For Those Who Love Stories

[ThisLife]

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Last night my wife and I watched one of the most wonderful documentaries I've ever seen. It struck me this way because it was about someone whom I regard as one of the most heroic champions of every form of living being on our planet that our modern age has ever produced.

Who else, but .... David Attenborough.

It was the first show in a retrospective of his life's work to bring visual and mental awareness of the phenomenal beauty, (far beyond almost any one person's ability to conceive), of our living planet. Attenborough's growing and constantly evolving dream was to be able to share his discoveries and insights about nature with any person who had access to the medium of television. For me, the film footage of his 60 years of nature programs was touching, heart-warming, and profoundly inspiring.

Amongst those scenes was one that unexpectedly re-activated a long-buried memory of the most gripping short story of my early high school days. In English one year we were obliged to read "Leiningen Versus the Ants". In last night's program, one of Attenborough's short clips showed the terrifying reality behind this insect army on the march and led me to search for this old, half-remembered story on Google. Luckily, against any logical expectation, someone had placed a copy of it there. I re-read it, ( found myself once more immediately gripped by the same powerful adrenaline rush of mind-paralysing fear and desperate efforts to survive),.... and decided to paste a copy here for anyone who might not have had the good fortune to be forced by their own teachers to expand their reading experience into this previously unimagined domain.

It's a bit long, but what the hell. Cyberspace is limitless, and the thrill is 'intense !' :

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Leiningen Versus the Ants

by Carl Stephenson (1893-1954)

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"Unless they alter their course, (and there's no reason why they should), they'll reach your plantation in two days at the latest."

Leiningen sucked placidly at a cigar about the size of a corncob and for a few seconds gazed without answering at the agitated District Commissioner. Then he took the cigar from his lips, and leaned slightly forward. With his bristling grey hair, bulky nose, and lucid eyes, he had the look of an aging and shabby eagle.

"Decent of you," he murmured, "paddling all this way just to give me the tip. But you're pulling my leg of course when you say I must do a bunk. Why, even a herd of saurians couldn't drive me from this plantation of mine."

The Brazilian official threw up lean and lanky arms and clawed the air with wildly distended fingers. "Leiningen!" he shouted. "You're insane! They're not creatures you can fight--they're an elemental--an 'act of God!' Ten miles long, two miles wide--ants, nothing but ants! And every single one of them a fiend from hell; before you can spit three times they'll eat a full-grown buffalo to the bones. I tell you if you don't clear out at once there'll he nothing left of you but a skeleton picked as clean as your own plantation."

Leiningen grinned. "Act of God, my eye! Anyway, I'm not an old woman; I'm not going to run for it just because an elemental's on the way. And don't think I'm the kind of fathead who tries to fend off lightning with his fists either. I use my intelligence, old man. With me, the brain isn't a second blind gut; I know what it's there for. When I began this model farm and plantation three years ago, I took into account all that could conceivably happen to it. And now I'm ready for anything and everything--including your ants."

The Brazilian rose heavily to his feet. "I've done my best," he gasped. "Your obstinacy endangers not only yourself, but the lives of your four hundred workers. You don't know these ants!"

Leiningen accompanied him down to the river, where the Government launch was moored. The vessel cast off. As it moved downstream, the exclamation mark neared the rail and began waving its arms frantically. Long after the launch had disappeared round the bend, Leiningen thought he could still hear that dimming imploring voice, "You don't know them, I tell you! You don't know them!"

But the reported enemy was by no means unfamiliar to the planter. Before he started work on his settlement, he had lived long enough in the country to see for himself the fearful devastations sometimes wrought by these ravenous insects in their campaigns for food. But since then he had planned measures of defence accordingly, and these, he was convinced were in every way adequate to withstand the approaching peril.

Moreover, during his three years as a planter, Leiningen had met and defeated drought, Hood, plague and all other "acts of God" which had come against him-unlike his fellow-settlers in the district, who had made little or no resistance. This unbroken success he attributed solely to the observance of his lifelong motto: The human brain needs only to become fully aware of its powers to conquer even the elements. Dullards reeled senselessly and aimlessly into the abyss; cranks, however brilliant, lost their heads when circumstances suddenly altered or accelerated and ran into stone walls, sluggards drifted with the current until they were caught in whirlpools and dragged under. But such disasters, Leiningen contended, merely strengthened his argument that intelligence, directed aright, invariably makes man the master of his fate.

Yes, Leiningen had always known how to grapple with life. Even here, in this Brazilian wilderness, his brain had triumphed over every difficulty and danger it had so far encountered. First he had vanquished primal forces by cunning and organization, then he had enlisted the resources of modern science to increase miraculously the yield of his plantation. And now he was sure he would prove more than a match for the "irresistible" ants.

That same evening, however, Leiningen assembled his workers. He had no intention of waiting till the news reached their ears from other sources. Most of them had been born in the district; the cry "The ants are coming!'" was to them an imperative signal for instant, panic-stricken flight, a spring for life itself. But so great was the Indians' trust in Leiningen, in Leiningen's word, and in Leiningen's wisdom, that they received his curt tidings, and his orders for the imminent struggle, with the calmness with which they were given. They waited, unafraid, alert, as if for the beginning of a new game or hunt which he had just described to them. The ants were indeed mighty, but not so mighty as the boss. Let them come!

They came at noon the second day. Their approach was announced by the wild unrest of the horses, scarcely controllable now either in stall or under rider, scenting from afar a vapour instinct with horror.

It was announced by a stampede of animals, timid and savage, hurtling past each other; jaguars and pumas flashing by nimble stags of the pampas, bulky tapirs, no longer hunters, themselves hunted, outpacing fleet kinkajous, maddened herds of cattle, heads lowered, nostrils snorting, rushing through tribes of loping monkeys, chattering in a dementia of terror; then followed the creeping and springing denizens of bush and steppe, big and little rodents, snakes, and lizards.

Pell-mell the rabble swarmed down the hill to the plantation, scattered right and left before the barrier of the water-filled ditch, then sped onwards to the river, where, again hindered, they fled along its bank out of sight.

This water-filled ditch was one of the defence measures which Leiningen had long since prepared against the advent of the ants. It encompassed three sides of the plantation like a huge horseshoe. Twelve feet across, but not very deep, when dry it could hardly be described as an obstacle to either man or beast. But the ends of the "horseshoe" ran into the river which formed the northern boundary, and fourth side, of the plantation. And at the end nearer the house and outbuildings in the middle of the plantation, Leiningen had constructed a dam by means of which water from the river could be diverted into the ditch.

So now, by opening the dam, he was able to fling an imposing girdle of water, a huge quadrilateral with the river as its base, completely around the plantation, like the moat encircling a medieval city. Unless the ants were clever enough to build rafts. they had no hope of reaching the plantation, Leiningen concluded.

The twelve-foot water ditch seemed to afford in itself all the security needed. But while awaiting the arrival of the ants, Leiningen made a further improvement. The western section of the ditch ran along the edge of a tamarind wood, and the branches of some great trees reached over the water. Leiningen now had them lopped so that ants could not descend from them within the "moat."

The women and children, then the herds of cattle, were escorted by peons on rafts over the river, to remain on the other side in absolute safety until the plunderers had departed. Leiningen gave this instruction, not because he believed the non-combatants were in any danger, but in order to avoid hampering the efficiency of the defenders. "Critical situations first become crises," he explained to his men, "when oxen or women get excited "

Finally, he made a careful inspection of the "inner moat"--a smaller ditch lined with concrete, which extended around the hill on which stood the ranch house, barns, stables and other buildings. Into this concrete ditch emptied the inflow pipes from three great petrol tanks. If by some miracle the ants managed to cross the water and reached the plantation, this "rampart of petrol,' would be an absolutely impassable protection for the besieged and their dwellings and stock. Such, at least, was Leiningen's opinion.

He stationed his men at irregular distances along the water ditch, the first line of defence. Then he lay down in his hammock and puffed drowsily away at his pipe until a peon came with the report that the ants had been observed far away in the South.

Leiningen mounted his horse, which at the feel of its master seemed to forget its uneasiness, and rode leisurely in the direction of the threatening offensive. The southern stretch of ditch--the upper side of the quadrilateral--was nearly three miles long; from its centre one could survey the entire countryside. This was destined to be the scene of the outbreak of war between Leiningen's brain and twenty square miles of life-destroying ants.

It was a sight one could never forget. Over the range of hills, as far as eye could see, crept a darkening hem, ever longer and broader, until the shadow spread across the slope from east to west, then downwards, downwards, uncannily swift, and all the green herbage of that wide vista was being mown as by a giant sickle, leaving only the vast moving shadow, extending, deepening, and moving rapidly nearer.

When Leiningen's men, behind their barrier of water, perceived the approach of the long-expected foe, they gave vent to their suspense in screams and imprecations. But as the distance began to lessen between the "sons of hell" and the water ditch, they relapsed into silence. Before the advance of that awe-inspiring throng, their belief in the powers of the boss began to steadily dwindle.

Even Leiningen himself, who had ridden up just in time to restore their loss of heart by a display of unshakable calm, even he could not free himself from a qualm of malaise. Yonder were thousands of millions of voracious jaws bearing down upon him and only a suddenly insignificant, narrow ditch lay between him and his men and being gnawed to the bones "before you can spit three times."

Hadn't this brain for once taken on more than it could manage? If the blighters decided to rush the ditch, fill it to the brim with their corpses, there'd still be more than enough to destroy every trace of that cranium of his. The planter's chin jutted; they hadn't got him yet, and he'd see to it they never would. While he could think at all, he'd flout both death and the devil.


The hostile army was approaching in perfect formation; no human battalions, however well-drilled, could ever hope to rival the precision of that advance. Along a front that moved forward as uniformly as a straight line, the ants drew nearer and nearer to the water ditch. Then, when they learned through their scouts the nature of the obstacle, the two outlying wings of the army detached themselves from the main body and marched down the western and eastern sides of the ditch.

This surrounding manoeuvre took rather more than an hour to accomplish; no doubt the ants expected that at some point they would find a crossing.

During this outflanking movement by the wings, the army on the centre and southern front remained still. The besieged were therefore able to contemplate at their leisure the thumb-long, reddish black, long-legged insects; some of the Indians believed they could see, too, intent on them, the brilliant, cold eyes, and the razor-edged mandibles, of this host of infinity.

It is not easy for the average person to imagine that an animal, not to mention an insect, can think. But now both the European brain of Leiningen and the primitive brains of the Indians began to stir with the unpleasant foreboding that inside every single one of that deluge of insects dwelt a thought. And that thought was: Ditch or no ditch, we'll get to your flesh!


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Not until four o'clock did the wings reach the "horseshoe" ends of the ditch, only to find these ran into the great river. Through some kind of secret telegraphy, the report must then have flashed very swiftly indeed along the entire enemy line. And Leiningen, riding--no longer casually--along his side of the ditch, noticed by energetic and widespread movements of troops that for some unknown reason the news of the check had its greatest effect on the southern front, where the main army was massed. Perhaps the failure to find a way over the ditch was persuading the ants to withdraw from the plantation in search of spoils more easily attainable.

An immense flood of ants, about a hundred yards in width, was pouring in a glimmering-black cataract down the far slope of the ditch. Many thousands were already drowning in the sluggish creeping flow, but they were followed by troop after troop, who clambered over their sinking comrades, and then themselves served as dying bridges to the reserves hurrying on in their rear.

Shoals of ants were being carried away by the current into the middle of the ditch, where gradually they broke asunder and then, exhausted by their struggles, vanished below the surface. Nevertheless, the wavering, floundering hundred-yard front was remorselessly if slowly advancing towards the besieged on the other bank. Leiningen had been wrong when he supposed the enemy would first have to fill the ditch with their bodies before they could cross; instead, they merely needed to act as steppingstones, as they swam and sank, to the hordes ever pressing onwards from behind.

Near Leiningen a few mounted herdsmen awaited his orders. He sent one to the weir-the river must be dammed more strongly to increase the speed and power of the water coursing through the ditch.

A second peon was dispatched to the outhouses to bring spades and petrol sprinklers. A third rode away to summon to the zone of the offensive all the men, except the observation posts, on the near-by sections of the ditch, which were not yet actively threatened.

The ants were getting across far more quickly than Leiningen would have deemed possible. Impelled by the mighty cascade behind them, they struggled nearer and nearer to the inner bank. The momentum of the attack was so great that neither the tardy flow of the stream nor its downward pull could exert its proper force; and into the gap left by every submerging insect, hastened forward a dozen more.

When reinforcements reached Leiningen, the invaders were halfway over. The planter had to admit to himself that it was only by a stroke of luck for him that the ants were attempting the crossing on a relatively short front: had they assaulted simultaneously along the entire length of the ditch, the outlook for the defenders would have been black indeed.

Even as it was, it could hardly be described as rosy, though the planter seemed quite unaware that death in a gruesome form was drawing closer and closer. As the war between his brain and the "act of God'' reached its climax, the very shadow of annihilation began to pale to Leiningen, who now felt like a champion in a new Olympic game, a gigantic and thrilling contest, from which he was determined to emerge victor. Such, indeed, was his aura of confidence that the Indians forgot their stupefied fear of the peril only a yard or two away; under the planter's supervision, they began fervidly digging up to the edge of the bank and throwing clods of earth and spadefuls of sand into the midst of the hostile fleet.

The petrol sprinklers, hitherto used to destroy pests and blights on the plantation, were also brought into action. Streams of evil-reeking oil now soared and fell over an enemy already in disorder through the bombardment of earth and sand.

The ants responded to these vigorous and successful measures of defence by further developments of their offensive. Entire clumps of huddling insects began to roll down the opposite bank into the water. At the same time, Leiningen noticed that the ants were now attacking along an ever-widening front. As the numbers both of his men and his petrol sprinklers were severely limited, this rapid extension of the line of battle was becoming an overwhelming danger.

To add to his difficulties, the very clods of earth they flung into that black floating carpet often whirled fragments toward the defenders' side, and here and there dark ribbons were already mounting the inner bank. True, wherever a man saw these they could still be driven back into the water by spadefuls of earth or jets of petrol. But the file of defenders was too sparse and scattered to hold off at all points these landing parties, and though the peons toiled like madmen, their plight became momentarily more perilous.

One man struck with his spade at an enemy clump, did not draw it back quickly enough from the water; in a trice the wooden shaft swarmed with upward scurrying insects. With a curse, he dropped the spade into the ditch; too late, they were already on his body. They lost no time; wherever they encountered bare flesh they bit deeply; a few, bigger than the rest, carried in their hind-quarters a sting which injected a burning and paralyzing venom. Screaming, frantic with pain, the peon danced and twirled like a dervish.

Realizing that another such casualty, yes, perhaps this alone, might plunge his men into confusion and destroy their morale, Leiningen roared in a bellow louder than the yells of the victim: "Into the petrol, idiot! Douse your paws in the petrol!" The dervish ceased his pirouette as if transfixed, then tore of his shirt and plunged his arm and the ants hanging to it up to the shoulder in one of the large open tins of petrol. But even then the fierce mandibles did not slacken; another peon had to help him squash and detach each separate insect.

Distracted by the episode, some defenders had turned away from the ditch. And now cries of fury, a thudding of spades, and a wild trampling to and fro, showed that the ants had made full use of the interval, though luckily only a few had managed to get across. The men set to work again desperately with the barrage of earth and sand. Meanwhile an old Indian, who acted as medicine-man to the plantation workers, gave the bitten peon a drink he had prepared some hours before, which, he claimed, possessed the virtue of dissolving and weakening ants' venom.

Leiningen surveyed his position. A dispassionate observer would have estimated the odds against him at a thousand to one. But then such an on-looker would have reckoned only by what he saw--the advance of myriad battalions of ants against the futile efforts of a few defenders--and not by the unseen activity that can go on in a man's brain.

For Leiningen had not erred when he decided he would fight elemental with elemental. The water in the ditch was beginning to rise; the stronger damming of the river was making itself apparent.

Visibly the swiftness and power of the masses of water increased, swirling into quicker and quicker movement its living black surface, dispersing its pattern, carrying away more and more of it on the hastening current.

Victory had been snatched from the very jaws of defeat. With a hysterical shout of joy, the peons feverishly intensified their bombardment of earth clods and sand.

And now the wide cataract down the opposite bank was thinning and ceasing, as if the ants were becoming aware that they could not attain their aim. They were scurrying back up the slope to safety.

All the troops so far hurled into the ditch had been sacrificed in vain. Drowned and floundering insects eddied in thousands along the flow, while Indians running on the bank destroyed every swimmer that reached the side.

Not until the ditch curved towards the east did the scattered ranks assemble again in a coherent mass. And now, exhausted and half-numbed, they were in no condition to ascend the bank. Fusillades of clods drove them round the bend towards the mouth of the ditch and then into the river, wherein they vanished without leaving a trace.

The news ran swiftly along the entire chain of outposts, and soon a long scattered line of laughing men could be seen hastening along the ditch towards the scene of victory.

For once they seemed to have lost all their native reserve, for it was in wild abandon now they celebrated the triumph--as if there were no longer thousands of millions of merciless, cold and hungry eyes watching them from the opposite bank, watching and waiting.

The sun sank behind the rim of the tamarind wood and twilight deepened into night. It was not only hoped but expected that the ants would remain quiet until dawn. "But to defeat any forlorn attempt at a crossing, the flow of water through the ditch was powerfully increased by opening the dam still further.

In spite of this impregnable barrier, Leiningen was not yet altogether convinced that the ants would not venture another surprise attack. He ordered his men to camp along the bank overnight. He also detailed parties of them to patrol the ditch in two of his motor cars and ceaselessly to illuminate the surface of the water with headlights and electric torches.

After having taken all the precautions he deemed necessary, the farmer ate his supper with considerable appetite and went to bed. His slumbers were in no wise disturbed by the memory of the waiting, live, twenty square miles.

Dawn found a thoroughly refreshed and active Leiningen riding along the edge of the ditch. The planter saw before him a motionless and unaltered throng of besiegers. He studied the wide belt of water between them and the plantation, and for a moment almost regretted that the fight had ended so soon and so simply. In the comforting, matter-of-fact light of morning, it seemed to him now that the ants hadn't the ghost of a chance to cross the ditch. Even if they plunged headlong into it on all three fronts at once, the force of the now powerful current would inevitably sweep them away. He had got quite a thrill out of the fight--a pity it was already over.

He rode along the eastern and southern sections of the ditch and found everything in order. He reached the western section, opposite the tamarind wood, and here, contrary to the other battle fronts, he found the enemy very busy indeed. The trunks and branches of the trees and the creepers of the lianas, on the far bank of the ditch, fairly swarmed with industrious insects. But instead of eating the leaves there and then, they were merely gnawing through the stalks, so that a thick green shower fell steadily to the ground.

No doubt they were victualing columns sent out to obtain provender for the rest of the army. The discovery did not surprise Leiningen. He did not need to be told that ants are intelligent, that certain species even use others as milch cows, watchdogs and slaves. He was well aware of their power of adaptation, their sense of discipline, their marvellous talent for organization.

His belief that a foray to supply the army was in progress was strengthened when he saw the leaves that fell to the ground being dragged to the troops waiting outside the wood. Then all at once he realized the aim that rain of green was intended to serve.

Each single leaf, pulled or pushed by dozens of toiling insects, was borne straight to the edge of the ditch. Even as Macbeth watched the approach of Birnam Wood in the hands of his enemies, Leiningen saw the tamarind wood move nearer and nearer in the mandibles of the ants. Unlike the fey Scot, however, he did not lose his nerve; no witches had prophesied his doom, and if they had he would have slept just as soundly. All the same, he was forced to admit to himself that the situation was far more ominous than that of the day before.

He had thought it impossible for the ants to build rafts for themselves--well, here they were, coming in thousands, more than enough to bridge the ditch. Leaves after leaves rustled down the slope into the water, where the current drew them away from the bank and carried them into midstream. And every single leaf carried several ants. This time the farmer did not trust to the alacrity of his messengers. He galloped away, leaning from his saddle and yelling orders as he rushed past outpost after outpost: "Bring petrol pumps to the southwest front! Issue spades to every man along the line facing the wood!" And arrived at the eastern and southern sections, he dispatched every man except the observation posts to the menaced west.

Then, as he rode past the stretch where the ants had failed to cross the day before, he witnessed a brief but impressive scene. Down the slope of the distant hill there came towards him a singular being, writhing rather man running, an animal-like blackened statue with shapeless head and four quivering feet that knuckled under almost ceaselessly. When the creature reached the far bank of the ditch and collapsed opposite Leiningen, he recognized it as a pampas stag, covered over and over with ants.

It had strayed near the zone of the army. As usual, they had attacked its eyes first. Blinded, it had reeled in the madness of hideous torment straight into the ranks of its persecutors, and now the beast swayed to and fro in its death agony.

With a shot from his rifle Leiningen put it out of its misery. Then he pulled out his watch. He hadn't a second to lose, but for life itself he could not have denied his curiosity the satisfaction of knowing how long the ants would take--for personal reasons, so to speak. After six minutes the white polished bones alone remained. That's how he himself would look before you can--Leiningen spat once, and put spurs to his horse.

The sporting zest with which the excitement of the novel contest had inspired him the day before had now vanished; in its place was a cold and violent purpose. He would send these vermin back to the hell where they belonged, somehow, anyhow. Yes, but how was indeed the question; as things stood at present it looked as if the devils would raze him and his men from the earth instead. He had underestimated the might of the enemy; he really would have to bestir himself if he hoped to outwit them.

The biggest danger now, he decided, was the point where the western section of the ditch curved southwards. And arrived there, he found his worst expectations justified. The very power of the current had huddled the leaves and their crews of ants so close together at the bend that the bridge was almost ready.

True, streams of petrol and clumps of earth still prevented a landing. But the number of floating leaves was increasing ever more swiftly. It could not be long now before a stretch of water a mile in length was decked by a green pontoon over which the ants could rush in millions.

Leiningen galloped to the weir. The damming of the river was controlled by a wheel on its bank. The planter ordered the man at the wheel first to lower the water in the ditch almost to vanishing point, next to wait a moment, then suddenly to let the river in again. This manoeuvre of lowering and raising the surface, of decreasing then increasing the flow of water through the ditch was to be repeated over and over again until further notice.

This tactic was at first successful. The water in the ditch sank, and with it the film of leaves. The green fleet nearly reached the bed and the troops on the far bank swarmed down the slope to it. Then a violent flow of water at the original depth raced through the ditch, overwhelming leaves and ants, and sweeping them along.

This intermittent rapid flushing prevented just in time the almost completed fording of the ditch. But it also flung here and there squads of the enemy vanguard simultaneously up the inner bank. These seemed to know their duty only too well, and lost no time accomplishing it. The air rang with the curses of bitten Indians. They had removed their shirts and pants to detect the quicker the upwards-hastening insects; when they saw one, they crushed it; and fortunately the onslaught as yet was only by skirmishers. Again and again, the water sank and rose, carrying leaves and drowned ants away with it. It lowered once more nearly to its bed; but this time the exhausted defenders waited in vain for the flush of destruction. Leiningen sensed disaster; something must have gone wrong with the machinery of the dam. Then a sweating peon tore up to him--

"They're over!"

While the besieged were concentrating upon the defence of the stretch opposite the wood, the seemingly unaffected line beyond the wood had become the theatre of decisive action. Here the defenders' front was sparse and scattered; everyone who could be spared had hurried away to the south.

Just as the man at the weir had lowered the water almost to the bed of the ditch, the ants on a wide front began another attempt at a direct crossing like that of the preceding day. Into the emptied bed poured an irresistible throng. Rushing across the ditch, they attained the inner bank before the slow-witted Indians fully grasped the situation. Their frantic screams dumfounded the man at the weir. Before he could direct the river anew into the safeguarding bed he saw himself surrounded by raging ants. He ran like the others, ran for his life.

When Leiningen heard this, he knew the plantation was doomed. He wasted no time bemoaning the inevitable. For as long as there was the slightest chance of success, he had stood his ground, and now any further resistance was both useless and dangerous. He fired three revolver shots into the air--the prearranged signal for his men to retreat instantly within the "inner moat." Then he rode towards the ranch house.

This was two miles from the point of invasion. There was therefore time enough to prepare the second line of defence against the advent of the ants. Of the three great petrol cisterns near the house, one had already been half emptied by the constant withdrawals needed for the pumps during the fight at the water ditch. The remaining petrol in it was now drawn off through underground pipes into the concrete trench which encircled the ranch house and its outbuildings.

And there, drifting in twos and threes, Leiningen's men reached him. Most of them were obviously trying to preserve an air of calm and indifference, belied, however, by their restless glances and knitted brows. One could see their belief in a favourable outcome of the struggle was already considerably shaken.

