manipulated the chopsticks perfectly. Like a conductor wielding his baton to conjure musical notes, he orchestrated the tofu, mushrooms, seaweed, and cashews smoothly into his mouth. Not only that, he also helped to put food into the bowl of the skinny boy beside him, who struggled nervously with his chopsticks.

  Fearing that he might look up and see me studying him, I finally looked away. Yet none of the other men opposite me seemed interesting, so I turned to study the children for a while before looking back at Michael Fuller. He ate his rice Japanese style, using the chopsticks to pick up the grains instead of scraping rice into his mouth from the bowl like most Chinese do.

  I sighed, impressed by his affection for the flavorless dish, while thinking of how Hong Kong’s rich people show off by eating shark’s fin soup for breakfast or feeding their children bird’s nest soup for supper. Michael Fuller looked up and our eyes met. I immediately looked away.

  I turned to watch the stern-faced nuns strolling between the rows to supervise and decided to perform some imaginary improvements to their faces. What if the thin one’s eyes were not so pinched-would they look less intimidating? What if the plump one’s lips were lifted to a forty-five degree angle instead of drooping like a capsized boat? What if the large mole on the kind-looking one’s forehead became her third eye? What if the pretty one relaxed her face muscles just a little bit? She might even show her lovely dimples. What if…

  Then suddenly I saw a long, red scar. My heart almost jumped to my throat. The nun was moving behind a heavy man in the third row, and I could only see a third of her face. When I noticed her hands, my heart turned o
ver. Parts of fingers were missing from each hand. Who was she? My heart knocked hard against my ribs as I turned away from the disturbing sight to think.

  The bell chimed again, signaling the end of lunch. I looked at my bowl and plate; they were still full. Hastily, I scraped mouthfuls of rice and vegetables into my mouth, then swallowed them with big gulps of water. I choked and coughed. A nun turned to look at me. But her hands had five fingers. My eyes swept across the hall; the scarred nun was gone.

  I placed my chopsticks on top of my bowl, and seeing the mess I had left, my heart sank.

  My eyes wandered back to Michael Fuller. Ah, he was also looking at me, smiling. Before I decided whether to smile back, a monk struck the bell a second time, signifying that lunch was finished.

  I went straight back to the dormitory to rest before the meditation session, still feeling disconcerted about the scarred nun. After a while my thoughts suddenly connected. Could she be Wong Dai Nam, a nun friend in Paris? Not likely, for Dai Nam had left the Sangha, the Buddhist order. There had been no word of her since she had disappeared into China three years before.

  5. Depending on Emptiness

  After the lunch break, I went back to the Meditation Hall for the lecture and meditation sessions. Inside, men, women, and children sat on brown meditation cushions, waiting silently or squirming to find a comfortable position. Participants continued to stream in; their cloth slippers scraping softly on the clean tiles sounded like leaves rustling in an empty courtyard.

  A few minutes later, the nun with the twitching eye stepped forward onto the platform before the altar and tapped lightly on the microphone. Waiting until the vibration subsided, she cleared her throat and announced the venerable nun Yi Kong from the Golden Lotus Temple as the special guest speaker of the retreat.

  The audience stirred.