I Love a Broad Margin to My Life by Maxine Hong Kingston

Author:Maxine Hong Kingston
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Chinese American authors, Asian American Studies, Social Science, Maxine Hong, Chinese American women, 20th century, Kingston, Personal Memoirs, General, Literary, Biography & Autobiography, American, Authors, American - 20th century, Ethnic Studies, Biography, Women
ISBN: 9780307270191
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-01-18T02:19:14+00:00

SPIRIT VILLAGE

He betakes himself to yet one more village.

I need him to go to an all-male place,

a monastery, to make sure that Shao Lin

or Han Shan or Water Margin sanctuary

exists. That the Chinese religion lives.

He locates and climbs Su Doc Mountain.

(Su Doc, Think Virtue, Hong

Ting Ting’s father’s name.) Through

the fog and mist of dragons breathing, following

a trail, possibly made by deer, he comes

to a ramshackle mew, a temple. No one

answers his knock. He opens the door, and enters

a dark room. Silent men and a few

little boys are eating supper. Someone

hands over a rice bowl and chopsticks,

and gestures eat eat. The food

is leftovers of leftovers. Even

the child monks practice eating meditation,

mindfully selecting some unrecognizable

brown vegetable, chewing it many times,

tasting it, identifying it, thinking about

and appreciating who grew it and cooked it, grateful

to them, and to the sun and the rain and the soil,

and all that generates and continues all.

After eating (food still left over),

the monks sit enjoying stomachs full,

holding the segue from this present moment

to this present moment. The kid monks

play kung fu boxing, push and

chase one another unreprimanded

around the table. The floor-sitting adults

get up. With sand and a small pail

of precious water, each cleans his bowl.

No leader tells the newcomer

what to do; no explainer gives

instructions. Under the vow of silence, we

can know we are all equally human.

Can’t tell who’s smarter than who,

whose job is better, who has more

money, more class. Silence, democracy.

Enemies can’t argue; thoughts and feelings

deepen, alter, fade, merge. The monks go

outdoors and meander in the dusk

that shadows into dark night. You

can see the Milky Way, the River of Heaven,

bridge, trail of corn, diadem

made up of individual stars.

It’s not a long wispy cloud as in light-

polluted America. Dok dok dok.

Dok dok dok dok dok.

The sound of wood clapping on wood calls

the community back inside. This monastery

is so poor, it doesn’t own a bell.

They’ve transformed the room where they’d eaten

into a meditation hall. Candlelight

and incense and dok-dok-dok summon

deities. They arrive upon the altar.

There’s Kwan Yin the merciful. And Kwan Yin

the wrathful. She who imprisoned Monkey, and freed

him. And red Gwan Goong on his red horse;

that book he’s reading is The Art of War. The 8

Immortals are here too, and lohans and arhats

and Buddhas and monkeys. We offer this incense

to all Buddhas and bodhisattvas throughout

space and time. The cushion in the middle place

among the monks is empty, for the new brother.

The community is aware of his presence; they look

after him. I will stay and sit until—

satori! Where else but in China?

Breathe in … breathe out … breathe

in … breathe out … breath incoming …

breath outgoing … breath incoming …

These monks don’t have a chanter guiding

their meditation. Peeking at them, you can’t tell

who’s meditating, who’s acting.

Surely, nobody here’s an actor, a spy

in government pay. Why would Commies bother

with a temple in the middle of nowhere?

No one hits Monkey upside the head

for mind-wandering. He tries signaling a need

for a whack, taps himself on a shoulder blade,

taps himself on the head. No minder monk

whacks him with a Zen stick. But Zen is Jap-

anese, and satori is Japanese.

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