The planter called his peons around him.

"Well, lads," he began, "we've lost the first round. But we'll smash the beggars yet, don't you worry. Anyone who thinks otherwise can draw his pay here and now and push off. There are rafts enough to spare on the river and plenty of time still to reach 'em."

Not a man stirred.

Leiningen acknowledged his silent vote of confidence with a laugh that was half a grunt. "That's the stuff, lads. Too bad if you'd missed the rest of the show, eh? Well, the fun won't start till morning. Once these blighters turn tail, there'll be plenty of work for everyone and higher wages all round. And now run along and get something to eat; you've earned it all right."

In the excitement of the fight the greater part of the day had passed without the men once pausing to snatch a bite. Now that the ants were for the time being out of sight, and the "wall of petrol" gave a stronger feeling of security, hungry stomachs began to assert their claims.

The bridges over the concrete ditch were removed. Here and there solitary ants had reached the ditch; they gazed at the petrol meditatively, then scurried back again. Apparently they had little interest at the moment for what lay beyond the evil-reeking barrier; the abundant spoils of the plantation were the main attraction. Soon the trees, shrubs and beds for miles around were hulled with ants zealously gobbling the yield of long weary months of strenuous toil.

As twilight began to fall, a cordon of ants marched around the petrol trench, but as yet made no move towards its brink. Leiningen posted sentries with headlights and electric torches, then withdrew to his office, and began to reckon up his losses. He estimated these as large, but, in comparison with his bank balance, by no means unbearable. He worked out in some detail a scheme of intensive cultivation which would enable him, before very long, to more than compensate himself for the damage now being wrought to his crops. It was with a contented mind that he finally betook himself to bed where he slept deeply until dawn, undisturbed by any thought that next day little more might be left of him than a glistening skeleton.

He rose with the sun and went out on the flat roof of his house. And a scene like one from Dante lay around him; for miles in every direction there was nothing but a black, glittering multitude, a multitude of rested, sated, but none the less voracious ants: yes, look as far as one might, one could see nothing but that rustling black throng, except in the north, where the great river drew a boundary they could not hope to pass. But even the high stone breakwater, along the bank of the river, which Leiningen had built as a defence against inundations, was, like the paths, the shorn trees and shrubs, the ground itself, black with ants.

So their greed was not glutted in razing that vast plantation? Not by a long shot; they were all the more eager now on a rich and certain booty--four hundred men, numerous horses, and bursting granaries.

At first it seemed that the petrol trench would serve its purpose. The besiegers sensed the peril of swimming it, and made no move to plunge blindly over its brink. Instead they devised a better manoeuvre; they began to collect shreds of bark, twigs and dried leaves and dropped these into the petrol. Everything green, which could have been similarly used, had long since been eaten. After a time, though, a long procession could be seen bringing from the west the tamarind leaves used as rafts the day before.

Since the petrol, unlike the water in the outer ditch, was perfectly still, the refuse stayed where it was thrown. It was several hours before the ants succeeded in covering an appreciable part of the surface. At length, however, they were ready to proceed to a direct attack.

Their storm troops swarmed down the concrete side, scrambled over the supporting surface of twigs and leaves, and impelled these over the few remaining streaks of open petrol until they reached the other side. Then they began to climb up this to make straight for the helpless garrison.

During the entire offensive, the planter sat peacefully, watching them with interest, but not stirring a muscle. Moreover, he had ordered his men not to disturb in any way whatever the advancing horde. So they squatted listlessly along the bank of the ditch and waited for a sign from the boss. The petrol was now covered with ants. A few had climbed the inner concrete wall and were scurrying towards the defenders.

"Everyone back from the ditch!" roared Leiningen. The men rushed away, without the slightest idea of his plan. He stooped forward and cautiously dropped into the ditch a stone which split the floating carpet and its living freight, to reveal a gleaming patch of petrol. A match spurted, sank down to the oily surface--Leiningen sprang back; in a flash a towering rampart of fire encompassed the garrison.

This spectacular and instant repulse threw the Indians into ecstasy. They applauded, yelled and stamped, like children at a pantomime. Had it not been for the awe in which they held the boss, they would infallibly have carried him shoulder high.

It was some time before the petrol burned down to the bed of the ditch, and the wall of smoke and flame began to lower. The ants had retreated in a wide circle from the devastation, and innumerable charred fragments along the outer bank showed that the flames had spread from the holocaust in the ditch well into the ranks beyond, where they had wrought havoc far and wide.

Yet the perseverance of the ants was by no means broken; indeed, each setback seemed only to whet it. The concrete cooled, the flicker of the dying flames wavered and vanished, petrol from the second tank poured into the trench--and the ants marched forward anew to the attack.

The foregoing scene repeated itself in every detail, except that on this occasion less time was needed to bridge the ditch, for the petrol was now already filmed by a layer of ash. Once again they withdrew; once again petrol flowed into the ditch. Would the creatures never learn that their self-sacrifice was utterly senseless? It really was senseless, wasn't it? Yes, of course it was senseless--provided the defenders had an unlimited supply of petrol.

When Leiningen reached this stage of reasoning, he felt for the first time since the arrival of the ants that his confidence was deserting him. His skin began to creep; he loosened his collar. Once the devils were over the trench there wasn't a chance in hell for him and his men. God, what a prospect, to be eaten alive like that!

For the third time the flames immolated the attacking troops, and burned down to extinction. Yet the ants were coming on again as if nothing had happened. And meanwhile Leiningen had made a discovery that chilled him to the bone-petrol was no longer flowing into the ditch. Something must be blocking the outflow pipe of the third and last cistern-a snake or a dead rat? Whatever it was, the ants could be held off no longer, unless petrol could by some method be led from the cistern into the ditch.

Then Leiningen remembered that in an outhouse nearby were two old disused fire engines. Spry as never before in their lives, the peons dragged them out of the shed, connected their pumps to the cistern, uncoiled and laid the hose. They were just in time to aim a stream of petrol at a column of ants that had already crossed and drive them back down the incline into the ditch. Once more an oily girdle surrounded the garrison, once more it was possible to hold the position--for the moment.

It was obvious, however, that this last resource meant only the postponement of defeat and death. A few of the peons fell on their knees and began to pray; others, shrieking insanely, fired their revolvers at the black, advancing masses, as if they felt their despair was pitiful enough to sway fate itself to mercy.

At length, two of the men's nerves broke: Leiningen saw a naked Indian leap over the north side of the petrol trench, quickly followed by a second. They sprinted with incredible speed towards the river. But their fleetness did not save them; long before they could attain the rafts, the enemy covered their bodies from head to foot.

In the agony of their torment, both sprang blindly into the wide river, where enemies no less sinister awaited them. Wild screams of mortal anguish informed the breathless onlookers that crocodiles and sword-toothed piranhas were no less ravenous than ants, and even nimbler in reaching their prey.

In spite of this bloody warning, more and more men showed they were making up their minds to run the blockade. Anything, even a fight midstream against alligators, seemed better than powerlessly waiting for death to come and slowly consume their living bodies.

Leiningen flogged his brain till it reeled. Was there nothing on earth could sweep this devil's spawn back into the hell from which it came?

Then out of the inferno of his bewilderment rose a terrifying inspiration. Yes, one hope remained, and one alone. It might be possible to dam the great river completely, so that its waters would fill not only the water ditch but overflow into the entire gigantic "saucer" of land in which lay the plantation.

The far bank of the river was too high for the waters to escape that way. The stone breakwater ran between the river and the plantation; its only gaps occurred where the "horseshoe" ends of the water ditch passed into the river. So its waters would not only be forced to inundate into the plantation, they would also be held there by the breakwater until they rose to its own high level. In half an hour, perhaps even earlier, the plantation and its hostile army of occupation would be flooded.

The ranch house and outbuildings stood upon rising ground. Their foundations were higher than the breakwater, so the flood would not reach them. And any remaining ants trying to ascend the slope could be repulsed by petrol.

It was possible--yes, if one could only get to the dam! A distance of nearly two miles lay between the ranch house and the weir--two miles of ants. Those two peons had managed only a fifth of that distance at the cost of their lives. Was there an Indian daring enough after that to run the gauntlet five times as far? Hardly likely; and if there were, his prospect of getting back was almost nil.

No, there was only one thing for it, he'd have to make the attempt himself; he might just as well be running as sitting still, anyway, when the ants finally got him. Besides, there was a bit of a chance. Perhaps the ants weren't so almighty, after all; perhaps he had allowed the mass suggestion of that evil black throng to hypnotize him, just as a snake fascinates and overpowers.

The ants were building their bridges. Leiningen got up on a chair. "Hey, lads, listen to me!" he cried. Slowly and listlessly, from all sides of the trench, the men began to shuffle towards him, the apathy of death already stamped on their faces.

"Listen, lads!" he shouted. "You're frightened of those beggars, but you're a damn sight more frightened of me, and I'm proud of you. There's still a chance to save our lives--by flooding the plantation from the river. Now one of you might manage to get as far as the weir--but he'd never come back. Well, I'm not going to let you try it; if I did I'd be worse than one of those ants. No, I called the tune, and now I'm going to pay the piper.

"The moment I'm over the ditch, set fire to the petrol. That'll allow time for the flood to do the trick. Then all you have to do is wait here all snug and quiet till I'm back. Yes, I'm coming back, trust me"--he grinned--"when I've finished my slimming-cure."

He pulled on high leather boots, drew heavy gauntlets over his hands, and stuffed the spaces between breeches and boots, gauntlets and arms, shirt and neck, with rags soaked in petrol. With close-fitting mosquito goggles he shielded his eyes, knowing too well the ants' dodge of first robbing their victim of sight. Finally, he plugged his nostrils and ears with cotton-wool, and let the peons drench his clothes with petrol.

He was about to set off, when the old Indian medicine man came up to him; he had a wondrous salve, he said, prepared from a species of chafer whose odour was intolerable to ants. Yes, this odour protected these chafers from the attacks of even the most murderous ants. The Indian smeared the boss' boots, his gauntlets, and his face over and over with the extract.

Leiningen then remembered the paralyzing effect of ants' venom, and the Indian gave him a gourd full of the medicine he had administered to the bitten peon at the water ditch. The planter drank it down without noticing its bitter taste; his mind was already at the weir.

He started of towards the northwest corner of the trench. With a bound he was over--and among the ants.

The beleaguered garrison had no opportunity to watch Leiningen's race against death. The ants were climbing the inner bank again-the lurid ring of petrol blazed aloft. For the fourth time that day the reflection from the fire shone on the sweating faces of the imprisoned men, and on the reddish-black cuirasses of their oppressors. The red and blue, dark-edged flames leaped vividly now, celebrating what? The funeral pyre of the four hundred, or of the hosts of destruction? Leiningen ran. He ran in long, equal strides, with only one thought, one sensation, in his being--he must get through. He dodged all trees and shrubs; except for the split seconds his soles touched the ground the ants should have no opportunity to alight on him. That they would get to him soon, despite the salve on his boots, the petrol in his clothes, he realized only too well, but he knew even more surely that he must, and that he would, get to the weir.

Apparently the salve was some use after all; not until he reached halfway did he feel ants under his clothes, and a few on his face. Mechanically, in his stride, he struck at them, scarcely conscious of their bites. He saw he was drawing appreciably nearer the weir--the distance grew less and less--sank to five hundred--three--two--one hundred yards.

Then he was at the weir and gripping the ant-hulled wheel. Hardly had he seized it when a horde of infuriated ants flowed over his hands, arms and shoulders. He started the wheel--before it turned once on its axis the swarm covered his face. Leiningen strained like a madman, his lips pressed tight; if he opened them to draw breath. . . .

He turned and turned; slowly the dam lowered until it reached the bed of the river. Already the water was overflowing the ditch. Another minute, and the river was pouring through the near-by gap in the breakwater. The flooding of the plantation had begun.

Leiningen let go the wheel. Now, for the first time, he realized he was coated from head to foot with a layer of ants. In spite of the petrol his clothes were full of them, several had got to his body or were clinging to his face. Now that he had completed his task, he felt the smart raging over his flesh from the bites of sawing and piercing insects.

Frantic with pain, he almost plunged into the river. To be ripped and splashed to shreds by piranhas? Already he was running the return journey, knocking ants from his gloves and jacket, brushing them from his bloodied face, squashing them to death under his clothes.

One of the creatures bit him just below the rim of his goggles; he managed to tear it away, but the agony of the bite and its etching acid drilled into the eye nerves; he saw now through circles of fire into a milky mist, then he ran for a time almost blinded, knowing that if he once tripped and fell.... The old Indian's brew didn't seem much good; it weakened the poison a bit, but didn't get rid of it. His heart pounded as if it would burst; blood roared in his ears; a giant's fist battered his lungs.

Then he could see again, but the burning girdle of petrol appeared infinitely far away; he could not last half that distance. Swift-changing pictures flashed through his head, episodes in his life, while in another part of his brain a cool and impartial onlooker informed this ant-blurred, gasping, exhausted bundle named Leiningen that such a rushing panorama of scenes from one's past is seen only in the moment before death.

A stone in the path . . . to weak to avoid it . . . the planter stumbled and collapsed. He tried to rise . . . he must be pinned under a rock . . . it was impossible . . . the slightest movement was impossible . . . .

Then all at once he saw, starkly clear and huge, and, right before his eyes, furred with ants, towering and swaying in its death agony, the pampas stag. In six minutes--gnawed to the bones. God, he couldn't die like that! And something outside him seemed to drag him to his feet. He tottered. He began to stagger forward again.

Through the blazing ring hurtled an apparition which, as soon as it reached the ground on the inner side, fell full length and did not move. Leiningen, at the moment he made that leap through the flames, lost consciousness for the first time in his life. As he lay there, with glazing eyes and lacerated face, he appeared a man returned from the grave. The peons rushed to him, stripped off his clothes, tore away the ants from a body that seemed almost one open wound; in some paces the bones were showing. They carried him into the ranch house.

As the curtain of flames lowered, one could see in place of the illimitable host of ants an extensive vista of water. The thwarted river had swept over the plantation, carrying with it the entire army. The water had collected and mounted in the great "saucer," while the ants had in vain attempted to reach the hill on which stood the ranch house. The girdle of flames held them back.

And so imprisoned between water and fire, they had been delivered into the annihilation that was their god. And near the farther mouth of the water ditch, where the stone mole had its second gap, the ocean swept the lost battalions into the river, to vanish forever.

The ring of fire dwindled as the water mounted to the petrol trench, and quenched the dimming flames. The inundation rose higher and higher: because its outflow was impeded by the timber and underbrush it had carried along with it, its surface required some time to reach the top of the high stone breakwater and discharge over it the rest of the shattered army.

It swelled over ant-stippled shrubs and bushes, until it washed against the foot of the knoll whereon the besieged had taken refuge. For a while an alluvial of ants tried again and again to attain this dry land, only to be repulsed by streams of petrol back into the merciless flood.

Leiningen lay on his bed, his body swathed from head to foot in bandages. With fomentations and salves, they had managed to stop the bleeding, and had dressed his many wounds. Now they thronged around him, one question in every face. Would he recover? "He won't die," said the old man who had bandaged him, "if he doesn't want to.''

The planter opened his eyes. "Everything in order?'' he asked.

"They're gone,'' said his nurse. "To hell." He held out to his master a gourd full of a powerful sleeping draught. Leiningen gulped it down.

"I told you I'd come back," he murmured, "even if I am a bit streamlined." He grinned and shut his eyes. He slept.

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Edited December 19, 2013 by ThisLife

[ThisLife]

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Mercifully, there’s no preamble today as I’ve already introduced Brian Harris and his wonderful book, “Tibetan Voices ; A Traditional Memoir”. The extracts below are the second installment of three stories.

 

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Tibetan Tales :

{1} : THE GIFT OF GOOD WORK


My interest in building and repairing monasteries goes back as far as I can remember. As a child, it was my job to help with the goat herding, and whenever I took the goats up into the hills, I would let them feed in the pasture while I sat on a rock and constructed miniature monasteries and other buildings with small stones and pebbles. Some people from my village came to visit me recently, and I was astonished to hear that these structures are still standing! Even at this young age, I already had a great liking for carpentry and woodwork. When I took the goats to pasture I often used to cut a branch with my goatherd's knife and carve it into the shape of a butter bowl or a musical instrument. I still have the scars on my hands from the cuts I gave myself in my clumsy efforts all those years ago!

At fifteen I was helping my family transport grain on our yaks, travelling quite long distances to trade grain for salt and then the salt for rice, which we later traded at home for other goods. But my only desire was to do woodworking; so when I was twenty-two I began to study with my uncle, a famous carpenter. I lived at his house for a year and learned to make all kinds of things. I started with the specially designed boxes that we use to carry goods on horseback. Then I learned to make a musical instrument called a damyang, which is something like a guitar. I also made butter churns, small tables, water barrels, and drums. I learned very quickly, as I was bright and the skills came naturally to me. I was happy to be doing what I most wanted to do, and my uncle was happy to teach me, even though he had sons of his own.

My parents, however, were not pleased - they would have preferred me to put my whole heart into farming. I was the eldest of a family of eleven, and my parents insisted that as the eldest son I must help look after our family affairs. As a semi-nomadic family we had quite a bit of land but we still had to pay the government tax, so there was lots of work to do: looking after the yaks and other animals, working in the fields, and raising the goods we needed to sell in order to pay the tax. I was also expected to study, although I had little time for it.

Another reason for my parents' displeasure was that, in Tibetan society, carpentry and woodworking were not viewed as suitable occupations for people from families of high status. These trades were usually done by people from a lower level of society who had no other means of making a living, although a skilled woodcarver could often earn more than enough to meet his daily needs. In fact, as an independent craftsman having mastered the skills of woodcarving and monastery construction, I received very generous compensation and was treated very well.

After studying with my uncle for a year, I began to receive requests from different monasteries to do repairs and before long I was called to Sakya to assist in the construction of the main temple of the Lama Sakyapa. It was there that I learned how to construct and carve a monastery in its entirety. These skills were passed on to me by a famous master carver named Dechen, who had been brought to Sakya from Lhasa to oversee the construction of the temple.

I studied with Dechen for three years, learning masonry, traditional engineering, geometrical drawing, and design, all under his expert guidance. I shall always feel indebted to my master for helping me learn my craft. He had nearly five hundred people working under him-masons, woodcarvers, carpenters, and labourers - but he gave me special attention because I was bright and took immense care with everything he asked me to do, so he could see that I was sincere in my desire to learn. It was customary for students and workers to offer gifts to their teachers, usually in the form of money or alcohol. But Dechen drank only tea and I knew the best offering I could give him was to do the finest work possible on whatever I was assigned to do; this was what pleased him most.

From the foundations to the roof of the monastery, my teacher guided my instruction and I was able to learn all the skills I needed. Wherever there was something important to be done, I was given the opportunity to assist in the work. I was always anxious to know what new thing I was going to learn the next day: how deep the foundations should be, what kind of stones should be used for them, where the pillars should stand, how to carve the different types of designs at the top of each structure. These were the things that concerned me, not how much I was getting paid or whether the job would come in on time.

My master decided that, since I was doing such good work and taking on a lot of responsibility, I should be given the title of ‘uchung’, which means something like "junior master "or "teacher." He went to see the man responsible for the construction of the monastery, a wealthy businessman from the Lhasa aristocracy whose name was Pondesang, and asked him if he would agree. I had other ideas, however. I told Pondesang that if my master felt like giving me an uchung’s salary, I had no objections; I pledged to work to the standard of an uchung, but I did not want the social status that went with the position. I knew that, given the special relationship I had with Dechen, the many other uchungs from Lhasa who were working at the monastery would not be pleased if I took this title. Pondesang's response was that since I was a sincere and gifted worker, I had earned this privilege, and so I was given the salary of an uchung but not the title or status, just as I had requested.

By doing this I not only avoided problems for myself and my master but at the same time was able to improve the overall quality of the work done in the monastery, which I knew I could only do as an ordinary worker. If I had taken the title of uchung while continuing to produce the high-quality work that I was known for, and then demanded work of a similar standard from the other craftsmen, they would simply have said, "You're an uchung, and it's your duty to do superior work!" However as a normal worker, when l received commendations for the quality of my work I could say to the other uchungs, "My status is inferior to yours, but I am producing better work. So why can't you improve your skills and show the others how to do better, too?" In this way I was able to influence the general standard of work there.

Although with private commissions it was customary for offerings to be made to the master and his workers, the construction at Sakyawasa government project, so the uchungs received no benefits other than their salary. During this three-year project l did not leave the construction site, since my main concern was to acquire all the skills from my master. In any case, I never had money to spend. There were official leave times, however, and during these periods my master, Dechen, would go and work on the Phunsok Potang - the private palace of the Lama Sakyapa. I was among fifteen skilled craftsmen working there under the master, and as well as our daily needs we were given many gifts of butter, meat, clothes, and money. Dechen was presented with gifts of great value' such as rich brocades, precious stones, dzi, and gold. The construction of this palace also took three years.

After the monastery and the palace were completed, Dechen returned to Lhasa. Before he left, he announced that he was very pleased with me, and that thanks to me his great burden of responsibility had been considerably lessened. I was told that my apprenticeship was complete and I was now ready to totally supervise the construction of a monastery. I returned to Tsang, where I constructed three new subsidiary monasteries to the great Namring Monastery, which took about four years. After that I went to Shigatse to work on the Panchen Lama's palace. I expected to be there for three years, but after two I was recalled to Namring to build a palace for the Panchen Lama and a congregation hall for the geshes (monks with high scholastic degrees). I completed both in two years.

I continued on in my profession, building small monasteries and temples as well as large private houses for wealthy families. There were few skilled craftsmen available, which meant I was very much in demand. Often a monastery and several families wanting new houses would call me at the same time, so unfortunately it was impossible for me to respond to every request. Because of the need, people appreciated me and treated me well. I would arrive on horseback at the main gates of whichever monastery had invited me, and even before I entered the monastery grounds a big picnic would be given to welcome me, often lasting the whole day. I would be given a whole new set of clothes and the monks would say special prayers for the successful completion of the monastery. At different stages of my work, I was offered large gifts, such as horses or yaks. Of course, these offerings were made only for private building projects. For government jobs, they would never stoop so low as to receive a master craftsman in this way!

My happiest times were during the period I worked on the palace of the Panchen Lama in Shigatse, which was a very auspicious undertaking. By then I could work on my own. I had acquired almost all the skills of my craft and was able to handle almost every aspect of the work, thanks to the kindness of my own master, Dechen, who taught me everything I needed to know.

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{2} : TO THE NOMAD CAMPS

In 1953 my husband, Sakya Rinpoche, was invited to eastern Tibet, and I joined him on the journey, eager to revisit the area where I grew up. We took a northern route, and, since there were few monasteries on the way, we often camped. The tent we used for our family had been made in Bhutan and was constructed of heavy, striped canvas and had a window. My husband’s tent, which he used for religious ceremonies, was particularly beautiful and was made of gold canvas and decorated with Buddhist symbols and red and blue dragons. This special tent was set up wherever there were enough visitors to warrant it, and it was visible from a long way off.

There were many nomads scattered over this vast area and, though they lived in dispersed communities, news travelled fast - people quickly learned if a lama was coming, especially a Sakya lama. Each evening when we stopped to camp, hundreds of nomads from miles around would gather to see, and be blessed by, Sakya Rinpoche. Many came by horseback, while others rode yaks or walked. As more and more people arrived there would be many joyful reunions, with old friends hugging and kissing each other. The people were very affectionate and had a closeness I had not seen before.

My husband gave Buddhist teachings to the nomads and distributed blessing cords or relics. The nomads were extremely devout; they never asked for elaborate things such as initiations and so on, but would be content simply to be touched on the head by the lama, receiving the blessing of the Buddha, the bodhisattvas, and the Sakya lamas. They had so much faith and trust; they believed that a real Buddha was present. They expressed profound respect for all lamas and monks, not just for those from our school of Buddhism. They would crowd around Sakya Rinpoche, and, though the monks would scold them and tell them to get back, I would always ask the monks to leave them be since it was their only chance to see Rinpoche.

When the nomads entered my husband's tent they would immediately prostrate themselves on the ground and ask my husband such questions as "How many years will we live?" My husband would say, "Oh, don't ask me. I don't know. I don't even know how long I’m going to live!" "Oh, yes, you do know!" they would reply, "Just tell us!" Sometimes Sakya Rinpoche would tell them to perform a puja or to recite certain daily prayers and then they would live for a certain number of years. At other times he would say that perhaps in a couple of years that person might face difficulties, but that later he or she would be fine. Years later, when we met the nomads again, they told us that it had happened exactly as Rinpoche had predicted. That was a demonstration for me of why faith is so very important. The nomads were the most devout people I have ever met.

There was nothing modern about the nomadic way of life. Daily life was slow-paced and no one ever hurried. People just sat, or lay down, and talked. People would speak openly and simply about whatever was in their hearts. The nomads would always bring butter; cheese, and yogurt for Rinpoche to eat. They thought that if he ate a little bit then their family would prosper or their animals would be blessed, so they would always insist that he take a little bite. Often people would ask Rinpoche for blessings on behalf of elderly relatives or sick animals, requesting blessings for them.

The best gift you could give the nomad women was a kind of makeup, though not the Western type. It was the red paper that was used as a wrapping for tea leaves. These beautiful women would lick the wrapper and dab the red colour onto their cheeks, doing all this quite openly. It was wonderful to watch. They would wear or use anything that we gave them, whether it was tea leaf wrappers, beads, or glasses.

My abiding memory of that time is that even when the nomads had work or chores to do they would resolutely stay all night near the lama. Although the women would claim that they were going back to their tents to sleep, I would still hear them outside our tent. They all wore lots of jewellery hanging around their necks or braided in their hair, so almost all night long, as they walked around our tent on kora, together with the sounds of whirring prayer wheels and mumbled prayers, I could hear the soft tinkling of their jewellery.

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{3} : GORED BY A YAK


I was gored quite badly by a yak when I was a child. You see, my family had a large number of yaks, and in the summertime we travelled with the herds for almost three months, living in tents. During this time, the whole family had to help make butter and cheese for the rest of the year. We were constantly around the yaks as well as the dri - the female yaks – and their young, so I got to know them very well. I knew them all individually, and even if there were a couple of hundred yaks together I could tell them apart. But show me three donkeys, and they all look the same to me ! We children had to take care of the baby yaks while their mothers - the dri-were grazing. After a few hours, the dri would be brought home and we would have to do the milking. But first we would have to bring each dri her baby and show it to her, otherwise she wouldn’t give any milk. I knew the animals so well that I could easily tell which baby belonged to which dri.

Two of our older yaks were used for ploughing the fields in the springtime. They had rings in their noses and, since they weren’t used for riding, they still had their horns. They were very gentle animals and I used to play with them all the time, pulling their beautiful hair, their tails, their horns - they never seemed to mind. One day they brought the yaks to town to do the ploughing. I was six or seven at the time. My aunt and I were responsible for bringing food to the ploughmen and the yaks, so we came at lunchtime and fed the yaks while the workers ate the tsampa and yogurt that my aunt had prepared. While everyone was resting, I played with one of the yaks. As usual, I pulled his hair and tail and then, taking handfuls of grass, I started pushing the grass in his mouth and pulling it out again - just like I had so many times before. This time, the yak didn't seem too happy about it, but since he had always been so gentle I thought it was OK. So I yanked his horns hard, and that was when it happened.

The yak gored me in the face and threw me several feet in the air. My aunt ran over, crying out that I was dead. I was really scared. The yak's horn had gored me right through my cheek, and blood was everywhere. People gathered round, many of them weeping - such a commotion! They carried me at once to the nearby monastery and fetched my uncle, who was a doctor there. On the way my wounds were breeding so badly that everyone kept saying, "She's finished," and I thought I was going to die ! But my uncle looked after me. He was very wise, you know – the townspeople kept saying to him that the yak was bad and must be slaughtered, but he refused and said that they had to cut its horns and let it run wild. So the yak got its freedom - we "gave it to the Buddha," as we say. In fact, we used to give many yaks to the Buddha after they had done a certain amount of work. Once a year, everyone gathered at the monastery, and we would hang lots of prayer flags and put colourful banners on the yaks and let them go. After they are released their hair grows really long and they look beautiful. So after all those years of hard work the yak that gored me gained its freedom.

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[ThisLife]

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I'm a little apprehensive about contributing this next story to a religious/philosophic forum since it doesn't have the appearance of a 'spiritual story', nor even offer a salutary moral lesson that might possibly act as guidance in our daily lives. But from the first time I read it there was something so irresistibly compelling,... so exalting of the resolute, ‘fearless-yet-compassionate’ side of humanity, that this story was the jewel in the crown, above all others, that I simply had to add here.

The story itself arrived by such curious means that it still mystifies me. One day while I was sitting at my desk near the front door, the postman arrived, the letter slot popped open, and a small package dropped onto the floor. After removing the parcel's wrapping, I found myself holding what appeared to be a single chapter torn from the body of a book of stories. There was neither a return address nor a covering letter. I've never since been able to discover who sent it, nor had I previously heard so much as a word concerning the subject matter of the story.

Since then I've read and re-read this extract with undiminished pleasure quite a number of times over the years since it first arrived. However, few weeks ago a strong thought came out of the blue,… that I suddenly wanted to find out more about this story.

 

 

The first step was obvious, (and I clearly should have explored it earlier). But the title of a book is usually written on the top of each left-hand page and, luckily, the torn segments I had followed that literary convention. So I put the title into Amazon's search engine and found that it had been taken from a book called "Seven Wonders of the Industrial World", by Deborah Cadbury.

Once I had this information, I straight away ordered a copy of the complete book. And though I must say that the story posted below still remains my personal favourite from the collection,.... Ms Cadbury certainly is an extremely capable writer. If you enjoy her down-to-earth style in this story, I'm sure you would equally appreciate the rest of her most fascinating book.

To cut my long-winded intro short, though on the simplest level this could be described as merely a tale of courage and altruistic motivation by a select handful of working British folk of the 1800s,.... I personally feel that its relevance is far more universal. Primarily, I find it an uplifting story about ‘all’‘ mankind.

 

Human faults are so widely publicised in newspaper, TV programme, and in endless accounts of the environmental havoc we've unleashed on all other species by our existence on this planet. Thankfully, after I first read this historical testament, an inner part of me quietly rejoiced. A simple story,… of the 'good' in man.

P.S. I've just discovered that it will have to be posted in two parts because there are too many characters. Fortunately there were logical break-points within the story exactly as Ms Cadbury wrote it.

 

P.P.S. All my relatives arrive tomorrow so I imagine I’ll be away from this forum for a week or so, till Christmas is over and normalcy returns. I suddenly thought, a two-part serial of a 19^th century tale,… it seemed a perfect Dickensian way to launch the Christmas season ! I hope the coming celebration brings all readers on this forum, every happiness of family, friends and shared enjoyment.

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THE BELL ROCK LIGHTHOUSE

PART ONE :

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The safe anchorage of the Firth of Forth on the east coast of Scotland has always been a refuge for shipping hoping to escape the wild storms of the North Sea. The safety of this natural inlet, however, is considerably compromised by the presence of a massive underwater reef, the Bell Rock, lying treacherously right in the middle of the approach to the Firth of Forth. It is far enough away from the coast for landmarks to be unable to define its position, being eleven miles south of Arbroath and a similar distance west from the mouth of the Tay. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, when a storm was brewing in the Forth and Tay area, those at sea faced a forbidding choice: ride out the storm in the open sea or try to find safety in the Firth of Forth and risk an encounter with the Bell Rock.

Hidden by a few feet of water under the sea, the craggy shape of the Bell Rock lay in wait for sailing ships, as it had for centuries, claiming many lives and ships and scattering them wantonly, like trophies, over its silent and mysterious escarpments. It bares itself briefly twice a day at low tide for an hour or two, and then disappears under the sea at high tide, sometimes its position given away by waves breaking on the submerged rocks and foaming surf over its rugged features. An outcrop of sandstone about a quarter of a mile long, it slopes away gently on the southern side, but to the north it rises steeply from the seabed, an unyielding barrier.

For early navigators the greatest danger was to come suddenly upon the northern cliff face. Any ship taking soundings north of the rock would find deep water and assume all was safe, only to learn the fatal error should the ship stray a few yards further south. All on board would listen for the last sounds they might hear of timber being torn and split as wood was crushed against rock. So many lives were lost, along the whole Scottish coast the notorious Bell Rock 'breathed abroad an atmosphere of terror'.

For centuries the sea lanes were deserted, their wild highways left unchallenged, but from about the mid-eighteenth century the growth of trade in flax, hemp and goods for the weaving industry saw an increase in shipping and, as a consequence, a growing number of fatal collisions with the massive submerged cliff of the Bell Rock. The heavy toll brought pleas for some kind of warning light, although no one was sure how this could be done so far out to sea on a rock which for most of the time was under water.

The local people of the east coast had once succeeded in putting a warning on the rock. In the fourteenth century, it was said, a man called John Gedy, the abbot of Aberbrothock, was so concerned at the numbers who perished there that he set out to the rock with his monks and an enormous bell. With incredible ingenuity, they attached the bell to the rock and it rang out loud and clear above the waves warning all seafarers, an invisible church in the sea.

The good abbot, however, had not reckoned on human avarice. Soon after, a Dutch pirate called 'Ralph the Rover' stole the bell, in spite of its miraculous Power to save life by its insistent warning ring. Ironically, he died within a year and must have regretted his act when his ship met bad weather and the great reef and some said a deserving fate, as he and his ship disappeared beneath the waves. From that time, the rock acquired its name and became known as the 'Bell Rock'.

The coast of Scotland is long and rugged and has many jagged peninsulas and rocky islets. Even by the late eighteenth century for hundreds of miles, according to local accounts, these desolate shores ‘were nightly plunged into darkness'. To help further the safety of these coastal waters, the Northern Lighthouse Board was established in 1786 to erect and maintain lighthouses. At that time, the warning lights to shipping were often no more than bonfires set on dangerous headlands, maintained by private landowners. When the warning fires were most needed in bad weather, they were usually put out by drenching rain.

By 1795, the board had improved on these primitive lights with seven major lighthouses, but progress was slow' They were chronically under funded, though never short of requests to do more by worried ship-owners, and especially to put a light on the Bell Rock. The Northern Lighthouse Board was well aware of the desirability of a light on the rock. Its reputation as a killer lying in wait at the entrance to the enticing safety of the Firth of Forth had travelled well beyond England. However, with little in the way of funds and the difficulties of building so far out to sea on a rock that was submerged by up to sixteen feet of water for much of the day, such a request was improbable madness not even to be considered.

There was one man, however, who had been dreaming of the impossible, of building a lighthouse on the hidden reef and allowing the whole bay of the Firth of Forth to be useful as safe anchorage. Robert Stevenson was a man of strong character who by some strange fate had been given the very opportunities he needed to fulfil his ambition. In early rife his chances of success had looked poor. His mother, Jean Stevenson, had been widowed and left penniless when he was only two. Years of hardship followed, but Jean Stevenson, a deeply religious woman, struggled on to ensure an education for her son. In later life, Stevenson always remembered, that dark period when my mother’s ingenious and gentle spirit amidst all her difficulties never failed her'.

Jean was eventually remarried in November 1792 to an Edinburgh widower called Thomas Smith who designed and manufactured lamps. At the time, Smith was interested in increasing the brightness of his lamps. A scientific philosopher from Geneva called Ami Argand had recently developed a way of improving brightness by fitting a glass tube or chimney around the wick. Smith was experimenting with taking this work further by placing a polished tin reflector behind and partly surrounding the wick, shaped in a parabolic curve to focus the light. This gave a much brighter beam than conventional oil lamps and the lamps from his workshops were now much in demand. He was soon approached by the Northern Lighthouse Board, who employed him as their lighting engineer. At a time when lighthouses were as basic as a fire or torch on top of an open tower or simple oil lamps encased in glass lanterns, Smith began to design oil lamps with parabolic reflectors consisting of small facets of mirror glass to create a powerful beam.


When the young Robert Stevenson visited his stepfather's workshop, he found it a magical place where uninteresting bits of metal and glass were transformed into beautiful precision-made objects. Jean could see where her son's interests lay and, much to his delight, Stevenson was soon apprenticed to Thomas Smith. One of Thomas Smith's duties at the Northern Lighthouse Board was to visit the board's growing number of lighthouses. During the summer months he and
Stevenson would set out by boat and appraise the situation, repairing damage and deciding on the position of new lighthouses. By about the turn of the century this responsibility fell entirely to Stevenson.

'The seas into which his labours carried the new engineer were still scarce charted,' his grandson, Robert Louis Stevenson, wrote years later.

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“The coasts still dark; his way on shore was often far beyond the convenience of any road; the isles in which he must sojourn were still partly savage. He must toss much in boats; he must often adventure on horseback through unfrequented wildernesses he must sometimes plant his lighthouse in the very camp of wreckers; and he was continually enforced to the vicissitudes of out door life. The joy of my grandfather in this career was strong as the love of woman. It lasted him through youth and manhood, it burned strong in age and at the approach of death his last yearning was to renew these loved experiences.”

*

From May to October, Stevenson went on his round visiting the board's scattered lighthouses, taking much needed supplies and solving problems. These could vary from the repair of storm-damaged buildings to the question of finding new pasture for the keepers’ cow. Stevenson was also employed to map out the position of new lighthouses and soon found that some of the inhabitants of the remote islands – who supplemented their income from wrecking - were openly hostile to him.

On one journey in dense fog his ship came dangerously near sharp rocks of the Isle of Swona. The captain hoped to get help towing the ship away from the danger from a village he could see on shore. The village looked dead; everyone was asleep.
To attract attention, he fired a distress signal. Stevenson watched in disbelief as .door after door was opened, and in the grey light of morning, fisher after fisher was seen to come forth nightcap on head. There was no emotion, no animation, it scarce seemed any interest; not a hand was raised, but all callously waited the harvest of the sea, and their children stood by their side and waited also.’ Luckily a breeze sprang up and the ship was able to make for the open sea.

During these summer trips Stevenson learned a great deal. He could be impatient, not inclined to suffer fools gladly, but he never lacked confidence in his ability to tackle the most difficult problems. Over these years, as the Scottish coastline and its lighthouses became ingrained on his mind, he was nurturing his secret ambition to tame for ever the awful power of the Bell Rock. The fulfilment of his dream seemed remote. Stevenson was not a qualified civil engineer. As Smith’s young assistant he had little influence with the board. And he was only too aware that the commissioners believed that a light on the Bell Rock was out of the question.

Those living on the northeast coast of England and Scotland in December 1799 saw the old century dragged out with a thunderous storm of screaming winds and mountainous seas, which raged from Yorkshire to the Shetlands. All along the east coast, ships at anchorage were torn from their moorings and swept away. Those seafarers who could hear anything above the wind and crash of waves listened for the dreaded sound of wood cracking and splitting as it was thrown against rock - the sound of death. In Scotland, the haven of the Firth of Forth, guarded by the Bell Rock, was ignored. Ships preferred to make for the open sea and take their chances in the storm rather than try to steer their way past the dreaded reef. The storm lasted three days and was to sink 70 ships.

The call for a light on the Bell Rock grew louder. If there had been a lighthouse, ship-owners argued, many more ships would have made for the safety of the Firth of Forth. The Northern Lighthouse Board began, at last, to give serious consideration to what they still saw as an insoluble problem and Stevenson was quick to present his own plan for a beacon-style lighthouse on cast-iron pillars. Although there was not a more dangerous situation 'upon the whole coasts of the Kingdom,' he argued, his design would be safe, relatively inexpensive and even pay for itself as the board collected fees from ships taking advantage of its warning light. The cautiously minded board was impressed with the idea of economy, but less sure of Stevenson's design.

Despite his experience around the coast of Scotland,
Stevenson had not yet managed to set foot on Bell Rock itself and was impatient to do so. In April 1800, he hired a boat, intending to survey the site, but the weather was too stormy to land. In May, as he sailed nearby on a journey north, it lay invisible, even at low tide. He had to wait until the neap tides of October before he could make the attempt again. At the last minute, however, the boat he had been promised was unavailable and no one was prepared to take him out to the rock, not even in calm seas. Time was running out for a landing on the rock before winter and, if he could not find a boat he would miss the favourable tides. Finally, a fisherman was found who was prepared to take the risk; it transpired the man often braved the Bell Rock to hunt for valuable wreckage to supplement his income.

Once on the rock, Stevenson and his friend, the architect James Haldane, had just two hours in which to assess the possibilities that the rock might offer before the tide returned and the rock disappeared. It was covered in seaweed and very slippery. The surface was pitted and sea water gurgled and sucked in the fissures and gullies that criss-crossed the rock, but Stevenson was encouraged by what he saw. The exposed area at low tide was about 250 by 130 feet, revealing enough room for a lighthouse. Better still the surface of the rock was of very hard sandstone, perfect for building.

There was one problem though. He had thought that a lighthouse on pillars would offer less resistance to the sea, but when he saw the heavy swell around the rock, overwhelming the channels and inlets, pushing its bullying foamy waters into deep fissures even on a calm day, he knew his plan could not work. Visiting boats bringing supplies or a change of keeper would be shattered against the pillars in heavy seas, and the capability of the pillars to withstand the timeless bearing of the waves was questionable, too. “I am sure no one was fonder of his own work than I was, until I saw the Bell Rock,” he wrote. “I had no sooner landed than I saw my pillars tumble like the baseless fabric of a dream.”

The two hours passed all too quickly. The fisherman, who had gathered spoils from wreckage on the reef, was anxious to leave as the returning tide swirled around their feet. For Stevenson, finding the Bell Rock and standing at the centre of its watery kingdom, with nothing but the ever-encroaching sea in sight, had been a revelation. It was clear that only an immensely strong tower would have a chance of surviving in such an exposed position - a building higher than the highest waves, made of solid sandstone and granite. With these thoughts in mind, he undertook an extensive tour of English lighthouses and harbour lights in search of a model on which to base his own plans. It was a journey of some two and a half thousand miles by coach or on horseback, which took many months of 1801. He soon found there was only one such stone sea-tower already in existence. It was built on a buttress of rock about nine miles from the port of Plymouth, off the south coast in Cornwall.

The Eddystone Lighthouse, so called because of the dangerous eddies and currents that swirled around it, had withstood the fearsome gales blown in from the Atlantic since 1759. It had been built by John Smeaton, a man revered by Stevenson and considered to be the father of the civil engineering profession. Standing 70 feet high, it was made from interlocking solid Portland stone and granite blocks, which presented a tall, smooth curved shape to the elements. It had been inspired, Smeaton said, by the trunk of an oak tree. ‘An oak tree is broad at its base,' he explained, 'curves inward at its waist and becomes narrower towards the top. We seldom hear of a mature oak tree being uprooted.'

There had been several attempts at lighthouses on the Eddystone rocks before Smeaton's triumphant endeavour, the most notable being the Winstanley Lighthouse, built in 1698. Henry Winstanley, the clerk of works at Audley End in Essex, was also an enthusiastic inventor and he took it upon himself to build a remarkable six-sided structure on the Eddystone rocks standing over 100 feet high. With charming balconies, gilded staterooms, decorative wrought-iron work and casement windows for fishing, the whole curious structure was topped with an octagonal cupola complete with flags, more wrought iron and a weather vane. It might have been more appropriately placed as a folly on a grand estate, but Winstanley was confident it could withstand the most furious of storms. He was so confident that he longed to be there in bad weather to observe the might of the sea and by chance he was there on 26 November 1703. That night a bad storm blew in with horizontal rain, screaming winds and waves 100 feet high. Winstanley certainly had his wish. At some time in the night, the fury of the sea took Winstanley and his pretty gilded lighthouse and tossed them to a watery oblivion. In the morning, nothing remained but a few pieces of twisted wire.

On his return from his trip in September, Stevenson immediately set about redesigning his lighthouse along the lines of Smeaton's Eddystone. He, too, would build a solid tower that curved inwards, the walls narrowing with height and accommodating the keeper's rooms. It would have to be at least twenty feet taller than the Eddystone, which was built on a rock above sea level, unlike the Bell Rock, which at high tide was covered by eleven to sixteen feet of 'water. And if it was to be taller, it would also have to be wider at the base, over 40 feet, with solid, interlocking granite stone that would ensure it was invulnerable, even in roaring seas. More than 2,500 tons of stone would be needed and Stevenson calculated that the cost of such a lighthouse would be around £42,000.

He could foresee that this cost would be a major obstacle as the annual income collected by the Northern Lighthouse Board from dues was a modest £4,386. He was right; the board thought the cost prohibitive and also questioned Stevenson's ability to undertake such an immense and difficult project. They felt he was too young and untried for this great responsibility and pointed out that he had in fact only ever built one lighthouse before, a small lighthouse at that, and on the mainland. The board made it clear that they intended consulting established men in the civil engineering profession, men with a body of work and high reputation, such as John Rennie, who was building the London Docks.

But Stevenson was a man who stood four-square to an unfavourable wind. The sweet wine of optimism flowed in his veins in generous measure and he took the negative epistle from the board as a simple invitation to his buccaneering spirit to try again. Meanwhile the commissioners of the Northern
Lighthouse Board realised they would never generate alone the huge sum needed for a lighthouse on the Bell Rock. It would need an Act of Parliament to allow them to borrow the required amount, which they would then repay from the shipping dues they collected.

The first Bill was rejected in 1803, but the subject was far from forgotten. The board was still hopeful for some sort of light and made it known that they would give consideration to any sensible plan that was submitted. A Captain Brodie stepped forward with his plan for a lighthouse on four pillars made of cast iron and a generous offer to provide, at his own expense, a temporary light until a Permanent structure was in place. The board quietly shelved the lighthouse on cast-iron pillars but encouraged the temporary lights, which duly appeared, built of wood. And as each one was toppled by careless seas, it was replaced by Captain Brodie with growing impatience. Several budding engineers had proposed plans for a lighthouse on pillars, including one advocating hollow pillars, to be filled every tide by the sea, but the conservative- minded members of the Northern Lighthouse Board remained unconvinced.

The years were sliding by and Stevenson embarked on courses in mathematics and chemistry at Edinburgh University and worked on designs for other lighthouses. All the while, he was untiring in his efforts to interest the board in his now perfected design for a strong stone tower on the Smeaton plan. He envisaged a lighthouse standing over 100 feet tall, 42 feet wide at the base, with 2 feet embedded in the Bell Rock, and the whole exterior of the building encased in granite. The board were polite but cautious. If only “it suited my finances to erect 10 feet or 15 feet of such a building before making any call upon the Board for money,” Stevenson declared with growing impatience, “I should be able to convince them that there is not the difficulty which is at first sight imagined.” While the officials procrastinated through 1804, a severe storm blew up and sank the gunship HMS York off the Bell Rock. Sixty-four guns and 491 lives were lost. With the loss of a gunship at a time of Napoleon’s unstoppable progress, the Admiralty at last woke up to the dangers of the Bell Rock.

The board, however, still took no action and somewhat dejected, in December 1805, Stevenson could see no alternative but to send his plans to John Rennie seeking his advice. Rennie was a man at the peak of his career, widely recognised as one of the best civil engineers in the country, with twenty years achievement in building bridges, canals and harbours. None the less, Stevenson felt reluctant to share his ideas after all this time, pointing out that the design had 'cost me much, very much, trouble and consideration'. Rennie, however, was greatly impressed by his work and replied by return of post. He confirmed that only a stone building would survive the conditions of the Bell Rock and approved Stevenson's basic plan. He even came to a similar conclusion on the cost of the enterprise.

Rennie's approval was enough to unlock the door. Overnight, the Northern Lighthouse Board was transformed and unanimous: the commissioners wanted a lighthouse on the Bell Rock such as Rennie advocated. But first there would have to be a Bill passed by Parliament allowing the board to borrow £25,000. In April 1806, John Rennie and Robert Stevenson went in person to Westminster to explain their case to the Lords of the Treasury and the Lords of the Admiralty. Progress was slow, but eventually the Bill was passed and a date set for work to start on the infamous Bell Rock.

The Northern Lighthouse Board, mesmerised by Rennie's reputation and charmed by his charisma, placed him in overall charge, with Stevenson merely acting as his assistant. Rennie himself, who had never built a lighthouse, argued that the light on Bell Rock should be a fairly faithful copy of Smeaton’s Eddystone Lighthouse, which was, after all, a proven success. He based the design of the lighthouse tower on this concept, but with a much greater curvature at the base to deflect the force of the waves upwards. Although a lot younger, Stevenson considered himself far more knowledgeable about lighthouses than Rennie, having now built several, and he was also familiar with the unique conditions of the Bell Rock. So without ever questioning the older man's authority, he became quietly determined to work entirely from his own plan.

But no one had ever built a lighthouse where so much of it was underwater. Stevenson could not know for sure whether a stone lighthouse was feasible. There was an awful possibility that the critics were right. Perhaps he was attempting the impossible, endangering life and squandering money. The Bell Rock could so easily have the last word as his imagined sea citadel came tumbling down.

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[ThisLife]

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THE BELL ROCK LIGHTHOUSE

 

PART TWO :

 

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In spite of any misgivings and after the years of delay, Stevenson was anxious to start work on the rock no later than May 1807. His first challenge was how to manage his workforce so far out at sea. No one had ever tried to build a lighthouse on a rock only exposed for two hours in every twelve. As the tide was later by about an hour every day, there would be times when the rock was only uncovered during the night. When building the Eddystone Lighthouse of the Cornish coast, Smeaton had ferried his men to work on a daily basis, but Stevenson did not see that as a practical proposition for the Bell Rock. He decided to take the bold step of keeping his men out at sea, at first on a vessel moored at a safe distance from the rock and, later, in temporary quarters on the rock itself.

 

Stevenson hoped to raise a sturdy wooden building, the beacon, on the Bell Rock that would stand on timber beams well above the reach of high tide. These temporary barracks would house the men and at night provide a warning light for passing ships. He was only too aware that such a building might be considered precarious, just a few feet above the swirling waters of the North Sea with no land in sight. After all, Captain Brodie's beacons had not braved the relentless onslaught of the waves for long and Winstanley's more substantial lighthouse had been blown away in the night like gossamer in the wind, but there was really no alternative. Should a sudden gale blow up, it might be impossible to row back in heavy seas to their vessel, and once the tide turned the exposed rock was all too quickly drowned again by the rush of incoming water. Some kind of temporary dwelling was essential.

 

Before the beacon could be built, he needed a ship that would fulfil a duel role providing a dormitory for men working on the rock and also a floating light warning ships at sea. The board was obliged to provide a warning light at night while work was in progress, which would enable them to charge dues from passing shipping and start repaying the loan.

For this purpose he acquired an 82-ton vessel, the Pharos - named after the first celebrated beacon tower of ancient Egypt, the Pharos of Alexandria. The Pharos was then fitted out to provide 30 bunks for the workmen, quarters for the crew and a cabin for Stevenson that would give him some privacy.

 

The Pharos would have to be moored one mile from the rock since it was inadvisable to be too near the escarpment should she break anchor in bad weather. Here the water was particularly deep and, as high winds could easily set the ship adrift, a special heavy mushroom-shaped anchor was cast that would dig into the seabed and act as a drag. The men would have to row each day in small boats the mile from the Pharos to their work on the Bell Rock.

 

The starting date in May passed by and with it went the good weather. Stevenson was becoming impatient, as preparations took longer than anticipated. Another ship had to be built, a 40-ton ship called the ‘Smeaton’ that would be used to bring out supplies to the rock. Stone from the quarries was ordered and masons were hired to cut each stone into its own individual design so that it interlocked with its neighbour and gave the tower stability. There were tools to be ordered, coal for the smith, food, alcohol, water and then the men to be hired who would labour possibly for years on the rock. Stevenson preferred to hire those who had worked for him before or were recommended. He was a good judge of character and men usually stayed with him on wages of 20 shillings a week, 'summer or winter, wet or dry', with rations of ½ pound of beef, 1 pound of bread, 2 ounces of butter and 3 quarts of beer a day. There was, too, the added bonus of papers, which protected them from the press gangs, which were quite ruthless in claiming men for service in the navy.

 

Stevenson made it quite clear to his men that nights would be spent on board ship and that no man could return home to his family for a month. After a month, he reasoned, the men would have adjusted to seasickness and, hopefully, fear too. He worried that if they were allowed home earlier they probably would not return. He also required the men to work on Sunday. This proved a problem to many, so before they began the epic journey to their new home in the middle of the sea, perhaps as some sort of insurance against the unknown dangers, the men crowded into the little church at the port of Arbroath to hear prayers.

 

Late in the evening on 17 August 1807, the Smeaton finally set sail. Ships in the harbour were flying their colours and friends and family had gathered on the quay to see the men leave. As the ship moved slowly out of the harbour towards the darkening sky, the sound of cheers rang out across the water and echoed around the town and then was lost to the sound of the waves.

 

They reached the rock, hissing and frothy with surf' at dawn the next morning' There was an air of excitement at being in such a strange place. It was too early to start work with the tide still pushing water over their feet, so Stevenson raised three cheers and poured a ration of rum to the men' By

6 a.m., the water had retreated and some of the workmen began drilling holes for the beams that would support the beacon. The smith, James Dove, who would soon be busy sharpening tools, found a sheltered corner near a rock pool while other men cleared seaweed away from the pitted and uneven surface of the slippery rock. A seaweed called dulse was collected with enthusiasm; many of the men were suffering from seasickness and this was thought to be an antidote. When the tide returned, the men were thankful to row back to the relative security of their temporary accommodation on the Smeaton. As they pulled away, the rock that only minutes before had been a firm foothold was swallowed up before their eyes, with not even a ripple to mark its position.

 

Calm weather with whispering seas and wide, pearly-gold skies of late summer surrounded the enterprise in the first few weeks. Stevenson's first task was to set up the forge. Everybody helped James Dove erect the iron framework which would form the hearth. This was supported by four legs set up to twelve inches into the rock and secured with iron wedges. A huge block of timber which would carry the anvil was treated in the same way and water was fast encroaching again as the weighty anvil was placed. James Dove was invariably up to his knees in water and sometimes up to his waist but this was considered a minor problem compared to keeping the forge fire from the ever-playful waves.

 

The next task was to start work on the temporary hut or beacon. This was uppermost in everyone's minds since if there were an accident to the rowing boats when attempting to land, then this beacon on the Bell Rock would at least provide something to cling to until rescue arrived. Willing hands took on the difficult task of gouging out the hard sandstone that would take the stanchions supporting the uprights. Fifty-four holes in all, each two inches in diameter and eighteen inches deep, were needed to hold the iron stanchions. The upper part of the stanchions above ground would be riveted into the six massive 5O-foot upright beams that formed the core framework of the beacon and other supporting beams.

 

One morning as the men rowed towards the rock, Stevenson was astonished to see what looked like a human figure lying on a ledge of rock. His mind was in turmoil, assuming that there must have been a shipwreck in the night and the place would be littered with dead bodies. He was afraid his men would want to leave. They would see the Bell Rock living up to its reputation as a place of dread. As soon as he landed, and without a word, he made his way quickly to where the 'body' lay, only to discover, with immense relief, that it was, in fact, the smith's anvil and block.

 

Six days after leaving Arbroath, the men, who had been very cramped on the Smeaton, were transferred to the lightship Pharos, now anchored a mile away. Everyone was pleased to be going to the larger ship, which had a well-equipped galley and bunks for the men. Her only drawback was that she did roll rather badly even in light winds. This made it extremely difficult for the men even to get into the rowing boats for the mile-long row to the rock. Indeed, her rolling was so great 'that the gunwale, though about five feet above the surface of the water, dipped nearly into it upon one side,' recorded Stevenson, 'while her keel could not be far from the surface on the other'. Everyone hoped the good weather would continue, not daring to imagine what she would be like if the weather turned. Seasickness, which had largely been conquered, now became a very big problem. Even Stevenson was affected.

 

On Saturday night, al1 hands were given a glass of rum and water and every man made a contribution to the occasion, singing, playing a tune or telling a story, so that the evening passed pleasurably, ending with the favourite toast of 'wives and sweethearts'. By Sunday morning, however, the atmosphere was much changed. There was the seriousness of breaking the Commandments to be considered' Several were opposed to working on the Sabbath, but Stevenson pointed out that their labour was an act of mercy and must continue without fail, although he emphasised no one would be penalised for following his conscience. Prayers were said, and then Stevenson, without looking back, stepped into the boat. To his relief, he was followed by all but four of the masons.

 

Several days passed with work progressing well. The site for the lighthouse was marked out' a huge circle 42 feet in diameter in the middle of the reef, and the foundation holes for the beacon house were underway. On 2 September, however, their luck changed. A strong wind blew up and a crew from the Smeaton, who had rowed to the rock that morning, bringing eight workmen, was concerned that the Smeaton might break loose from her riding ropes and took its rowing boat back to check. No sooner had it reached the Smeaton than she broke from her moorings and began drifting at speed. The men who had remained on the rock were so intent on their work that they did not notice the rowing boat leave, or see that the Smeaton herself was floating quickly away.

 

Stevenson, alone, realised their terrible dilemma. He could see that with the wind and tide against her, the Smeaton could never get back to the Bell Rock before the tide overflowed it. There were 32 men working on the rock and only two boats, which in good weather might hold twelve men each. But now the wind was blowing in heavy seas. In such conditions, it would be fatal to put more than eight men in each boat to row the mile back to the floating light. It meant that there was transport for only half the men.

 

He watched the ship too far away to help and the men still involved in their work. As he stood there, trying to make sense of this insoluble problem, the waves came in with a sudden fury, overwhelming the smith’s fire, which was suddenly put out with a protesting sizzle and hiss. Stevenson himself was now 'in a state of suspense, with almost certain destruction at hand'.

 

With the obscuring smoke gone and the sea rolling quickly over the rock, the workmen gathered their tools and moved to their respective boats to find, not the expected three boats, but only two. Stevenson watched helplessly as the men silently summed up the situation, only too aware of the rock fast disappearing under the sea. They waited. ‘Not a word was uttered by anyone. All appeared to be silently calculating their numbers, and looking to each other with evident marks of perplexity.'

 

A decision had to be made. Soon the rock would be under more than twelve feet of water; they would have to take their chances. Sixteen men could go in the boats and the rest would have to hang on somehow to the gunwales while they were rowed carefully back through the boisterous seas to the Smeaton, now three miles away. There was no point trying to row to the Pharos, although it was nearer, as she lay to windward. Those clinging on to the rowing boats would stand little chance. So which men could have a place in the boats ?

 

Stevenson was about to issue orders, but found his mouth was so dry he could not speak. He bent to a rock pool to moisten his lips with the salty water and, as he did, heard someone shout, “A boat! A boat!”

 

Looking up he saw a ship approaching fast. By sheer good luck, James Spink in the Bell Rock pilot boat had come out from Arbroath with post and supplies. As he approached, Spink had seen the terrible dilemma of those on the rock and come to the rescue. This episode left a deep impression on Stevenson. The picture of the men silently standing by the boats awaiting their fate made him acutely aware of his responsibility for their safety and that, on this occasion, only a stroke of luck had averted a terrible catastrophe.

 

On 5 September 1807, the tide receded late in the day and as the sea was running a heavy swell, making the rowing boats hard to handle, Stevenson decided to cancel the trip to the rock. This proved to be a most fortunate choice as the stiff breeze turned rapidly into a hard gale and would have made rowing back from the rock in the darkness a terrifying, if not fatal, experience. The storm raged all night and the next day; the little lightship was hit by successive waves of such force that for a few seconds, as she met each wave, her rolling and pitching motion stopped, and it felt as though she had broken adrift or was sinking. The skylight in Stevenson's cabin near the helm was broken and water poured in from the waves, which were crashing on deck. Later in the morning, Stevenson tried to dress but was so violently thrown around in his cabin he gave up.

 

At two o'clock in the afternoon, an enormous wave struck the ship with such terrifying force that tons of water poured into the berths below, drenching bedding and sloshing as one body from side to side as the ship moved. 'There was not an individual on board who did not think, at the moment, that the vessel had foundered,' wrote Stevenson, 'and was in the act of sinking.' The fire had been extinguished in the galley and the workmen, in darkness, were deep in Prayer, swearing that should they survive, they would never go to sea again' But by the evening the storm had blown itself out and the workmen were grateful to find the crew returning the ship to normal with a fire in the galley and bedding dried.

 

By mid-September, the bad storms that had prevented work on the rock were replaced by quiet seas and kind weather in which Stevenson hoped to raise the six main beams of the beacon house. It was essential to get the 50-foot beams up and secure quickly as a day or two of bad weather could destroy any work left unfinished and autumn was approaching. More men were recruited from Arbroath. There were now as many as 40 carpenters, smiths and masons on Bell Rock. Their first task was to get a 30-foot mast erected to use as a derrick and a winch machine bolted down. The six principal beams – with iron bars and bolts already in place - were rowed on two rafts from Arbroath. In order to get the first four timbers securely in place in the space of one tide, the men worked in teams.

They began before the tide was out, labouring deep in water, hoisting the beams into their allotted places. Others bolted them to the iron stanchions already fixed in the rock to a depth of almost twenty inches and yet more men were ready to secure the uprights with wedges made of oak then finally iron.

 

Every man worked with great intensity before the inevitable returning water claimed the rock. As the waves engulfed them first up to their knees and then their waists, the four main beams were put in place and securely tied to form a cone shape; the timbers were temporarily lashed together with rope at the apex and mortised into a large piece of beech wood. As the last men were leaving, up to their armpits in water, a rousing 'three cheers' rang out from the men already in the rowing boats. The beacon was standing bravely above the waves.

 

The next day the remaining two beams were put in place. Diagonal support beams and bracing chains were added and the beacon was soon strong enough to hold a temporary platform where James Dove made himself a forge. At night, his glowing fire and shooting sparks presented an extraordinary sight as he perched above the waves. To everyone's great delight, the cumbersome bellows no longer had to travel back and forth to the rock with the rowers. The temporary platform was large enough to accommodate carpenters and masons who could work at making the beacon more secure even when the tide covered the rock.

 

Early October brought signs of the coming winter with shorter days and heavy seas. Stevenson was pleased with the first season's work; the beacon looked capable of defying the winter and a start had been made on the excavation of the lighthouse base. John Rennie paid his first visit, impressed with the progress, but expressing grave doubts about the

durability of the beacon. Rennie's one night on the yacht, with the sound of the sea lapping so near his pillow, was enough and he took his leave. By 6 October 1807, everyone departed, leaving the Bell Rock and its new beacon to face winter alone. As they made for land after almost two months at sea, the men watched the improbable beacon, sporting a cheerful flag, grow smaller on the horizon until, at last, it was swallowed up by the ocean.

 

***

 

Winter at home in Edinburgh could not be more of a contrast for Robert Stevenson. Here, he swapped the strictly male world of the rock, where a hard life - and possibly heroism, too - was traded for a daily wage, for a quiet family life with his wife and five children. In 1799, he had married Jeannie'

Thomas Smith's eldest daughter by his first wife, and they lived with their parents in a large home Thomas Smith had built in Baxter's Place, Edinburgh.

 

Stevenson was becoming a man of some standing in the town as word of his involvement with the Bell Rock spread. His work did not entirely stop that winter; he undertook a small tour around the lighthouses for the Northern Lighthouse Board and his advice was often sought when problems arose in Thomas Smith's lamp-making business. The firm had won the contract for new street lighting in Edinburgh and lights were also being custom-made in the workshop for lighthouses, which used many faceted mirrors as reflectors.

 

There was also a never-ending correspondence with John Rennie throughout that winter. As the chief engineer, Rennie was in charge of overseeing the progress on the Bell Rock but he was extremely busy managing large projects of his own. His work took him all over England and left him little time to visit Scotland. Despite this, he determined the shape of the tower, with a curvature rising gently from the rock at about 40 degrees in order to reduce the wave force effect. He also insisted on the dovetailing of all courses of stone up to about

45 feet to provide greater strength. After this, he was content to send letters of advice, and Stevenson, sure that his understanding of the Bell Rock was superior, quietly ignored them.

 

Stevenson answered Rennie's letters with voluminous replies, full of complex questions on the lighthouse, designed to create a smokescreen of ambiguity. There was never an actual schism, never an open disagreement between the two men. Stevenson always acknowledged the older man's mastery of current technology, but slowly, as work progressed, the balance of power shifted. Before long, Stevenson .was openly working from his own plan for completing the lighthouse, sanctioned finally by the Northern Lighthouse Board.

 

Christmas passed with warmth and fun centred on the children, but the cold winds of the New Year arrived bringing with them a desolation for which the family was unprepared. The children succumbed first to measles and then whooping cough, nursed patiently by Jeannie. But the double illness proved too great for the 5-year-old twins, James and Mary, who died early in January. Their older sister, 6-year-old Janet, weakened by illness, died just two weeks later. The Stevensons were devastated. They had seen their family decimated;

Jeannie was inconsolable in the now silent house. 'Never was there such a massacre of the innocents,' Robert Louis Stevenson wrote years later. 'Teething and chin cough and scarlet fever and small pox ran the round; and little Lillies, and Smiths and Stevensons fell like moths about a candle.'

 

The devastation of the winter left Robert Stevenson ready for a change of scene, to be active again in the company of men, taking on tangible difficulties that could be understood. The dominant thought in his mind was the lighthouse and, above all, the beacon. Rennie had strongly advised against it, fully expecting it to disappear over the winter. Stevenson was more optimistic, but he needed to know for sure.

 

Finding a spell of calm weather at the end of March l808, Stevenson set out in the lighthouse yacht with some of the workmen on the evening tide. As they approached the Bell Rock in the early morning light, he was straining for any sight on the horizon. There was the beacon, riding the waves, just as they had left it last October. ‘There was not the least appearance of working or shifting at any of the joints or places of connection,' Stevenson wrote triumphantly; ‘except for the loosening of the bracing chains, everything was found in the same entire state in which it had been left.’ He was now sure enough of the strength of the beacon to build up further and use it as a refuge should the need arise. If all went well, he hoped at last to make quarters for the men above the tide.

 

The season's work began in earnest when Stevenson, with his foreman, peter Logan, and a dozen masons, set out in a new, custom-built schooner, the Sir Joseph Banks, on the afternoon tide of 25 May I808. His priority over the coming months was to dig out the foundation pit for the lighthouse in the middle of the Bell Rock and create a small cast-iron railway some 300 feet in length that would run from the various landing stages to the site of the lighthouse. Strange though it seemed to build a railway our at sea, Stevenson realised it was the best way to transport the one-ton blocks for the lighthouse across the rock with its corrugated and spiky surface. Any damage done to the individually cut blocks, each one exactly shaped to interlock with its neighbour like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle, could render them completely useless.

 

With good weather continuing throughout June, James Dove and his assistant at his forge on a platform on the beacon were endlessly engaged making the fittings for the railway and sharpening tools. Meanwhile, masons laboured at the rock surface, shaping the 42-foot-wide circle for the lighthouse foundations. Stevenson had decided against using explosives to excavate the two-foot-deep foundation into the solid rock in case irreparable damage was done. Therefore, every piece of rock had to be laboriously dug out by pickaxe. The deeper they excavated, the harder the rock became. One man was continually employed replacing pickaxe handles while others were called to help bail out the foundations after each tide.

 

Meanwhile, the landing master and his crew of sailors helped the millwrights to lay the cast-iron railway. They built up the surface where necessary, sometimes as much as five feet, to accommodate the jagged unevenness of the rock. Viewed from the sea, the Bell Rock presented a strange sight. There were sometimes as many as 60 men crowded on its surface, 'the two forges flaming, one above the other’, wrote Stevenson, 'while the anvils thundered’. The entire work party was surrounded by clouds of hissing steam, oblivious of the crashing waves below. The sight was even more strange by night. If it was low tide, the men continued working by the light of the forges; strange dark shapes with their torches casting unnatural shadows over the pitted rock surface.

 

The calm seas and warm summer weather enabled the men to gouge out the reluctant rock in good time and by mid-July the two-foot-deep foundation for the lighthouse was ready. Irregularities in the floor of the rock had to be levelled with eighteen especially cut stones. The largest of these, the massive foundation stone of some twenty cubic feet, was engraved with the year 1808 and fitted with due ceremony. Flags were fluttering from the boats and the whole workforce was in celebratory mood. They stood in the sunshine and cheered as Stevenson and his chief assistants, Peter Logan and Francis Watt applied the token pressure from level and mallet. 'May the great architect of the universe complete and bless this building,' said Stevenson, in a moment of prayer. The motley workforce, standing almost on water it seemed, were absolutely confident that under Stevenson's leadership they could between them build this sheer and slender column that would defy the power of sea, wind, and the slowly creeping rust of time. The whole surface was smooth and ready and the construction of the lighthouse could now begin.

 

As the work gathered momentum, many workers chose to sleep on the beacon, rather than row all the way back to the bunks in the Sir Joseph Banks. Since the railway was not yet finished, every block had to be manhandled across the difficult terrain, yet by mid-August the first course of 12 interlocking blocks was in place - no small feat since the total weight of these blocks was 104 tons. A fortnight later, the second course was laid and trenailed into position. Oak was used for the trenails, which were slotted into previously drilled holes in the stone. These were then lined up with holes in the stone below to join one course to another. The men were much inspired now to see the bold curving lines of the lighthouse taking shape and were as keen as Stevenson to see the third course completed before work finished for the season.

 

Back at the yard in Arbroath, the engineer's clerk, Lachlan Kennedy, was conscious of the race against time, too. Kennedy arranged for the yard workers to load the Smeaton by torch light during the night of 20 September with the last seventeen stones of the third course, so that the ship might catch the 2 a.m. tide and be at the Bell Rock by breakfast. Stevenson and the men were delighted to see the Smeaton unexpectedly sail into view in spite of heavy seas and strong tides that morning, since it now looked possible to finish the third layer of blocks. Any satisfaction soon evaporated, however, as they became helpless witnesses to what followed.

 

Two men from the Smeaton, the mate, Thomas Macurich, and one of the crew, James Scom, a lad of eighteen, went in a small boat to attach the Smeaton's hawser to the floating buoy. This had become caught on a rock on the seabed, shortening the chain and depressing the buoy; the attaching ring of the buoy was barely above water. While the two men struggled with heavy rope to secure the Smeaton, the chain suddenly became disentangled and the large buoy vaulted up with such force that it upset their little boat. The two men were thrown into the sea.

 

While the mate managed to cling on to the gunwale of the boat, James Scott had been knocked unconscious and was quite unable to grasp anything that would save him. Before anyone could attempt a rescue, he was carried away by the strength of the current and disappeared. A distress signal was immediately hoisted, but he was never found. It was an unsettling tragedy for the men on the Bell Rock to witness, particularly as James Scott with his pleasant and willing disposition was everyone's favourite.

 

It was agonising news to have to break to Scott's family, too. His mother was overcome with grief. To add to her difficulties, her seaman husband was being held in a French prison and James was the only one who brought home a wage to her and her four other children. It occurred to the men that to alleviate her hardship, James's younger brother might take his place on the Smeaton, but no one could find the courage to suggest this to her. Eventually, the landing master, Captain Wilson, seeing her desperate circumstances, put the idea forward. 'Such was the resignation, and at the same time, the spirit of the poor woman,' wrote Stevenson, 'that she readily accepted the proposal and in a few days, the younger Scott was actually afloat in the place of his brother.'

 

The third layer of stones was duly laid making the lighthouse four feet high, although the achievement was robbed of its glory by the death of James Scott. Late in the season, with winds growing stronger, everything on the rock was made safe and left to the mercy of the winter seas. The busy days of summer were soon just a memory as the emerging lighthouse, the railway and the marks of humanity made by the men were claimed by the ghostly underwater world of winter at the rock.

 

***

 

Stevenson made his way back to the comforts of home, but not for long. He took the Smeaton on a short lighthouse tour in terrible weather, where it was pounded within an inch of destruction. Rennie made his annual visit, braving the continued storms, and was shown the season's work on the rock although suffering his usual agony of seasickness. That he approved of Stevenson's work was now clear to the solid, conservatively minded members of the Northern Lighthouse Board, who found they had in their employ, by some whim of fortune, Robert Stevenson, the coming man. Stevenson's greatest concern during the second winter was to find and prepare the best granite for the body of the lighthouse. This was not easy as most quarries could not produce enough rock of the size required. His search took him on long journeys all over Scotland. He favoured granite from the Rubislaw quarry at Aberdeen and transported it back in huge, uncut six-ton blocks. Several more craft were needed for the complex operation of transporting all the stone to the yard at Arbroath, where it was cut and prepared before being taken out to the rock. Two more ships were added to the fleet, the Patriot and the Alexander, as well as wide, flat-bottomed boats called praams, which would take the finished stone from the ships to the Bell Rock itself. One final crucial link in this chain of transport was a horse named Bassey who, unaided, carried the whole of the lighthouse, 2,835 stones, block by block from the yard to the quay.

 

Despite Stevenson's determination to make good progress at the rock, the harsh winter weather lingered into spring and it was snowing when the third season's work started in May 1809. The men began by repairing winter damage to the railway and continuing its progress around the lighthouse. Joists to create another floor level and battens for walls were added to the makeshift beacon, too. In spite of its frighteningly precarious appearance, there was increasing competition among the men to spend the nights there in preference to a berth on the Sir Joseph Banks. It had now survived two bleak winters and confidence in it was growing.

 

This confidence was rudely shaken within a few days, though, as shrill winds from the cold wastes of the north brought in a storm to remember with mountainous seas. Stevenson on board the Sir Joseph Banks was hardened to danger after years of sailing around the Scottish coasts. But even for him, the 'rolling and pitching motion of the ship was excessive . . . nothing was heard but the hissing of winds and the creaking of bulkheads'. His greatest fears were for the eleven men who had chosen to stay in the unfinished beacon. For 30 hours, in a building with no proper root no food, bedding or comfort of any kind, these men were exposed to the terrifying storm. As soon as was possible the crew of the Sir Joseph Banks set out for the rock with supplies and a kettle full of mulled wine, wondering just what they would find.

 

They were greeted with a scene of devastation. Huge seas had washed everything in the house away, even some of the lower floor. The beacon had suffered 'an ill-fared twist when the sea broke upon it,' Peter Logan said with some understatement, but miraculously all the men had survived. It soon emerged that during the storm their spirits had been kept high by a joiner called James Glen, who had regaled them with stories from his early adventures as a sailor 'after the manner of the Arabian Nights' . Glen had recounted such horrific tales of hardship at sea that the men were inclined to think that their own fate, in what amounted to a makeshift box perched just above the ravenous waves, was preferable. Indeed, so inured were they to the petty trials of life that Francis 'Watt and James Glen continued to sleep at the beacon house, declaring that they 'were not to be moved by trifles'.

 

Although conditions on the rock were unpleasant with strong winds and heavy seas, the beacon house was soon repaired and the space separated off into individual rooms. On the lowest floor the smith was at work, sharing the space with the workers mixing mortar. The second floor provided sleeping quarters with bunks for those who preferred to sleep at the beacon. A galley and a small cabin for Stevenson and Logan were added. Balking against unpleasant conditions, Stevenson would not allow anything to slow progress on the lighthouse. He need not have worried. By June, the tower was high enough for a rope bridge to be connected from the beacon house to the lighthouse and work continued as quickly as it could, irrespective of the tide. In fact, Stevenson almost had to restrain the enthusiasm of the men who would often row to the rock at daybreak at four o'clock in the morning to start their day's work.

 

By the end of June, the tower had risen to a height of twelve feet. The biggest problem was that the mortar was continually washed away by heavy seas, although an especially hard, quick drying pozzolana mortar had been used. There was no easy solution to this problem, except to hire more mortar mixers who were always prepared with fresh supplies. At this level the tower was too high to use the derrick cranes and an ingenious new balance crane was adapted particularly for the conditions of the tower by Francis Watt. From a central column a horizontal jib could be raised or lowered, the weight of the article lifted counterbalanced by a similar weight at the other end of the jib.

 

By 30 June, it was necessary to move the crane higher. It was now 35 feet above the rock and quite difficult to manoeuvre. During the operation, someone neglected to tie a purchase rope securely, which resulted in the crane and a ton weight on the jib falling with a terrible crash on the rock. Men

ran in all directions except for the principal builder, Michael Wishart, who had tripped directly under the crane. His feet were caught and badly mangled. It looked as though amputation was the only answer. White with shock and excessive bleeding, he was stretchered into a boat and hurried back to Arbroath. When Stevenson visited him a few days later, it was clear he had escaped amputation and was making a good recovery. He could no longer help to build the lighthouse, but he expressed the hope to Stevenson that he might ‘at least, be ultimately capable of keeping the light at the Bell Rock’.

 

By mid-July, high tide no longer covered the lighthouse. The beacon house was also now complete, with a roof of tarred cloth and moss lining the space between the walls for insulation. The walls themselves were covered with green baize, which created a much more homely effect. Most of the men wanted to spend their nights there, including the new cook, Peter Fortune. Fortune was a man of many talents; apart from working as cook and surgeon - for which he was paid three guineas annually - he also served as the barber, steward and provisions accountant.

 

On 22 July 1809, an express boat arrived from Arbroath with the news that an embargo was placed on all shipping while the army was en route to The Netherlands. The lighthouse ships were forbidden to leave Arbroath and the Smeaton could not supply the blocks that were needed to complete the half-finished thirteenth course. Stevenson, fretting at the delay, hurried to Edinburgh, where he argued that the lighthouse was a special case. The customs, however, were not to be persuaded and referred his appeal to the Lords of the Treasury in London. The situation looked bleak until Stevenson managed to coax the customs men into letting him take the necessary blocks and provisions out to the rock in the company of a customs officer. By early August, the tower was 23 feet high and the lower crane at ground level was now raised on a platform of blocks six feet high. This extra height enabled the lower crane to deliver blocks to the crane on top of the building. Work was proceeding well although the hot still days of summer had been few and far between. The men at the rock were constantly harassed by angry seas, soaking their clothes, flinging their tools about and washing the mortar from newly laid stones. By 1 August, 50-foot waves were crashing down with great violence upon the beacon. Yet in spite of these repeated attacks and with successive seas finding new weaknesses, there was a nucleus of men with courage beyond the everyday who would not give in to the elements.

 

On 20 August, a complete course of 53 stones was laid in one day and, less than a week later, the solid part of the lighthouse, consisting of 26 courses, was finished. It stood more than 31 feet above the rock, seventeen feet above high tide and marked the end of work for the season. This last stone of this significant level was laid with full ceremony and then the men set off to Arbroath with flags flying. Stevenson was frustrated at ending the work in August. There was still another 70 feet to build before the light could shine out. The whole season of 1809 had been plagued by bad weather, then the embargo. None the less, he judged it best to leave the solid stump of lighthouse to the mercy of the winter seas, rather than try to take the walls higher that year. Besides, he needed another crane since the one in use had guy ropes that were too long to be manageable in the face of the autumn gales.

 

Over the winter he hoped to appoint the lighthouse keepers. Stevenson decided that the Bell Rock must have at least four; three on duty and one on leave in Arbroath. He did not want a repeat of what had happened at the Eddystone where there had only been two keepers on duty. When one man had died, the remaining keeper, fearful of being accused of murder, had not informed anyone and when the light had been visited a month later the body had been found in an advanced state of putrefaction with the surviving keeper decidedly unbalanced.

 

It did not take Stevenson long to decide on his first keeper. John Reid, captain of the Pharos, was, he thought, a person 'possessed of the strictest notions of duty', and as his assistant he chose Peter Fortune, the cook, who had ‘one of the most happy and contended dispositions imaginable’.

 

Stevenson wanted the light on the Bell Rock to be very bright and easily identified so it would not be confused with any other lighthouse. Therefore, he set out on a tour to inspect other lights. This led to a number of technical improvements; the silvered surface of the reflectors, which directed the beams of light, had to be accessible for polishing to prevent the light from being dulled, and he devised a system to collect any oil that spilled below the burners. His key concern, however, was how to give the Bell Rock a unique signal.

 

Stevenson was particularly impressed with the new Flamborough Head Lighthouse in England, which used coloured light - two white beams followed by a red beam. The effect was created by mounting the reflectors on a rotating axle, which revolved around the light. The reflectors were arranged in three rows, with one of the rows covered in coloured glass. Stevenson also realised the mechanical device for moving the reflectors could control the striking of a bell - giving extra warning in heavy fog. Back in Scotland, he set to work experimenting with different designs and colours. Red invariably gave the strongest light. The Bell Rock Lighthouse, he decided, would flash a bright white light and then, at closer range, a red flash would alternate with the white. It was a design that would set the standard in Scotland for years to come.

 

***

 

At least the winter break gave Stevenson a chance to be with Jeannie again. She was heavily pregnant over Christmas that year and gave birth to a baby boy called James in February 1810. Stevenson enjoyed barely two months at home with his new son before salty sea spray at the cold and unwelcoming Bell Rock came into view for the fourth season. It was mid-April and there were still sixty-six courses to build. Through these stages the lighthouse would be narrower and no longer solid, so the stones would require very careful cutting if they were to fit into the exacting requirements of the spiral staircase, the separate rooms, the ceilings and the windows.

 

The first essential job of the spring was to build a substantial wooden bridge connecting the lighthouse to the beacon. This would speed up work as the heavy seas made it impossible to even set foot on the rock for almost a month. They soon found that seaweed had festooned the lighthouse and made walking on top difficult. It was clear, too, that during their absence the sea had broken into the beacon house, discovering the secrets of the rooms, visiting and revisiting, and left its watery mark on the green baize. A new balance crane was quickly erected, its various parts landed by the praam-boat in a strong easterly wind and hauled into position.

Yet it was still out of the question to start work in the blustery weather, which imprisoned the men in the beacon. The delay worried Stevenson; he dreaded the idea of the lighthouse still being unfinished by late summer, overtaken by bad weather as the higher courses were being laid. It would be impossible to send men up as high as 80, 90, 100 feet to lay masonry in the autumn gales where wind gusts of 90 m.p.h. were not unusual.

 

Work started in earnest by 18 May and the men entered into a race against time regardless of the weather. By 25 May the building had reached the door lintel. Less than three weeks later, they were covering the ceiling of the first room. By the end of June, the lighthouse assumed a fine inward curve and stood 64 feet high. Now the situation was getting dangerous. There was less room to work and a long way to fall; inattention or carelessness could be fatal. The job of pointing the walls was the most precarious; the men 'stood upon a scaffold suspended over the walls in a rather frightful manner,' wrote Stevenson. As the tower increased in height it was a constant fight to keep balance in the wind gusts and many workers lost clothing, jackets and hats to the sea below them.

 

'Work was again hindered in early July when storm-force winds battered the rock. Heavy seas pushed up from below the beacon house, carrying everything away, including provisions and equipment from the lower floor. It took two days to repair the damaged upper course of masonry where the sea had gouged out the mortar. Whatever the elements did now, however, the end was in sight. By 2l July, the last principle stone of the building was hauled to the quay in Arbroath by the indomitable horse Bassey, who was embellished with bows and streamers for the occasion. At the end of July, the last stone was laid to the ninetieth course by Stevenson. He was surrounded by azure skies and placid seas and every boat proclaimed the victory, hoisting colours and flying flags, the men cheering. The lighthouse now soared 102 feet 6 inches. 'May the great architect of the universe, under whose blessing this perilous work has prospered, preserve it as a guide to the mariner,' Stevenson said with his customary ceremony as he laid the stone.

 

All that remained was to fit out the light room. But on 15 August, with the final preparations being made, a storm - the like of which no one had yet encountered - hit the rock with awesome fury. The Smeaton broke anchor and drifted hurriedly for the Firth of Forth. The men 'cooped up in the beacon were in a forlorn situation, with the sea not only raging under them, but also falling from a great height upon the roof'. The bridge to the lighthouse was completely impassable from the quantity of sea that constantly gushed over it. With 80-foot waves, the lighthouse itself, still without a roof, had the sea pouring over the top of the walls and out of the windows and door. The storm lasted three days and the men on the floating light could only watch in horror as first the lower floor and then most of the one above were torn from the beacon by the waves. When the storm had washed itself away, the seventeen men in the beacon, pale and exhausted, but alive, started once again on repairs and clearing up.

 

By 16 October, the glazing in the light room was almost finished. That evening, James Dove gave orders for work to cease and the team of workers made their way down through the lighthouse and across the bridge to the beacon house for dinner. Two friends, Henry Dickson and Charles Henderson, were larking around now that the day's work was over, and made a competition of getting there first. They tried to outrun each other as they descended the lighthouse, Henderson in the lead. When Dickson reached the cookhouse he was surprised not to see his friend, who had been ahead. No one had seen him; and no one had seen him fall into the darkness of the water as he had lost his footing hurrying over the rope bridge. A search was made of the black and silent water but he was never found. It was the second tragedy inside two years, but the men, determined, worked on.

 

The light room was at last finished by the end of October. The reflectors were in place, the lamps made by Thomas Smith were fitted, the revolving clockwork machinery set up, and two five-hundredweight 'fog bells' were placed on the balcony. All was ready but the defining sheets of red glass, 25 inches square, were still missing. Red glass of this size was not made in England, and the one man in the country, James Oaky, who had been prepared to try, had not yet been inspired to create this important article. A foreman was sent to London with instructions to stand over Oaky until the red glass was produced and he duly did - the brilliant red glass was soon complete.

 

On 1 February 1811, the blackness enveloping the terrible power of the Bell Rock was banished for ever. A shooting ray of white light, followed by red, cut the night. Everything that Stevenson had strived for, everything his team of men had struggled for at such great risk to life, was condensed into a dazzling beam of light, which sent out John Gedy's original warning from the fourteenth century. The lighthouse that everyone had said was impossible now stood on top of the impregnable and ancient rock, totally conquering its ability to destroy. Huge seas could hammer at the slender column. Sea spray 100 feet high could hiss and curl around the light diffusing its brilliance, but it would stand a glittering star in the wildest storms.

 

It was an enormous achievement, bringing Stevenson wide recognition and acclaim. He had been young and relatively untried when he built the Bell Rock Lighthouse, but on the strength of this success he set up in business for himself as a civil engineer building lighthouses, bridges, harbours and roads. The Northern Lighthouse Board continued to employ him and he built eighteen lighthouses in all, often astride an impossible precipice whipped by the sea on some bleak wind-blown rock. And his sons and grandsons followed after him, festooning the rocky shores all around Scotland with sparkling beacons in the night.

 

He and Jeannie lived in their big house, so loved by the children and grandchildren, with mysterious cellars and secret lofts full of apples ripening and a lifetime's treasures. They were married for 46 years, their lives entwined more than they knew, and when Jeannie died in 1846, he found her absence unbearable. His own life had overflowed with riches exactly to his liking - full of comradeship and adventurous trips. His grandson, Robert Louis Stevenson, later wrote about the 'intrepid old man', who when told he was dying, fretted not at approaching death, which he had faced many a time, but at the knowledge that 'he had looked his last on Sumburgh, and the wild crags of Skye, and the Sound of Mull . . . that he was never again to hear the surf break on Clashcarnock; never again to see lighthouse after lighthouse open in the hour of dusk their flowers of fire, or the topaz and ruby interchange on the summit of the Bell Rock'.

 

He died in July 1850 at the age of 78. There were, of course, many tributes praising a life so full of achievement, including one from the Northern Lighthouse Board whose commissioners set a marble statue in the Bell Rock Lighthouse with the words: 'in testimony of the sense entertained by the Commissioners of his distinguished talent and indefatigable zeal in the erection of the Bell Rock lighthouse'. To this day it shines out over the North Sea and remains the oldest offshore lighthouse still standing anywhere in the world.

 

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Edited December 30, 2013 by ThisLife

[ThisLife]

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It’s that curious ‘no-man’s-land’ time of year between Christmas and New Year. All the relatives have gone back to their homes, the lovely presents are gradually getting incorporated into what feels like a fresh new phase of my life, the over-rich meals have thankfully subsided,… and, while that warm feeling of Christmas and friends still lingers I thought I would add some appropriate stories that could hopefully resonate with those sentiments.

The first wee poem below came from one of those collections of ‘spiritual insights’ books that someone gave us as a small present. This extract was on the opening page. For me, the poem had such a strong personal impact that I felt maybe others here might also appreciate it.

The second extract I came across the very next day, and at the time it felt that, (by wonderful synchronicity), here was a life story that perfectly fleshed out the condensed insight of the poem. Unlike any of the other stories on this thread, this one came off a Facebook link that a friend had posted. Normally I have mixed, and very dubious feelings about stories that fly around on Facebook. But this one felt something quite special. So, here they are,… hopefully a small bit of post-Christmas pleasure for anyone on the forum who enjoys stories :

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{1}

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Kindness

Is more important

Than wisdom,

And the recognition

Of this

Is the beginning

Of wisdom.

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{2}


A ‘Non–Intellectual’ Teaching Story


A NYC Taxi driver wrote:

I arrived at the address and honked the horn. After waiting a few minutes I honked again. Since this was going to be my last ride of my shift I thought about just driving away, but instead I put the car in park and walked up to the door and knocked.. 'Just a minute', answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across ...the floor.

After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 90's stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940's movie.

By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets.

There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware.

'Would you carry my bag out to the car?' she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman.

She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb.

She kept thanking me for my kindness. 'It's nothing', I told her, 'I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother to be treated.'

'Oh, you're such a good boy, she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address and then asked, 'Could you drive through downtown?'

'It's not the shortest way,' I answered quickly.

'Oh, I don't mind,' she said. 'I'm in no hurry. I'm on my way to a hospice.

I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. 'I don't have any family left,' she continued in a soft voice. ‘The doctor says I don't have very long.' I quietly reached over and shut off the meter.

'What route would you like me to take?' I asked.

For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator.

We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.

Sometimes she'd ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.

As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, 'I'm tired. Let's go now'.

We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico.

Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her.

I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.

'How much do I owe you?' She asked, reaching into her purse.

'Nothing,' I said

'You have to make a living,' she answered.

'There are other passengers,' I responded.

Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held onto me tightly.

'You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,' she said. 'Thank you.'

I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light. Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life.

I didn't pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk. What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away?

On a quick review, I don't think that I have done anything more important in my life.

We're conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments.

But great moments often catch us unaware-beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.


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Edited December 31, 2013 by ThisLife

[ThisLife]

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NOTE {Apologies for my poor computer savvy. I can't figure out how to paste this cartoon from the Word doc where I have it,... unless someone can offer me some practical advice}

 

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If a picture is worth a thousand words, then I’m not really sure of the ‘word count’ for the two mutually supportive halves of the cartoon above. But when its amusing ‘window of insight’ opened for me, it very soon turned my thoughts to that ‘two part drama’ that I’m sure many others here besides myself, find playing itself out in a significantly large portion of our life,…… the duality of : (1) the seeker, and (2) his or her goal.

 

Because since birth we’ve all been trapped inside our own body/mind mechanism, the nature of our ‘mind’s construction’ is to interpret this play of consciousness that runs continuously inside our heads,… as ourself being the subject and centre of awareness,... and our spiritual goal as the object. This is simply the way our minds were engineered to function.

 

But it is possible to come across teachers who claim to be living in the state of mind that they say ‘IS’ the goal we all seek. Often they are willing to pass on to us candid insights of what ‘we seekers' and 'our seeking’ look like from the perspective of the island in the cartoon, (or the boat,… whichever way our mind is drawn).

 

Below I’ve added four extracts ‘from the outside looking in’, taken from talks by two of my favourite teachers. The first three are by Wayne Liquorman, the last consists of a combination of three theme-related viewpoints by Richard Sylvester.

 

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*

 

 

 

 

 

{1}

 

When the understanding comes, it is always intuitive and instantaneous. In fact, this whole process of seeking is just designed to keep us busy while we’re waiting for something to happen.

 

*

*

 

 

{2}

 

{Q} : Does it matter if one yearns to evolve, to be – I don’t want to say “better” – but somehow more ?

 

{Wayne} : If you yearn to evolve, it matters for you. For the people who don’t yearn to evolve, it doesn’t matter. You can say to them, “It’s very important for you to yearn to evolve,” and they’re going to look at you like you’re crazy and ask, “What do I have to evolve for ?”

 

{Q} : So either path is okay ?

 

{Wayne} : Both happen. “Okay” or “not okay” is something that is subsequently put on top of what happens.

 

{Q} : We’re free to be what we are ?

 

{Wayne} : We are what we are. It is what it is. What’s happening is what’s happening. You can call it ‘freedom to be what we are’, or you can say ‘we’re enslaved to what we are’.

 

*

*

 

 

 

{3}

 

{Q} : Aren’t all human beings striving to end their sense of separation ? To experience this ‘Oneness’ that you’re referring to ?

 

{Wayne} : Many people go throughout their entire lives absolutely convinced that they’re separate beings. There’s no yearning that arises at all. There’s no sense of, “Oh, I have to find my True Nature.” That happens only with seekers. Now if you hang around with seekers all the time, then everybody you know has that yearning. That’s your culture. That’s your environment. That seems like the way everybody is. But, I promise you (laughs) that is not the way everybody is. The seeking only happens through a relatively few body-mind mechanisms.

 

But there are some people who, for whatever reason, become seekers; who care about healing this split experience between themselves and the world at large. Then there are others who experience the split who don't even recognize that they’re experiencing the split. For them there is just an incredible emptiness, and they become either drug addicts or alcoholics or food addicts or meditation addicts or anything that will temporarily heal this wound.

 

So, it’s absolutely true that these movements exist within this phenomenal world. Clearly they do. But not everyone is interested in consciously seeking their own true nature. Most people are interested in seeking more money or a better mate, so that in their sex-relations and their money-relations they can get more influence or power. So that they're not feeling so afflicted by the world, and they can exert their 'will' more successfully. They want power in their job, a promotion, so that instead of being on the bottom of the pile they can be on the top of the pile. Those are the things that most people are interested in.

 

Believe it or not, when people hear that there’s someone in Hermosa Beach talking about the nature of Being, and that it destroys all of your concepts -- relatively few people say : "Wow ! Let's go !” (laughter)

 

{Q} : Are you saying my being here wasn’t up to me?

 

{Wayne} : Yes, you have to be here. Right now you have to be here, you could not be anywhere else. People who have to be at the ball game are at the ball game, people who have to be at the opera are at the opera.

 

{Q} : So why are we here doing all this ?

 

{Wayne} : I know why all of us are here today. None of us got a better offer. It’s pretty sad, isn’t it ? This is the best we could do. (laughter)

 

{Q} : But I’m really glad I didn’t get a better offer !

 

{Wayne} : It’s nice when you feel like you’ve landed in the right place, rather than, “Oh, I shouldn’t be here. This isn’t right. I want to be somewhere else.” Because that’s suffering. The sense that things should be other than they are, is suffering.

 

But for you, as it is happening in this moment, your organism is programmed in such a way that this interaction produces joy,... happiness. However, the programming is dynamic; it’s changing all the time. You could come tomorrow – you’ve had a shitty day; you were in heavy traffic; you’ve got a stomach ache and a headache; you’re really not feeling well – and all this ends up sounding like so much mindless bullshit. So you say, “What the hell was I thinking of ? He was really good yesterday. What the hell happened to him?”

 

The thought could readily come in the very next instant, “This sucks...this guy is an idiot.” (laughter) "I'm outta here.” And then the next thought might be, "Somebody said that new movie was really good, I'll just slip quietly out the back here and see if the film has started yet.”

 

This in no way denigrates the happiness and the joy that you’re experiencing right now. That’s part of this moment. When it’s there, it’s there. It feels great. It’s part of what is in this moment.

 

We'll just have to see what the next moment brings.

 

 

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{4} Richard Sylvester on ‘Seeking’

 

 

*******

 

 

One of the problems which arises from our tendency to personalise our fantasy of liberation, is that we can create an idealised image of the guru or teacher.

 

One of the ways in which we keep ourselves seeking is to project onto a teacher an ideal of an ‘enlightened’ person who is so far above us that we can feel we could not reach their state in fewer than twenty lifetimes. We may create an idealised enlightened figure that is above any thought of pain and any possibility of suffering, who lives in utter bliss, who can perform wonderful siddhis and who can release us from our karma if we only show him enough devotion. There can be a powerful tendency to project this idealised figure out there. The more idealised this teacher is, the more our search can be kept going.

 

The search, particularly if it’s for spiritual enlightenment, is sustained by our sense of personal inadequacy. Most spiritual paths are sustained by this. “I am not yet good enough but if I follow the guru, repeat the mantra, do enough chanting, clear my chakras and receive darshan enough, then I will become good enough and one day I will be utterly purified.” All spiritual seeking stems from this core sense that “I am not yet adequate.”

 

Sadly, imagining that there is an idealised teacher out there who is totally adequate does nothing but sustain our own sense of inadequacy in comparison.

 

 

********

 

 

Of course spending time in the Funfair of Spiritual Seeking can be very entertaining. It can provide us with hope and purpose, a circle of like-minded friends, the company of charismatic teachers, and a way of spending our surplus income. It can also give us a colourful way of passing the time between birth and death, perhaps travelling to exotic places with our arms full of vaccinations and our rucksacks full of anti-diarrhoea pills.

 

But seeking also guarantees that we do not find, because it takes us away from presence. As long as we are looking for the ‘Secret of Enlightenment’ over there in some far away place and some future time, we cannot notice that this is already it right here, right now. This is already what we are searching for, the Promised Land, the hoped-for paradise.

 

However, this can only be seen when our sense of separation falls away. When the self is there, muddying the view with its neuroses and its incessant shouting for attention, then it cannot be seen that this is already it.

 

 

******

 

 

It’s very common for people to feel that they can help others to awaken by teaching them techniques. This is a confusion that arises when someone feels that liberation is personal to them and they can make it personal for you. A lot of spiritual communication is of this nature. At its heart lies the idea that “I have got to the end of the path, or at least further along the path than you have, and I can teach you how to get there as well.”

 

There’s nothing wrong with saying this but it happens to be totally misleading.

 

And remember that for the seeker, it can be very seductive to be told that there is something you can teach me which will bring liberation closer to me.

 

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Edited December 31, 2013 by ThisLife

[ThisLife]

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This is the final extract that I copied out of William Dalrymple's "Nine Lives". Something in me fell in love with the dream of India many years ago, and this attraction still carries on in these cameo pictures of India's ancient, vibrant, and unbroken spiritual life as it exists today. India has many of what must be the oldest unbroken religious/spiritual/philosophic traditions in the world. They still continue to this day,... though like everything else in this 21st century, some things have changed and some have stayed the same :

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William Dalrymple wrote:

 

 

 

THE SONG OF THE BLIND MINSTREL

 

 

On the feast of Makar Sakranti, the new moon night on which the sun passes through the winter solstice, from the Tropic of Cancer to the Tropic of Capricorn, a great gathering takes places on the Banks of the Ajoy River in West Bengal.

 

Around the middle of January, several thousand saffron-clad wandering minstrels or Bauls - the word means simply 'mad' or ‘possessed' in Bengali - begin to gather at Kenduli, in the flat floodplains of Tagore's old home of Shantiniketan. As they have done on this site for at least 5oo years, the Bauls wander the huge campsite, greeting old friends, smoking ganja and exchanging gossip. Then, as the night draws in, they gather around their fires, and begin the singing and dancing that will carry on until dawn.

 

You approach the festival through green wetlands, past bullocks ploughing the rich mud of the rice paddy. Reed-thatched or tin-topped Bengali cottages are surrounded by clumps of young green bamboo and groves of giant banyans, through which evening clouds of parakeets whir and screech. As you near the Baul monastery of Tamalatala, which acts as the focus of the festival, the stream of pilgrims slowly thickens along the roadsides. Bengali villagers herding their goats and ducks along the high embankments give way to lines of lean, dark, wiry men with matted hair and straggling beards. Some travel in groups of two or three, others travel alone, carrying hand drums or the Bauls' simple single-stringed instrument, the ektara.

 

Throughout their 500-year history, the Bauls of Bengal have refused to conform to the conventions of caste-conscious Bengali society. Subversive and seductive, wild and abandoned, they have preserved a series of esoteric spiritual teachings on breathing techniques sex, asceticism, philosophy and mystical devotion. They have also amassed a treasury of beautifully melancholic and often enigmatic teaching songs which help map out their path to inner vision.

 

For the Bauls believe that God is found not in a stone or bronze idol, or in the heavens, or even in the afterlife, but in the present moment, in the body of the man or woman who seeks the truth; all that is required is that you give up your possessions, take up the life of the road, find a guru find a guru and adhere to the path of love. Each man is alone, they believe, and must find his own way. Drawing elements from Sufism, Tantra, Shakta, Sahajiya, Vaishnavism and Buddhism, they revere deities such as Krishna or Kali, and visit temples, mosques and wayside shrines.- but only as helpful symbols and signposts along a road to Enlightenment, never as an end in themselves.

 

Their goal is to discover the divine inner knowledge: the 'Unknown Bird', 'The Golden Man' or the 'Man of the Heart, - Moner Manush - an ideal that they believe lives within the body of every man, but may take a lifetime to discover. As such they reject the authority of the Brahmins and the usefulness of religious rituals, while some - though not all - Bauls come close to a form of atheism, denying the existence of any transcendental deity, and seeking instead ultimate truth in this present physical world, in every human body and every human heart. Man is the final measure for the Bauls.

 

In pursuit of this path, the Bauls defy distinctions of caste and religion. Bauls can be from any background, and they straddle the frontiers of Hinduism and Islam. The music of ‘God’s Troubadours’ reflects their impulsive restlessness and their love of the open road. Travelling from village to village, owning nothing but a multicoloured patchwork robe known as an alkhalla, they sit in tea shops and under roadside banyan trees, in the compartments of trains and at village bus stops, busking their ballads of love and mysticism, divine madness and universal brotherhood, and the goal of Mahasukha, the great bliss of the void, to gatherings of ordinary Bengali farmers and villagers.

 

They break the rhythm of rural life, inviting intimacies and wooing and consoling their audience with poetry and song, rather than hectoring them with sermons or speeches. They sing of desire and devotion, ecstasy and madness; of life as a river and the body as a boat. They sing of Radha's mad love for the elusive Krishna, of the individual as the crazed Lover, and the Divine as the unattainable Beloved. They remind their listeners of the transitory nature of this life, and encourage them to renounce the divisions and hatreds of the world, so provoking them into facing themselves. Inner knowledge, they teach, is acquired not through power over others, but over the Self.

 

Once a year, however, the Bauls leave their wanderings and converge on Kenduli for their biggest annual festival. It's the largest gathering of singers and Tantrics in South Asia. To get there I flew to Calcutta and took a train north to Shantiniketan, determined to see this gathering for myself.

 

But first I had to find Manisha Ma's friend, Kanai Das Baul. Manisha had told me something of Kanai's story when I was with her in the Tarapith cremation ground.

 

When he was six months old, Kanai caught smallpox and went blind. His parents - day labourers - despaired as to how their son would make a living. Then one day, when Kanai was ten, a passing Baul guru heard the boy singing as he took a bath amid the water hyacinths of the village pond, or pukur. In Bengal, the pukur is to village life what the green was to medieval England: the centre of rural life, as well as acting as swimming pool, duck pond and communal laundromat. Kanai's voice was high, sad and elegiac, and the Baul guru asked Kenai's parents if they would consider letting him take Kanai as a pupil: 'Once your parents have gone,' he said, 'you will able to support yourself if you let us teach you to sing.'

 

In due course, many years later, after a terrible family tragedy, Kanai remembered the guru's words and set off to find him. He joined him on the road, learning the songs and becoming in time one of the Bauls' most celebrated singers.

 

Then, after the death of his guru, Kanai took up residence in the cremation ground of Tarapith, where Manisha, Tapan Sadhu and some of their friends helped arrange a marriage for him, to a young widow who looked after the shoes of visitors.

 

Kanai, Manisha told me, had arrived at the Kenduli Mela a few days ahead of me, and had already joined up with an itinerant group of other Bauls. They were all staying in a small house off the main bazaar: to get there you had to leave the bathers washing on the banks of the Ajoy and pick your way through the usual melee of Indian religious festivals: street children selling balloons and marigold garlands; a contortionist and a holy man begging for alms; a group of argumentative naked Naga sadhus; a hissing snake goddess and her attendants; lines of bullock carts loaded up with clay images of the goddess Durga; beggars and mendicants; a man selling pink candyfloss to a blare of Bollywood strings emerging from a huge pink loudspeaker attached to the flossing machine. All along the main drag of the encampment, rival akharas, or monasteries, of the different Baul gurus had been erected, interspersed with tented temples full of brightly lit idols, constellations of clay lamps and camphor flames winking amid the wafts of sandalwood incense filling the warm, dusty Bengali darkness.

 

By the time I found the house - a simple unfurnished Bengali hut - it was dark and Kanai's Bauls were in full song. They had scattered straw on the ground and were sitting in a circle around the fire, cross-legged on the floor, breaking their singing only to pass a chillum of ganja from one to the other.

 

There were six of them: Kanai himself, a thin, delicate and self-possessed man in his fifties with a straggling grey beard and a pair of small cymbals in his hand. Beside him sat a fabulously handsome old Baul, Kanai's great friend and travelling companion, Debdas, singing with a dugi drum in one hand and an ektara in the other. His hair hung loose, as did his great fan of grey beard, while a string of copper bells was attached to the big toe of his right foot which he jingled as he sang.

 

 

The three men - Kanai, Debdas and Paban - were old friends, and as the music gathered momentum they passed verses and songs back and forth, so that when one would ask a philosophical question, the other would answer it: a symposium in song.

 

The voices of all three men were perfectly complementary, Paban's resonant and smoky, alternately urgent and sensuous; Debdas's a fine tenor; Kanai's softer, more vulnerable, tender and high-pitched - at times almost a falsetto - with a fine, reed-like clarity. As Paban sang, he twanged a khomok hand drum or thundered away at the dubki, a sort of small, rustic tambourine. Kanai, in contrast, invariably sang with his sightless blue eyes fixed ecstatically upwards, gazing at the heavens. Paban would occasionally tickle his chin, and tease him: 'Don't give me that wicked smile, Kanai. . .'

 

The songs all drew on the world and images of the Bengali village, and contained parables that anyone could understand: the body, sang Paban, is like a pot of clay; the human soul the water of love. Inner knowledge found with the help of the guru fires the pot and bakes the clay, for an unfired pot cannot contain water. Other songs were sprinkled with readily comprehensible images of boats and nets, rice fields, fish ponds and the village shop:

 

Cut the rice stalks,

O rice-growing brother.

Cut them in a bunch

Before they begin to smell

Rotten like your body

Without a living heart.

 

Sell your goods, my store-keeping brother,

While the market is brisk,

When the sun fades

And your customers depart,

Your store is a lonely place . . .

 

Later, after dinner, Paban and the other Bauls went out to hear a rival Baul singer perform in the Kenduli market place, leaving Kanai on his own, sitting cross-legged on the rug, singing softly. I sat beside him and asked what he was doing.

 

'This is how I remember the songs,' he said. 'I am blind, so I cannot read and write the verses. Instead, when I am left alone, I hum a few bars and repeat the songs to myself to help me commit them to memory. It is by repeating them that I remember.'

 

Kanai smiled. 'There are some advantages to being blind,' he said. 'I can learn songs much quicker than other people, and pick up tunes very fast. Debdas says that I see with my ears. When he forgets, I have to remind him, even if it is a song that he originally taught me, or sometimes, even one he composed.'

 

At Kanai's request, I lit a cigarette for him, and we chatted about his childhood, as he filled out the brief picture of his life that Manisha had painted for me.

 

“ I was born in the village of Tetulia,” he said, not far from here, near Birbhum. I was born with eyes that could see, but lost my sight when I caught smallpox before my first birthday.

I was ten when my brother was killed in an accident involving a heavily laden bullock cart, and eleven when my father passed away too, from an asthma attack. This left me with the responsibility to feed my two sisters. They were growing girls and needed food. At first it wasn’t too hard. Once I got used to begging from my own friends, from door to door, I found it wasn’t difficult to get enough to fill all our stomachs. We were loved and looked after: I only had to say, “I am hungry” and I would be fed. The door of the poor man is always open – it is only the doors of the rich that close as you approach. If the people in the village came to hear that another family was going through a hard time they would always give them rice or a cow dung cake for fuel.

I joined the Bauls partly because it seemed the only way I could make a livelihood. But my guru soon taught me that there are much more important things than getting by, or making money, or material pleasures. I am still very poor, but thanks to the lessons of my guru, my soul is rich. He taught me to seek inner knowledge and to inspire our people to seek this too. He told me to concentrate on singing and did not encourage me to take the path of a Tantric yogi, though I have picked up a lot of knowledge of this sort from other sadhus and Bauls over the years.”

“Is it a good life ?” I asked.

“It is the best life,” said Kanai without hesitation. ”The world is my home. We Bauls can walk anywhere and are welcome anywhere. When you walk you are freed from the worries of ordinary life, from the imprisonment of being rooted in the same place. I cannot complain. Far from it – I am often in a state of bliss.”

“But don’t you miss your home ? Don’t you tire of the road ?”

“When you first become a Baul, you have to leave your family, and for twelve years you must wander in strange countries where you have no relatives. There is a saying, “No Baul should live under the same tree for more than three days.” At first you feel alone, disoriented. But people are always pleased to see the Bauls: when the villagers see our coloured robes they shout : “Look, the madmen are coming ! Now we can take the day off and have some fun !”

“Wherever we go, the people stop what they are doing and come to listen to us. They bring fish from the fish ponds, and cook some rice and dhal for us, and while they do that we sing and teach them. We try to give back some of the love we receive, to reconcile people, and offer them peace and solace. We try to help them with their difficulties, and to show them the path to discover the Man of the Heart.”

I asked, “How do you do that ?”

“With our songs,” said Kanai. “For us Bauls, our songs are source of both love and knowledge. We tease the rich and the arrogant, and make digs at the hypocrisy of the Brahmins. We sing against caste, and against injustice. We tell the people that God is not in the temple, or in the Himalayas, nor in the skies or the earth or in the air. We teach that Krishna was just a man. What is special about him in essence is in me now. Whatever is in the cosmos is in our bodies; what is not in the body is not in the cosmos. It is all inside – truth lies within. If this is so, then why bother going to the mosque or the temple ? So to the Bauls a temple or a shrine has little value : it is just a way for the priests to make money and to mislead people. The body is the true temple, the true mosque, the true church.”

“But in what way ?”

“We believe that the way to God lies not in rituals but in living a simple life, walking the country on foot and doing what your guru says. The joy of walking on foot along unknown roads brings you closer to God. You learn to recognise that the divine is everywhere – even in the rocks. You learn also that music and dance is a way of discovering the Unknown Bird. You come to understand that God is the purest form of joy – complete joy.”

Kanai shook his long grey locks. “There is no jealousy in this life,” he said. “No Brahmin or Dalit, no Hindu or Muslim. Wherever I am, that is my home.”

For many years now I have wandered the roads of Bengal, spending the rains with my guru, and after he died, in the cremation ground at Tarapith. Sometimes when I have tired of walking, I would work the trains between Calcutta and Shantiniketan. That was how I first met Debdas.”

“In a train ?”

“He was only sixteen,” said Kanai, “and had just run away from home. He was from the family of a Pundit, and had a childhood in which he needed to ask for nothing. But then he was thrown out for mixing with Muslims and Bauls, and he was innocent of the ways of the world. He had an ‘ektara’ but at that stage he hardly knew any songs. Though I was blind and he could see, it was I who taught him how to survive, and the words of the songs of the Bauls. Although we are from very different worlds, the road brought us together, and we have become inseparable friends.”

Kanai smiled, “But I shouldn’t be telling you his story,” he said. “You must ask him yourself.”

*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 1, 2014 by ThisLife

[ThisLife]

*

Just for a change of pace from the setting of the last extract, I thought I would add a trio of my favourite short literary romps by Bill Bryson. As most people here probably know, he's an expatriot American who has been living in Britain since the early 1970s. He fell in love with this country, (and is now in fact, the chairman of a very influential national organisation whose name says it all,… the 'Society for The Preservation of Rural England').

The first story is an account taken from what sounds like it must have been one of the most fun-filled childhoods that ever lit up the monotone predictability of Des Moines, Iowa. It's taken from my personal favourite book of his, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid.

The second he wrote as a kind of appreciative eulogy for England after the many years of his life that he has spent here. As an expat myself, it never ceases to amaze me the incredibly low value most English people have for virtually everything within their own country. Perhaps the fresh eye and ready wit of an outsider like Bill Bryson might help to loosen what I once read somewhere described as “the tyranny of viewpoint.”

In the final extract Bryson moves away from the narrow world of petty nationalistic concerns and happily deposits us smack-dab in the middle of the far more invigorating domain of his own wildly, utterly ridiculous,… imagination :

*

*

 

Bill Bryson wrote:

 

 

{1}

 

MATCH FIGHTING WITH THE WILLOUGHBYS

The Willoughby boys really were able to make fun out of nothing at all. On my first visit, they introduced me to the exciting sport of match fighting. In this game, the competitors arm themselves with boxes of kitchen matches, retire to the basement, turn off all the lights and spend the rest of the evening throwing lighted matches at each other in the dark.

In those days kitchen matches were heavy-duty implements – more like signal flares than the weedy sticks we get today. You could strike them on any hard surface and fling them at least fifteen feet and they wouldn’t go out. Indeed, even when being beaten vigorously with two hands, as when lodged on the front of one’s sweater, they seem positively determined not to fail. The idea, in any case, was to get matches to land on your opponent and create small alarming bush fires on some part of their person; the hair was an especially favoured target. The drawback was that each time you launched a lighted match you betrayed your own position to anyone skulking in the dark nearby, so that after an attack on others you were more or less certain to discover that your own shoulder was robustly ablaze or that the centre of your head was a beacon of flame fuelled from a swiftly diminishing stock of hair.

We played for several hours one evening, then turned on the lights and discovered that we had all acquired several amusing bald patches. Then we walked in high spirits down to the Dairy Queen on Ingersoll Avenue for refreshment and a breath of air, and came back to discover two fire engines out front and Mr. Willoughby in an extremely animated state. Apparently we had left a match burning in a laundry basket and it had erupted in flames, climbed up the back wall and scorched a few rafters, filling much of the house with smoke. To all of this a team of firemen had enthusiastically added a great deal of water, much of which was now running out the back door.

“What were you doing down there ?” Mr. Willoughby asked in amazement and despair. There must have been eight hundred spent matches on the floor. The fire marshal is threatening to arrest me for arson. In my own house ! What were you doing ?”

Willoughby was grounded for six weeks after that, and so we had to suspend our friendship temporarily.

*

*

{2}

"Suddenly, in the space of a moment, I realized what it was that I loved about Britain - which is to say, all of it. Every last bit of it, good and bad - Marmite, village fetes, country lanes, people saying 'mustn't grumble' and 'I'm terribly sorry but', people apologizing to me when I conk them with a nameless elbow, milk in bottles, beans on toast, haymaking in June, stinging nettles, seaside piers, Ordnance Survey maps, crumpets, hot-water bottles as a necessity, drizzly Sundays - every bit of it.

What a wondrous place this was - crazy as fuck, of course, but adorable to the tiniest degree. What other country, after all, could possibly have come up with place names like Tooting Bec and Farleigh Wallop, or a game like cricket that goes on for three days and never seems to start? Who else would think it not the least odd to make their judges wear little mops on their heads, compel the Speaker of the House of Commons to sit on something called the Woolsack, or take pride in a military hero whose dying wish was to be kissed by a fellow named Hardy? ('Please Hardy, full on the lips, with just a bit of tongue.') What other nation in the world could possibly have given us William Shakespeare, pork pies, Christopher Wren, Windsor Great Park, the Open University, Gardeners' Question Time and the chocolate digestive biscuit? None, of course.

How easily we lose sight of all this. What an enigma Britain will seem to historians when they look back on the second half of the twentieth century. Here is a country that fought and won a noble war, dismantled a mighty empire in a generally benign and enlightened way, created a far-seeing welfare state - in short, did nearly everything right - and then spent the rest of the century looking on itself as a chronic failure. The fact is that this is still the best place in the world for most things - to post a letter, go for a walk, watch television, buy a book, venture out for a drink, go to a museum, use the bank, get lost, seek help, or stand on a hillside and take in a view.

All of this came to me in the space of a lingering moment. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I like it here. I like it more than I can tell you."

*

*

 

{3}

In Einstein’s famous equation, E=mc², (as you will recall from schooldays), E in the equation stands for energy, m for mass and c² for the speed of light squared.

In simplest terms, what the equation says is that mass and energy have an equivalence. They are two forms of the same thing: energy is liberated matter; matter is energy waiting to happen. Since c² , (the speed of light times itself) is a truly enormous number, what the equation is saying is that there is a huge amount – a really huge amount – of energy bound up in every material thing.

You may not feel outstandingly robust, but if you are an average-sized adult you will contain within your modest frame no less than 7 x 10¹⁸ joules of potential energy – enough to explode with the force of thirty very large hydrogen bombs,… assuming you knew how to liberate it and really wished to make a point.

*

Edited January 2, 2014 by ThisLife

[ThisLife]

*

I have a great affection and admiration for Kurt Vonnegut. Without a doubt, I've read more books by him than any other author, and in the process, collected a great many 'gems' of what I consider to be his creative genius. I'm continually wanting to throw in quotes from him, but since they're often rather short and snappy little aphorisms I felt that they wouldn't quite work in a 'story' thread.

So, to solve the dilemma I thought I'd gather together a collection of what I felt was his 'Very Best', and then put them all down here in one giant "Splat !". (Thus hopefully venting, if only temporarily, this constantly bubbling admiration from my system.) As well, it might also provide a few moments' change of entertainment for anyone else in this forum who loves reading, and who appreciates the genius of story tellers like Vonnegut.

NOTE : In case there's anyone who isn't familiar with him, Kurt Vonnegut was an American writer who was born in 1922 and who died just a few years ago in 2007. His best known book was "Slaughterhouse Five", based loosely on his actual wartime experiences as a POW in WW II. He had been imprisoned in Dresden during the three nights that it was annihilated in a firestorm created by Allied saturation bombing. This so strongly affected the rest of his life that he became one of the leading American anti-war authors during the 60s and 70s. He was a Humanist, and also very dedicated to the preservation of nature and our environment.

He continued to write until his final years, and in his latter books he became so disenchanted with American foreign policy, (and George Bush in particular), that he wrote books with titles like "A Man Without A Country". The first of the extracts below he wrote during the rock bottom years of George W's reign.

The rest are just a collection of my favourites that I took from wherever they happened to pop up in the wide range of his books:

*

*

Kurt Vonnegut wrote:

*

Here's the news: I am going to sue the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company, manufacturers of Pall Mall cigarettes, for a million bucks ! Starting when I was only twelve years old. I have never chain-smoked anything but unfiltered Pall Malls. And for many years now, right on the package, Brown and Williamson have promised to kill me.

But I am eighty-two. Thanks a lot, you dirty rats. The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush, Dick and Colon.

*

*

Dr Kevorkian has just unstrapped me from the gurney after yet another controlled near-death experience. I was lucky enough on this trip to interview none other than the late Adolph Hitler.

I was gratified to learn that he now feels remorse for any actions of his, however indirectly, which might have had anything to do with the violent deaths suffered by thirty-five million people during World War II. He and his mistress Eva Braun, of course, were among those casualties, along with four million other Germans, six million Jews, eighteen million citizens of the Soviet Union, and so on.

"I paid my dues along with everybody else," he said.

It is his hope that a modest monument, possibly a stone cross, since he was a Christian, will be erected somewhere in his memory, possibly on the grounds of the United Nations headquarters in New York. It should be incised, he said, with his name and dates 1889 - 1945. Underneath should be a two-word sentence in German : "Entschuldigen Sie."

Roughly translated into English, this comes out, "I Beg Your Pardon," or "Excuse Me."

*

*
I once knew an Episcopalian lady in Newport, Rhode Island, who asked me to design and build a doghouse for her Great Dane. The lady claimed to understand God and His Ways of Working perfectly. She could not understand why anyone should be puzzled about what had been or about what was going to be.

And yet, when I showed her a blueprint of the doghouse I proposed to build, she said to me, "I'm sorry, but I never could read one of those things."

"Give it to your husband or your minister to pass on to God, "I said, "and, when God finds a minute, I'm sure he'll explain this doghouse of mine in a way that even you can understand."

She fired me. I shall never forget her. She believed that God liked people in sailboats much better than He liked people in motorboats. She could not bear to look at a worm. When she saw a worm, she screamed.

She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is doing.

*

*

“Like everyone else in the cocktail lounge, he was softening his brain with alcohol. This was a substance produced by a tiny creature called yeast. Yeast organisms ate sugar and excreted alcohol. They killed themselves by destroying their own environment with yeast shit.

Kilgore Trout once wrote a short story which was a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. Because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing that they were making champagne”.

*

*

OK, now let's have some fun. Let's talk about sex. Let's talk about women. Freud said he didn't know what women wanted. I know what women want. They want a whole lot of people to talk to. What do they want to talk about ? They want to talk about everything.

What do men want ? They want a lot of pals, and they wish people wouldn't get so mad at them.

Why are so many people getting divorced today ? It's because most of them don't have extended families anymore. It used to be that when a man and a woman got married, the bride got a lot more people to talk to about everything. The groom got a lot more pals to tell dumb jokes to.

A few Americans, but very few, still have extended families. The Navahos. The Kennedys.

But most of us, if we get married nowadays, are just one more person for the other person. The groom gets one more pal, but it's a woman. The woman gets one more person to talk to about everything, but it's a man.

When a couple has an argument, they may think it's about money or power or sex, or how to raise the kids, or whatever. What they're really saying to each other, though, without realising it, is this :

"You are not enough people !"

*

*


My uncle Alex Vonnegut taught me something very important. He said that when things were going really well we should be sure to notice it.

He was talking about simple occasions, not great victories; maybe drinking lemonade on a hot afternoon in the shade, or smelling the aroma of a nearby bakery, or fishing and not caring if we catch anything or not, or hearing someone all alone playing a piano really well in the house next door.

Uncle Alex urged me to say this out loud during such epiphanies : “If this isn’t nice,…what is ?”

*

*

In the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in His cosmic loneliness.

And God said, "Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done."

And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. ‘Mud-as-man’ alone could speak.

God leaned close as mud-as-man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man blinked.

"What is the purpose of all this?" he asked politely.

"Must everything have a purpose?" asked God.

"Certainly," said man.

"Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said God.

And He went away.

*

*

Tiger got to hunt,

Bird, he got to fly;

Man he got to sit and wonder,

“Why, why, why?”

Tiger got to sleep,

Bird, he got to land;

Man he got to tell himself

He understand.

*

*

“Why me?

--That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?

Yes.

--Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why."

*

*

People don't come to church for preachments, of course, but to daydream about God.

*

*

We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap.

*

*

One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.

*

*

There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: “Only nut cases want to be president.”

*

*

Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.

*

*

1492. As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America. Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for hundreds of years before that. 1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them.

*

*

Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.

*

*

Here's what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey.

*

*

"Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum."*

*

"

We're terrible animals. I think that the Earth's immune system is trying to get rid of us, as well it should."

*

*

"Being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead."

*

*

"And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human.

So she was turned into a pillar of salt.

So it goes."

*

*

"Where do I get my ideas from? You might as well have asked that of Beethoven. He was goofing around in Germany like everybody else, and all of a sudden this stuff came gushing out of him. It was music.

I was goofing around like everybody else in Indiana, and all of a sudden stuff came gushing out. It was disgust with civilization."

*

*

"I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, 'The Beatles did."

*

*

"Unusual travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God."

*

*

"If somebody says "I love you" to me, I feel as though I had a pistol pointed at my head. What can anybody reply under such conditions but that which the pistol holder requires? "I love you, too."

*

*

"Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns."

*

*

"What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured."

*

*

"Do you realize that all great literature is all about what a bummer it is to be a human being? Isn't it such a relief to have somebody say that?"

*

*

"She was a dull person, but a sensational invitation to make babies."

*

*

"I said I wasn't interested, and she was bright enough to say that she wasn't really interested either. As things turned out, we both overestimated our apathies; but not that much."

*

*

Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armour and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

*

*

Since Alice had never received any religious instruction, and since she had led a blameless life, she never thought of her awful luck as being anything but accidents in a very busy place. Good for her."

*

*

"Ever since writing Slaughterhouse Five I have been a sore headed occupant of a file drawer labeled 'Science Fiction', and I would like out. Particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake this drawer for a urinal."

*

*


If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC

*

*

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.

*

*

The crucified planet Earth,
should it find a voice
and a sense of irony,
might now well say
of our abuse of it,
"Forgive them, Father,
They know not what they do."

The irony would be
that we do know what
we are doing.

When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor
of the Grand Canyon,
"It is done.
People did not like it here.”

*

*

"Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well ?"

*

*

Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you'll look back and realize they were big things."

*

Edited January 4, 2014 by ThisLife

[ThisLife]

*

 

 

 

For my penultimate addition to this thread I thought I would bring things rapidly up as close to this present moment as the time-consuming operations involved in publishing and distributing books allow. This book arrived, hot off the press, just last year. I first came across several references to how good it was purported to be, in a Fiction Forum I sometimes visit on Amazon. It was unusual enough to find three different people on one thread recommending a book or an author I’d never heard of before, but when I read this review,… I simply had to find myself a copy :

 

 

“I am in my mid- 70's and have read thousands of novels. This book I would rate in my personal Top Ten of all time reads. By about page four I was laughing out loud - the story developed to cover such an amazing range of emotions and I found the characters totally rounded and believable. If I were able to give it 10 stars, I would. Hurry up with another, please, Mr Extence.”

 

Part of the attraction I guess, is that I’ve been teaching in secondary school for many years. But familiarity with adolescents, in my case, didn’t bring with it a sense of sharing a common ground of understanding on many of life’s concerns. The language pupils use with each other and the things they desire most,… all kind of left me feeling like I was a carry-over from an antiquated, fast-disappearing age.

 

But, when I came across Gavin Extence’s book, “The Universe Versus Alex Woods”, I felt like he kindly gave me an insider’s insights into the world of today’s youth and their view of this strange phenomenon of “school.” The excerpt below is about just that, but the book itself soon takes one off unexpectedly into very adult, very up-to-the-moment, concerns. After reading it I felt Mr. Extence had made a wonderful and essential bridge for me, to an age and a way of thinking I had previously found very foreign. Like the Amazon reviewer above I found the entire book a work of brilliance from beginning to end.

NOTE : Below the extract I have added two Youtube clips that I found very amusing. They are both short skits that take an adult dig at the slang that today's youth use to exclude us from their world, (exactly as I remember it was when I was the same age.) Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

 

*

*

 

 

 

{1}

 

 

WELCOME TO THE MONKEY HOUSE

 

In case you didn't know in secondary school - especially in the early years of secondary school - diversity is not celebrated. In secondary school, being different is the worst crime you can commit. Actually, in secondary school, being different is pretty much the only crime you can commit. Most of the things the UN considers crimes are not considered crimes at secondary school. Being cruel is fine. Being brutal is fine. Being obnoxious is fine. Being superficial is especially fine. Explosive acts of violence are fine. Taking pleasure in the humiliation of others is fine. Holding someone's head down the toilet is fine (and the weaker the someone, and the dirtier the toilet, the finer it is). None of these things will hurt your social standing. But being different - that's unforgivable. Being different is the fast-track to Pariah Town. A pariah is someone who's excluded from mainstream society. And if you know that at twelve years of age, you're probably an inhabitant of Pariah Town.

 

Being different sounds like a simple concept, but actually, it's quite complex. For a start, there are a few types of difference - a selected few - that are acceptable and won't result in you getting mud and stones hurled at you. For example, if you're different because your family is unusually rich (as long as it's the right kind of rich) and has three cars (the right kind of cars), then you'll probably be okay. Secondly, there are some combinations of difference that can cancel each other out. For example, if you're abnormally stupid in almost every area but also happen to have abnormally good hand-eye or foot-eye co-ordination - that is, if you're abnormally good at sports - then you'll definitely be okay.

 

The crime of being different is really the crime of being offensively different, and this can be broken down into several sub-crimes.

 

1) Being poor. This is the worst crime you can commit, but, again, it's not as simple as it sounds. Being 'poor' really means not having the right stuff - Nike trainers, an appropriate amount of pocket money, a PlayStation or Xbox, a mobile phone, a flatscreen TV and computer in your bedroom and so on and so forth. It doesn't matter if you don't have these things for reasons other than poverty. You're still poor.

 

2) Being physically different - too small, too gangly, too spotty, buck teeth, braces (to prevent buck teeth), too skinny, too fat (equals very fat), too hairy not hairy enough, excessively ugly, tendency to stutter or stammer, unacceptable pitch of voice, unacceptable accent, unacceptable odour, disproportionate limbs or features, cross-eyed, bug-eyed ,lazy-eyed, poor vision/crap glasses, lumps, bumps or humps, excessive freckling, large visible moles, unacceptable skin colour or tone, sickly, disabled, unacceptable bone structure, ginger hair.

 

 

3) Being mentally different - too clever, too stupid, too swotty, bookish, nerdy, weird hobbies and interests, just weird, incorrect sense of humour.

 

4) Having unacceptable fiends or relatives. Associating with people who commit the crimes listed above and below is also a crime - even if you live in their house and have little choice in the matter. Having a parent who won't let you do all of the things you should be allowed to do - the things everybody else is apparently doing - is also unacceptable.

 

5) Being gay. This has surprisingly little to do with what you do with your private parts (or, more accurately, what you'd like to do with your private parts). Being gay is more a state of mind; or sometimes, less often, a state of body. You could almost include it as a sub-crime in 2) and 3), but really, it goes beyond both of these categories. And because of the number of times it crops up as a specific accusation, it definitely deserves its own special category. But the best way to explain what 'being gay' means is to tell you some of the things that are gay.

 

If you're a boy, any display of sensitivity is gay. Compassion is gay. Crying is supergay. Reading is usually gay. Certain songs and types of music are gay. 'Enola Gay' would certainly be thought gay. Love songs are gay. Love itself is incredibly gay, as are any other heartfelt emotions. Singing is gay, but chanting is not gay. Wanking contests are not gay. Neither is all-male cuddling during specially designated periods in football matches, or communal bathing thereafter. (I didn’t invent the rules of gay - I'm just telling you what they are.)

 

Girls can be gay too, but it's much harder for them. And girls don't tend to call each other gay as much as boys do. When a girl is gay, she's called a dyke. Reasons for being a dyke include having thick limbs, bad hair or flat shoes'

 

Usually you have to commit quite a few of these crimes (or one very serious sub-crime) to earn yourself a permanent residence in Pariah Town. But as you've probably worked out, I committed crimes in every category.

 

1) I was poor - despite my mother owning a successful business, a house, a flat and a car. Compared to many single parents, my mother was a tycoon; but as I've explained, poorness and poverty aren't the same in secondary school. I could have taken in photocopies of my mother's bank statements and this wouldn't have swayed a single mind. The evidence against me was too damning. I didn't have the right stuff, therefore I was Poor.

 

2) and 3) My epilepsy meant that I was both physically and mentally different in a very obvious way - I was sick in the body and. in the mind. I was also quite short and a late developer, but this was just about compensated for by my being kept back a year - although, in most ways, being kept back a year was definitely not an advantage. This circumstance presented further evidence that I was probably retarded – even though I knew a lot of strange things (not the right things) and was also a swot. I may well have been unique in that I was the only person who seemed simultaneously too clever and too stupid.

 

4) You know about my mother already.

 

5) Most of my traits and all the things I liked were super-supergay.

 

Needless to say, the early years of secondary school were not a happy time for me.

 

*

*

 

{2}

 

Armstrong & Miller on ‘Modern, Cool Speak’ :

 

(1)

 

(2)

*

Edited January 4, 2014 by ThisLife

[ThisLife]

*

Inevitably, all things must come to an end. I've personally really found pleasure in making a compilation of some of the best stories that I've come across in my life available to others on this thread. In this post I’ve added the last group of three Tibetan stories from Brian Harris’s wonderful book, “Tibetan Voices: A Traditional Memoir” , to this ‘Tao Bums’ collection of tales. Under the circumstances, I then added one more story to the trio because it seemed to me to have a pleasing appropriateness to it.

 

I hope anyone reading along in this thread has managed to experience some of the same enjoyment that I did when I first came across these stories myself.

*

*

 

 

TEA AND PORRIDGE FOR 2,500

 

For one memorable year, I was the head of one of the large kitchens at Ganden Monastery where we prepared food for as many as 2,500 monks. I had twelve monks working under my supervision, and when extra help was needed, we called for the dob-dobs, the monks who did most of the physical work within the monastery. Twice a day, using huge cauldrons and enormous kettles, we prepared tea, and once a day we cooked a porridge made of wheat. Since the monks ate a simple diet, this was actually quite an easy task. My main job was to make sure that the correct amounts of the various ingredients were used, and that they were properly cooked. You might not think so, but the right quantity of salt and butter is crucial when making Tibetan tea. Often there was a prayer ceremony in the morning, so we would begin to boil the water for the tea the night before. Since the kettle was a very large one, holding up to a thousand gallons, it was necessary to keep the fire going all night. Once the water was boiling, up to sixteen bricks of tea were added and mixed in with long ladles. While the monks stirred the tea they sang a prayer, "Ah-Ha-Ho-Ah-Hung," and this chant could be heard throughout the monastery grounds. So much tea was used by our monastery that local farmers would come to the kitchens and cart off the used tea to feed it to their animals and to spread it as fertilizer in their fields.

 

I remember the four large, six-foot-high tea churns, sunk deep into the ground of the kitchen floor; that would be filled with butter and salt. Into each churn would go twenty-five or thirty kilograms of butter often supplied by the prayer ceremony's sponsor. The butter came in huge lumps packed in yak hide and it took a really strong monk to pick one up. During each tea time, hundreds of kilograms of butter were used. The churns were held down by a few dob-dobs, while others did the churning. At the start of churning, the strength of two dob-dobs was needed to work the plunger, which made the sound "dang-chang, dang-chang." When the butter was mixed in with the tea, two or three monks would lift the churns by their attached ropes and pour the butter tea back into the kettle. This churning process had to be repeated ten times to make all the tea. Then I would come down from the fireplace and go off into a cool corner of the kitchen to taste the tea. I might do this tasting two or three times each morning, until the tea was just right.

 

When the tea was finally ready, a gong was sounded to call the dob-dob servers to the kitchen. They all came running with their serving pots, anxious to be first in line to get the tea and take it back to the thirsty congregation of monks! The servers were so excited and wild that monks with sticks stood around the kettle to beat and control them. When these servers were hit, it wasn't like beating human beings because they just didn't care. It was a matter of great pride for those dob-dobs to be the first back into the prayer hall with the delicious tea.

 

While the tea was being churned, a monk would make his round of the monastery with a gong to remind the other monks of a particular legend or story. In one story a deity's servant called Adzer milks a snow lion and puts the milk into the tea. In another, that same Adzer keeps the fires lit under our kettles with basketfuls of dung cakes. It was due to Adzer's power that the dung cakes burst into flames by themselves!

 

In addition to the twice-daily tea, we would occasionally make a special rich porridge of rice called paksurna. It looked like rice pudding, but was much thicker. As chief cook I was responsible for making sure that the right amounts of water and other ingredients were used - not an easy task, since the cauldron used to make this porridge was enormous. When I was a very young boy, this cauldron was brought in pieces over the Himalayas by a wealthy business family. These pieces were then reassembled with large iron bolts. We used these bolts that stuck out from the sides of the cauldron as a way of measuring the amount of water required for cooking. To clean the cauldron, I had to send several monks down inside to scrape its sides with shovels. It was so big that thirty to forty monks standing side by side were needed just to surround it. During the geshe examinations sixty kels (1,200 kilograms) of rice were used to prepare the large amounts of porridge needed to feed everyone at the gathering.

 

To make paksuma, butter was first melted in the cauldron and then drawn up the sides to harden, after which the water was poured into the pot up to the eleventh bolt. To make sure the quantity was accurate, a separate pot was used to mix the salt and water and then this mixture was poured into the cauldron. After I tasted the water to see if the amount of salt was correct, the rice would be added from four sides of the cauldron, while from two other points kitchen workers stirred with large wooden paddles.

 

I kept a close watch at this time, and when the cauldron became red hot at the bottom, I would give the signal that no more fuel be added to the fire. After hours of cooking, when the mixture finally rose to the fourteenth bolt, I knew that the water had boiled off and the porridge was ready. Another way I could tell was to put my ear to the side of the cauldron and listen to the sound of the cooking. If it sounded like "pick, pick, pick," then the porridge was going to be very good; but if I heard "bloop, bloop, bloop," I was about to be in a very embarrassing position.

 

In order to boil the water and cook the rice for this porridge, the fire would be started the day before at about five in the evening. By nine that same night I would call out that the fires should be pulled away and the cooked rice covered with sacks. Then we would go to sleep. In the early morning, a monk would come and say a prayer over the porridge. Twenty-five more buckets of melted butter would be added to the cooked porridge, along with three or four large basins of dates, pieces of fried yak meat, and some more salt. Sixty dob-dobs would come to help and mix the porridge with a large wooden paddle. The paddle had ten ropes attached at its middle, and at the end of each rope was a dob-dob ready to pull the paddle toward himself, while five others held on to the paddle itself. They moved all around the outside of the cauldron, with great bursts of back and forth movement, mixing the porridge from different sides, while the other monks added butter or just gave advice.

 

During the mixing more ingredients were added. such as raisins, almonds, and apricots. When the mixing was finished, the porridge was tamped down to make it level; if hit in one spot, the whole thing rolled and settled into place. Then the sponsor of the puja would be called to check the porridge, after which he would come to see me as the head cook. If he was pleased I was thanked and perhaps given a gift. This special porridge was usually made two or three times a month, but during the winter prayer festival called Gunchoe it was made every day for fourteen days in a row and required a great deal of work on our part.

 

Just as with serving the tea, when it came time to serve the porridge it was very dangerous and there was rots of pushing, shoving. and fighting. One hundred and fifty dob-dobs, from all the different monastery sections, would arrive with their serving buckets to see who would be the first to get the porridge from the kitchen back to his prayer hall. Shovels were used to load the porridge quickly into their buckets while forty to fifty other monks tried to keep order by using sticks to control this wild competition. Once outside the doors of their large prayer halls the servers would wait for the order to start. Then they would all rush in and start serving the food, first to one monk, then another and another, moving very quickly down the rows of monks. The servers used heavy metal ladles that had beautiful wooden handles with red pieces of cloth fastened to their tips for decoration. With one scoop and a slap, each monk’s bowl was filled. Anyone who got in the dob-dobs' way was simply pushed aside. You might think that all this happened without order or discipline, but the monks with the sticks kept everyone in line. If a server received even ten hits with the sticks, he would not be angry. He just accepted it.

 

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ENCOUNTER WITH A YETI

 

 

In the summer I often went out hunting for two or three days, taking a tent and a yak to carry my supplies. I would usually hunt wild goat and antelope for meat and skins, using an old musket and handmade musket balls. All hunters and nomads had to be very careful of wild yaks since they were known to attack humans sometimes. The wild yak is huge – its head and horns can measure as much as five feet across and its tongue is so rough that it will take off not only skin but flesh as well. The yak licks until it sees blood, which is why they say that you should wear red underneath your clothing - if the yak attacks, it will stop when it gets to the red clothes.

 

The animals that gave us the most trouble were wolves. They could be a real problem because they killed sheep, goats, and horses, and even our yaks. In the autumn the wolves would give birth, and then they would be constantly killing sheep and goats to feed their cubs. The worst thing was that they would kill the animals and then just take the head. They trained their cubs by rolling the heads down steep slopes so the cubs would run after them - this was how they learned to hunt. Sometimes we would burn cow dung at night, and the fires might keep them away, but there was really very little we could do to protect our herds. Generally we didn't have much to fear from wild animals and I wasn't concerned for my life when I went hunting, but sometimes strange things happen.

 

One day, I was running after an antelope in a very narrow valley with a stream flowing through it. I had gone deep into the valley tracking this antelope and by the time I reached the valley’s end I had lost the animal’s tracks. There was no way I could climb up the rocky slopes because they were too steep, so I jumped over the stream and began to head back. I didn't see the yeti at first, but it must have been close to me when I jumped, because it took fright and ran away. He was big, like a yak running on all fours. His hair was long and reddish brown on the outside and black closer to the body, but his face was clean like a human’s. There are two types of yeti: one type eats human beings and the other eats animals. The yeti that eats animals has a lot of hair on its face, but the one that eats people has a long hairless face, and very big ears. The one I met must have been the human-eating kind, since he had a smooth face.

 

The yeti ran some distance away, then sat down on a boulder and stared at me. I stared back. I thought about shooting him, but he hadn’t tried to harm me, and anyway, old people say that killing a yeti is a very great sin. The yeti was trying to hide by making himself rook smaller. Because of this, I felt he would not attack me and, although I was quite afraid, I didn't look back as I quickly walked back down the valley. I didn’t realize that the yeti had started to follow me until suddenly he appeared just three feet away. I was on a very steep rock face and had no time to fire my musket, so l pulled out my knife and advanced toward him. The yeti, seeing the knife, thought the better of attacking me and ran off.

That was the last I saw of him.

 

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MASTERING METAL WORK

 

 

To amuse myself as a child, while looking after my family’s animal herds I used to dig for clay in the ground and make animal or human forms out of it. I kept many of these clay statues on the porch of our house, where people admired them and said how lifelike they were. I particularly liked one of them, the figure of an old man. He was very old, without teeth or hair, and when he slept he would just blow because he had no teeth. He would often come with me when I went to rook after the animals. We liked each other very much !

 

A horoscope had been cast for me at the time of my birth that said I would achieve fame and success if I were allowed to pursue some kind of craft. Nevertheless, my farming family was quite surprised to see me at an early age demonstrate a talent for clay modeling and drawing, since there was no history of these skills in the family. Everyone thought that it would be very good for me to work with the animals because I had an aptitude for making harnesses and other equipment for our horses, donkeys, and yaks. I made saddles, straps, ropes, and leads, and this was considered to be a very helpful and important contribution to our household. But my real interest lay elsewhere.

 

There was a teacher of metal sculpture near my village who had many students, and I used to go quite often to his house to watch the younger students do their preparatory drawings. I would copy these boys, and people said I drew better than they did even though I had received no training. So my family decided that, because of the strong karmic connection demonstrated by my talent and my innate liking for the craft as well as by the horoscope's indications, I should be allowed to study it. At the age of fourteen, I began to study metal sculpture.

 

My first teacher was Zamla Dorje, with whom I studied for ten years.When I first became an apprentice along with sixteen other students, I was like the longest finger -I stood out as the best one. First we were taught how to draw the image of the statue we were going to make, then how to draw diagrams showing all the correct proportions. Next we were taught how to emboss with a chisel and how to make a clay model for the statue. Craftsmen usually specialized in some aspect of their work, so after ten years, when I had learned everything I could from my first teacher; I spent two years studying with the master Chola Shilo, who was renowned for his skills in embossing, and another two years with Dhembu Chola Eunghe, who was famous throughout Tibet for his drawing. After fourteen years under these three eminent masters I felt confident that I could not only create statues of deities in their peaceful and tantric forms, but also teach my skills.

 

While I was still an apprentice, I was assigned to work on a large order commissioned by the government when the Fourteenth Dalai Lama was expected to be reincarnated. Three thousand statues were to be constructed - one thousand each of the three long-life deities. They were to be cast in copper then gilded using gold leaf. Normally for this kind of commission all the craftsmen would gather in Lhasa, but on this occasion all the master craftsmen from Lhasa and Shigatse came to Tsetang, the region where I lived. They all stayed at the house of a master who was famous in our region and their expenses were paid for by the government. Although it was a large house, it was packed, as there were about one hundred and sixty of us working there. I did not stay in the house, since I could go back to my own home in the evenings to eat my meals and sleep.

 

Each of us was assigned one of the three deities, and my job was to work on the statues of Namgya Ma. Since I was not yet fully trained, I was required to do only the embossing; the other stages were done by crafts- men who specialized in those particular processes. All the artisans of different trades would sit together, so I sat with the other craftsmen who were doing embossing. During the day, tea and chang (a Tibetan beer) were served to us while we worked. It was a relaxed and friendly atmosphere - we would talk and laugh and sometimes have picnics, and on occasion there would be drinking.

 

This was a very happy time for me and I felt confident that I would excel in my task. The painstaking and detailed work of embossing is the most important stage in the creation of a statue, as it brings out all the fine features of the deity. I was only nineteen at the time, and when I showed my work to my master and the others they were very pleased and impressed because I was so young. I was ordered to take the statue I had embossed and present it to each of the other one hundred and sixty craftsmen in turn and say, "This embossing has been done by me.” Since it was an order, I had to do it. But I knew well what a good statue should look like and the qualities of fine embossing, so I really had no qualms. I felt I had done my part as well as it could be done. In all, I embossed about fifteen statues, each one taking about twenty-five days. Completing all three thousand took us about two years. These statues are now in the Norbulingka Palace in Lhasa.

 

Before beginning the construction of a statue, it is essential to perform a prayer ritual, or puja. lf possible, this should be done at the beginning of the day, month, and year, with astrological calculations to determine the timing. First, one should make sure that the day, time, and position of the stars in the sky are auspicious and that many other factors are in harmony. For example, the craftsman should not be a hereditary blacksmith, or a butcher or any other occupation considered to be of low status in Tibetan society. The most favourable situation is one in which the artisan doing the work is a monk, or, if that is not possible, then a layman who has taken the five basic vows - not to kill, steal, engage in sexual misconduct, drink liquor, or lie.

 

The artisan should cultivate the attitude of a bodhisattva, imagining that he is an embodiment of Vajrapani – the celestial bodhisattva who represents the concentrated power of all the Buddhas - regardless of what image he may be working on, and that his assistants are also heavenly beings. Everything associated with the task should be considered very sacred, even the clay or metal being worked on. Before starting work he should take refuge in the Buddha, dharma (the Buddhist teachings), and sangha (religious community. He should think of the image as being made for the benefit of all sentient beings. He should meditate and recite the mantra of the particular deity being fashioned. He must also seek the permission of the spirit of the earth before using her substance to create the deity, asking her to allow him to create the statue for the welfare of all beings.

 

After a statue is completed, the monks put written prayers and other sacred objects inside it and cover it with brocade. Then they gather all the statues together and sit for days performing a ritual of purification and blessing. It is recommended that viewers keep their eyes open when looking at a statue or thangka in order to receive the spiritual qualities inherent in it. Even if a viewer does not have a particularly reverent attitude, if his eyes see the image, he will receive the blessings of the deity’s qualities.

 

After my two years of study with my third teacher, Dhembun Chola Eunghe, I began to work with him on a commission for twenty-one statues of Tara. When the statues were finished, it was easy to see that my work was just about as good as my teacher's. Having reached this level of ability, and thanks to the kindness and skill of my masters, I now felt confident that l could make any kind of statue. However, I was only able to work with my teacher for two years because the Chinese army came and occupied Tibet. It was as if day suddenly turned into night. At the time, the existing master craftsmen were quite aged and ready to retire, but before they did so they were required by the government to select renowned craftsmen as their replacements. They had recommended Dorje Tsering and myself for the position, but because of the invasion this never came to pass.

 

Now my craft is at an end, as there are only three elderly masters surviving both inside and outside Tibet, of whom I am the youngest. There are other craftsmen doing this work, but it is not authentic, because it is not done according to tradition and the scriptures. I am trying to record my experiences, but since I only studied writing for six months as a child, you can imagine how slowly I write.

 

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EVERYTHING MUST GO

Six months before the Chinese invaded Lhasa, a lama from Sakya Monastery said that he wanted to do a big fire puja, a ritual fire in which offerings are burned for the purpose of purification. He told everyone to buy all different types of grain and seeds, such as barley, rice, black sesame seed, and so on. The people thought, “Well, for a big fire puja we'll need a lot," so they obtained a great quantity of each type of grain and seed. The day of the fire puja came, and the first thing the lama said to his wife was that she should bring all her jewellery to him. When she asked him, "What are you going to do?” he said, “I’m going to do a fire puja." She was really worried. "Those are my precious turquoise, corals, and dzis," she said in a shocked voice. He said, “No, no. l’m really serious." She wasn't happy but . . . he was the lama. She brought all the jewels and he threw them into the fire. Then he threw some of his own possessions on the fire, including some ritual objects and Buddhist texts. He told his students, "Whatever you want to bring, just throw it in. Throw everything into the fire." So it was no longer an ordinary fire puja. Strange things were burning and the smells were completely different from those to which everyone was accustomed. Then he told the whole monastery, "Bring all the decorations from inside the monastery, those banners and the long brocades, everything, and throw them into the fire." Some people were certain that the lama had gone mad.

Six months later the Chinese invaded. During the Cultural Revolution everything was destroyed. Then everyone at Sakya Monastery understood the lama and his strange fire puja.

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Edited January 5, 2014 by ThisLife

[ThisLife]

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I must confess that I have periodically been taking surreptitious glances at this thread to see if any people were finding enough of interest in it to warrant extending it a bit by adding a few more stories. I've just returned home from doing some cold and muddy old work outdoors, and now, warm, clean, refreshed, and sitting at my computer again,... I noticed that today the number of viewings had reached one thousand.

 

I'd promised myself that if it ever hit that number I would throw in the last two Tibetan tales that I have in my computer files. They seem to be the most well-liked of any of the different types of stories that I've added on this thread. To me they are examples of such rare and 'soon-to-be-gone-forever', first hand accounts, that it would be selfish of me not to share them with as many people as possible. I know I'll never lose or forget my deep-seated love and respect for the Tibetan people and the terrible tragedy that overwhelmed what sounds like it must have been one of the most perfectly balanced societies in our modern world.

 

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Brian Harris wrote :

 

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A TAILOR’S TALE

When I was young, Lhasa was still a small city surrounded by parks, lakes, and wooded areas, people liked to go to the Kyichu River and enjoy themselves, eating, playing games, and swimming. Each park had a name. Our family house was in the Torgyarinka park and we were known as the Torgyaling family. My playmates poked fun at me and asked why I was named after a park.

My father always believed that I was lucky. It is a custom in Lhasa to mark a baby's first outing with a visit to the Jowo statue housed in the Jokhong Temple. After requesting the statue’s blessing, my father put me down on the ground and prostrated three times. When he picked me up he found a piece of coral in my hand. It was the kind used as an ornament for the top of hats and it is considered a sign of luck. My parents were overjoyed by such an auspicious omen.

My father taught me to read and write, and began teaching me to sew when I was eight. I learned very quickly, and my first feat was sewing a tonga, or monk's shirt. Someone had brought it to my father for stitching, and I picked it up and began to work on it. My father was afraid I would ruin it, but I looked so sure of myself, he let me have my way. Tongas at that time were not what they are today. They had brocade pieces sewn into the front, and making them required special skills. My father was very proud that I executed the work faultlessly. After that, he took me with him everywhere on sewing trips, and I sat at the end of the line of tailors, assisting the elder ones in sewing edges. This was a tedious but important job that beginners had to master.

When I was ten, my father was called to make appliqué thangkas of the sixteen Arhats (arhats are completely enlightened saints) for a high-ranking lama. We used very beautiful brocades. I was the youngest tailor and again I sat at the end of the line. When we had made all the Thangkas of the arhats, the lama said that the main thangka, which represented the Buddha, was very important and that he didn't mind wasting material to attain perfection. He ordered that each of the eight tailors present make a Buddha's face, saying he would choose the best among them. Being so young, I was not counted among the tailors and my father asked if I could take his place, explaining, "This child is very special. He won't make it worse than me and we may get a surprise." My Buddha's face turned out to be the best and was selected for the thangkas.

I also accompanied my father on his tent-making jobs. Tents were very popular in Lhasa and were used by the aristocrats and wealthy merchants when they had picnics. They were pitched at specific times in the parks surrounding Lhasa. The Tsetrunglingka Park was the main picnicking spot for high officials, and for seven to ten days they would take up residence in a special pavilion. The officials pitched their tents on the roof or around the pavilion and entertained their friends. The arrangements were very elaborate, with carpets and tables spread out and beautiful thangkas hanging on the walls. In the early 1920s, the tents were still made of felt and most were round, in the Mongolian style. They were very heavy and hot in the summer. My father devised a new style, with doors and windows, made of white cotton. They were heavily decorated with appliquéd patterns, in cotton or brocade, and instantly became popular. All the Lhasa tailors were soon busy making such tents and I practiced my stitches on the borders.

I often went with my father to Drepung Monastery to see Demo Rinpoche. One day when I was twelve, and we were on our way to receive a long-life initiation. I suddenly noticed a magnificent array of buildings above Drepung. The walls were white and the roofs glittered with gold. In the middle was a three-story stupa, and people were circumambulating it. I couldn't understand what this stupa was - it certainly wasn't Drepung, Sera, or Ganden. I pointed to it and asked my father. He looked in the direction I indicated and stared incredulously at the empty sky before him. He admitted he couldn't see anything and promised to ask Demo Rinpoche about it. Demo Rinpoche laughed. He said I had seen the fields of great bliss and advised that I go and beg for tsampa from as many households as I could. Rinpoche was very eccentric and, as a young child, I couldn't imagine behaving so boldly, so I never followed his advice.

About that time, friends of my father noticed my skills and told him that it would be a waste to keep me at home. They suggested that he register me in the Sokhang, the tailors’ guild, and see if he could enter me in the government tailoring unit, where l could further my skills through higher training. At that time, all tailors in Lhasa had to register with the Sokhang or be barred from work. When I was young there were seven hundred registered tailors in Lhasa. The most highly skilled among them formed an elite of one hundred and thirty who fulfilled all the government's tailoring needs. All the tailors wore a boto, the round yellow hat shaped like half a grapefruit that indicated government service.

When I was young, the Sokhang sent a petition to the Dalai Lama asking for a raise in pay. The Tibetan cabinet, or Kashag, decreed that, though the government could not pay the tailors more, they would establish a private tailor's tax that would be used to cover the salaries of the government tailors. It was payable each year in December. Registration was compulsory, and failure to register was punishable by ten lashes of the whip. The rule was enforced by the tailors themselves. I remember being sent around Lhasa to try and spot undeclared tailors, who could be identified by needles stuck into the lapel of their chuba or bits of brocade thread sticking to the wool of their clothes.

The year I entered the Sokhang there were twelve other tailors on the list. Since my father was the secretary, it was simple for him not only to enter my name, but to put it at the top' New tailors had to do many chores, but my father arranged to have someone else do mine. The apprenticeship of a tailor proceeded in very precise stages. Just learning to hold the needle took about four months, during which time the novice practiced sewing hems and edges. Hand sewing was a highly developed skill, and a good tailor could hand stitch as many as eight shirts a day. Masters developed speed and quality in their pupils by grouping them into small units of five or six students and organizing competitions to detect the fastest and neatest among them. The senior apprentice slapped the ones below him, so there was a very strong drive to stay on top. One day, I came in second in a speed competition and got a black eye. Realizing the danger, masters discontinued face slapping, and instead we had our wrists slapped with bamboo sticks.

When he looked at the work of beginners, the master counted out the stitches that were well done to make his apprentice feel that every stitch mattered. Under this system, our handiwork became fast and fine. If bad work was presented to the master, he wouldn’t utter a word. Instead he'd let out an exclamation of disgust and discard the piece with a look of revulsion. The other tailors would then pick it up, pass it around, and comment roundly on its faults. Finally, the master would take it up and explain to the humiliated apprentice how to improve.

Precious and ancient brocades were the principle material used by members of the Sokhang, but apprentices were made to practice their sewing and cutting on cheaper materials for a long time before they were allowed even to touch the precious fabrics. Master tailors had to use all their skills to carefully plan the use of brocades in order to achieve the best result with the least possible material. Once the basic principles were mastered, a tailor could employ his skills in any field of tailoring. A good tailor could stitch a superb appliqué thangka or cut and sew comfortable, well-fitting clothes for a person of any size or shape.

My father knew the personal tailor of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. I had always said that I wanted to serve His Holiness, so my father arranged to have me work with this monk, Thupten, who made all of the Dalai Lama's clothes. Nowadays, one can approach the present Dalai Lama and have an ordinary conversation with him. At the time of the Thirteenth, this was unthinkable, because everyone was terribly afraid of him. The Thirteenth Dalai Lama wore Mongolian-style robes and changed his clothes every day. We made red, yellow, and saffron robes out of the most elaborate brocades and, though he wore them more than once, he would never wear the same robe two days in a row. His entourage viewed the clothes he wore as indicators of his mood. If they were red, it meant he was in a fiery mood and you had to be extra careful. If you dared to look at him directly, he would glare back, and you would never try looking again.

The first time I saw the Dalai Lama was when he came through the workshops to give the annual gift of silver coins to the tailors. He was not very tall, but he was imposing in his golden brocade robe. After that, I often saw him when he visited the sewing rooms. He walked around among the tailors, who sat cross-legged on their cushions, their heads bent over their work. The Dalai Lama watched them cutting and scrutinized every detail of their work. If he noticed something wrong, he would scold the tailors, all of whom were wary of his fiery temper.

During my apprenticeship I still accompanied my father on sewing trips and we often went to prepare ceremonial attire for Demo Rinpoche. One day, my father and I were sitting and sewing together. I was embroidering the eyes on the Rinpoche's boots when I saw my father fall over, the brocade still in his hands. Demo Rinpoche bent over to touch my father and we realized that he was dead.

My father's sudden death left us all unprepared, and my mother was particularly shocked. I was only seventeen and my youngest brother was barely walking. My mother decided that I should take over as head of the household and look after the family, since I could earn a good living. In addition to my salary from the government, I was well rewarded for private work and was beginning to be hired to make brocade thangkas, tents, and temple decorations. My mother arranged my marriage to a girl from a good family who lived nearby.

In 1933 the Dalai Lama died quite suddenly. We had heard earlier that he wasn't very well, but it didn't strike me as very significant, as he often had colds. Not long before his death I was busy making an initiation costume for the Kalachakra initiation from a very beautiful white brocade, when His Holiness came into the workroom, looked at my work, and asked me if it would be ready soon. I answered that it would. He nodded his head and I watched him walk slowly away. He was alone, as he often was on these visits to the workshops. It was the last time I saw him. Though he was never to use the costume, our present Dalai Lama wore it when he gave the Kalachakra initiation in Lhasa.

The announcement of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama's departure for the pure lands was made in Lhasa at night. I was sewing in my house when I heard people shouting outside, calling for mourning, ordering that all prayer flags be lowered, that men unwind their hair and women remove their ornaments. From that day the tailor workshops were empty. No one gave orders and gradually the place became deserted, until plans for a golden stupa were put forward and instructions were given to the Sokhang.

Eighty of the one hundred and thirty tailors of the Sokhang were selected to make the brocade decorations for the stupa, which was to be placed in the Potala, near the mausoleums of the other Dalai Lamas. We made an elaborate ceiling frieze using Russian brocades, which were among the finest available. To the east and west of the stupa was a floor-to-ceiling brocade curtain with large representations of sixteen dragons, which stood for the sixteen Arhats, eight facing from each side. We were given an extraordinary brocade of a single dragon, which had been used as a carpet. Since we couldn’t bear to cut it, we decided to use it as a canopy to line the ceiling. Hanging these decorations required a lot of climbing and walking on scaffolds. Since I was young and light-footed, I did most of it. The entire decoration of the room was completed in thirteen days.

It took about one year to construct the stupa and preserve the Dalai Lama's remains. The mummifying process was done at the Potala in the traditional manner using salt to extract all the body fluids. After the drying was completed, the remains were covered in gold and placed inside the golden stupa. Fourteen people were allowed inside, and I was fortunate to be one of them, being assigned to arrange the robes. Just before the remains were dressed, someone noticed that a protrusion in the shape of an Avalokiteshvara statue, the Buddha of compassion, had naturally emerged from the Dalai Lama’s shoulder. This caused quite a stir, and all fourteen lamas and officials filed into the stupa to see it. I was lucky to catch a glimpse of it before it was covered.

The outside of the stupa was elaborately decorated with jewels, gold, coral, turquoise, and dzi. Many officials donated the long earrings they wore in their left ears, and these were set at regular intervals into the stupa. I had just bought a new earring, or sojin, which was very beautiful and which I proudly wore on special occasions. A tray was brought forward, and when I saw all the sojin lying on it, I thought mine was more beautiful than the rest and deserved to ornament the stupa. I ran home to get it and add it to the others. Since I was present during the construction work, I was able to make sure my sojin was placed where I wanted it, first on the right on the front of the stupa.

When the work on the stupa was completed, I was summoned to Phembo, a day's journey north of Lhasa, to make a kyigu for the monastery there. A kyigu is a huge thangka, several stories high, that is hung outside monasteries on special occasions. While I was making the Kyigu, a messenger arrived from Lhasa asking me to return immediately because I had just been awarded the title of chenmo, or "great one." Among the tailors there were three other masters, or chenmos, at the time, but they were quite old and did not do much active work. The title had been awarded to me in recognition of my skill in private work and on the stupa, which had impressed my superiors. I was only twenty-two.

I was awarded the title at an auspicious ceremony at the main Sokhang office. All my colleagues came to offer me lucky white scarves. After the ceremony, I went home, where all my friends and relatives did the same. Then I went to pay my respects to Reting Rinpoche, who received me in his house in Lhasa. Rinpoche told me that I had served the Dalai Lama well, that the new incarnation would soon be coming to Lhasa, and that I would also be serving him. This made me feel very happy.

When I was twenty-four, my wife died in childbirth. The baby was also lost, and the whole family was deeply unhappy. My mother, who was very religious, felt that we should all stop thinking of worldly things and dedicate our lives to the Buddhist teachings. We all decided to become monks and nuns. My mother gave up all her possessions, including our lovely house in Torgyalingka Park, which she donated to the government. I remember seeing my mother remove her ear ornaments as she prepared to leave for a nunnery where she spent many years in seclusion.

I took my vows at Ganden, where I was given a new name, Gyeten Namgyal, the one I am using now. My mother had advised me to resign from my post as chenmo and to live a religious life, but l found it difficult to do this immediately. The government had decided to repair and renovate the temples at Samye Monastery, and I was appointed to lead the party of tailors to restore and remake all the temple decorations. I felt an obligation to fulfil this order and promised my mother that I would resign when it was completed.

However, before I could keep my promise, a much bigger project was proposed. It was decided that something had to be done about the two huge kyigus that were displayed in front of the Potala Palace during the Tsongcho Sebang Festival at the end of the second month of the Tibetan year. The largest of the two old kyigus was much too long, since it was originally made to be displayed right down over the steps of the Potala. This was later judged to be unsuitable, and when the kyigu was displayed, the lower part was rolled up so that the protector deities depicted at the bottom were never seen. Both kyigus were extremely weathered, and some of the figures no longer had faces.

One kyigu was thirteen stories long and the other one was nine. To be inspected, these two masses of brocade were unrolled outside in the presence of the cabinet, all the master tailors from our guild, including myself. In these monumental works of art, the eyes of the main deity were the length of a forearm and the deity’s face was ten feet high. The cabinet ministers walked up and down along the kyigu's edges, asking the master tailors what they thought. Because of my experience with kyigus, they asked for my opinion, but l chose to remain silent because l didn't agree with another chenmo’s ideas on restoration and it would have been improper to disagree publicly with such an elderly and experienced tailor.

After this assembly the cabinet chose to restore the two old kyigus. But before the process began I was summoned and asked why I had said nothing that day. I told the minister; Temba Jamyang, that I thought these kyigus were too old and fragile to withstand repairs and that, for all the work it took, it would be better to make new ones. Temba Jamyang was a man of vision, and the idea of a grand undertaking pleased him. He gave me his approval and put me in charge of the project.

For making the kyigus, forty boxes of material were delivered to us from China, each containing ten or eleven rolls of a very rich brocade, and fifty boxes of plain brocade from Tashilhunpo Monastery in Shigatse. We had to write down each quantity and make an official receipt. The final count was 7,863 squares. I chose sixty tailors from the Sokhang to do the work, and we set up our workshop in the Shol printing press at the foot of the Potala. The largest of the new kyigus was to be the more manageable size of about nine stories tall. The layout was planned in the large grounds near the printing press, using chalk drawings and paper models. Painter Tsering-la was put in charge of making the designs, and I remember that he had a very annoying way of sketching elaborate details, taking hours and hours at a time. The work was not progressing, and I argued that for a work of this size the designs needed to be large. Neither of us would give in, but eventually Tsering-la was replaced by a more cooperative painter and we were soon able to sketch every figure, cut the brocade, and distribute the work.

The material used to line kyigus was Assam silk, which is known for its strength. I couldn't imagine how we were going to find the necessary two thousand squares without delaying all the work, so we decided to use the old lining and repair the most worn pieces.

The kyigus took eight months to complete. Half of the brocade we were given was left over; the remainder was used to make a new set of costumes for the grandest and most colourful festival of all, the Tsongcho Sebang. The original costumes dated back to the time of the Fifth Dalai Lama and were in shreds, some nearly beyond recognition. Since no one was around to provide us with details, we took torches and examined the murals in the Potala representing the early processions, and based the new costumes on the lively and detailed paintings. The work took two months and was finished on schedule. It was all such an elaborate affair that people began calling the festival "showing off time."

On the appointed day, the thirtieth of the second month, all the monks and lay government officials lined up in front of the Potala to view the kyigus and take part in the festival. The festival procession waited at the Yuthok Bridge while the new Dalai Lama, still a child, watched from his palace. The curtain that hung behind the kyigu was already in place, and the timing was such that the festival procession would start to move and the kyigus would be unfurled simultaneously. Hanging the kyigus was a massive engineering feat, especially if the wind were high, in which case it would be an extremely dangerous task. I was very much aware of this, since all the tailors had to be present at the foot of the Potala, needles and thread in hand, in case of some mishap. Frankly, I could never understand what good our needles would do in the event of a sudden gust of wind, but we stood on guard, ready more to duck than to sew. The hanging of the kyigus was accomplished by workers in the Potala, all of whom were clad in white chubas and Mongolian hats. The procedure looked like a frightening experience. The workers were roped around their waists and had to hang out of the high windows of the palace to secure all the ropes and attachments.

In the end, I never kept the promise to my mother. I tried to resign from my post as chenmo, but with the arrival of the new Dalai Lama at the Potala, they needed my services. I remained both a monk and a tailor and served the Fourteenth Dalai Lama until His Holiness went into exile.


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BONE EATER VULTURES



Once my brother and I decided we would try to catch vultures. We had chosen to catch a large vulture known as the "bone eater"; this type is yellow and very large. It swallows and eats bones, hence its name. In Tibet it is called a gho, and elsewhere it is known as a lammergeyer. One day, when I was around five years old, my brother and I saw that an animal had just died, and we knew that it would not be long before the vultures arrived. We took a rope and looped it over the corpse of the yak and then we hid behind a nearby boulder. The scavengers soon came. My brother and I watched, and, when we saw our chance, we pulled hard on the rope and succeeded in looping it around the neck of a large vulture. We kept pulling, but the vulture started to move down the side of the hill, trying to take off. We hung on to the rope, but the vulture was so strong that it dragged us along until I couldn't hang on anymore. My brother still kept a firm hold as the vulture kept dragging him further down the hill. I was scared that the bird was going to take off with him. Finally I saw my brother let go. That big bone eater, with the rope still hanging around its neck, just continued to fly off across the valley.


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Edited January 14, 2014 by ThisLife

[ThisLife]

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As I mentioned before, now and then I check to see if anyone still has any interest in this thread. As there has been quite a few readers since my last post I felt encouraged to go though all the necessary efforts involved in adding one more story,…. and this time I thought I would add one of literature's true gems. Since it was first published in 1922 this book has come to be loved by a phenomenal and ever-increasing number of readers spread widely across much of the Western world .

 

In this case, I’m sure that neither the book nor the author will be unfamiliar to the great majority of readers on this forum. For many of you, like myself, it was perhaps also your first encounter with spiritual questions arising from outside whatever happened to be the surrounding religion of our childhood. The book is of course, Herman Hesse’s “Siddhartha.” Below I’ve cobbled together a pastiche of opinions and reviews from quite a number of different sources to fill in a few bits of background information that I think greatly adds to the ‘story behind the story’. Below that I’ve added an Amazon review that I found particularly touching. And then the excerpt itself,… the entire final chapter of this wonderful book.

 

 

BACKGROUND INFORMATION :

Hermann Hesse was born in southern Germany in 1877, and his ninth novel, “Siddhartha”, was written in German in a simple, lyrical style completely unlike any other of his works. This strangely simple tale, written with a deep and moving empathy for humanity, has touched the lives of millions since its original publication in 1922 It was published in the U.S. in 1951 and became exceptionally influential during the 1960s.

 

“Siddhartha” deals with the spiritual journey of self-discovery of a man named Siddhartha during the time of the Buddha. The word Siddhartha is made up of two words in the Sanskrit language, siddha (achieved) + artha (meaning or wealth), which together means "he who has found meaning (of existence)" or "he who has attained his goals". In fact, the Buddha's own name, before his renunciation, was Siddhartha Gautama, Prince of Kapilvastu. In this book, the Buddha is referred to as "Gotama".

 

Born the son of a Brahman, Siddhartha was blessed in appearance, intelligence, and charisma. Yet, due to a burning desire to find 'meaning' in life, he decided to abandon this extremely privileged upbringing for the life of a wandering ascetic. Like thousands of others, for a while he followed the teachings of Gotama the Buddha, enraptured by his sermons. But this man, Siddhartha, was not a follower of any but his own soul. Still restless and unfulfilled, he next found himself discarding religious life for the illusory joys of sensual love with a beautiful courtesan. Gradually he became ever more drawn into the honey traps of wealth and fame. He conceived a son but eventually, bored and sickened by lust and greed, he moved on again. Finally, nearing despair, Siddhartha came to a river where, through the kindness of the old ferryman Vasudeva, he began to hear the first subtle whisperings of a unique and transformative sound. A sound which signaled the true beginning of his life. Following this ‘voice’ Siddhartha initially found himself led into an even deeper abyss of suffering and rejection, until finally, after most of his life had passed,…. he eventually emerged into the still waters of peace and wisdom.

 

In the story which precedes the final chapter I have added below, Siddhartha had left home to begin his spiritual quest with his devoted childhood friend Govinda. They stayed together for a few years but when Siddhartha became disillusioned with his life as one of the Buddha’s monks and left the sangha,… Govinda did not. In this final chapter, many years later, quite by chance they both meet again. Two old men whose paths in life had very much diverged since the seeming inseparability of their youth.

 

CUSTOMER REVIEW :

A good friend of mine was aware that I was going through a bad time. She just said to me read this book. So I did. It's not a long book. it's a simple tale simply told. Having said that, it is the most beautiful and profound book that I have ever read. What more can I say apart from read it for yourself. If you have a heart, if you have a soul, you will not be disappointed.

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Siddhartha

 

Govinda once spent a rest period with some other monks in the pleasure grove which Kamala, the courtesan, had once presented to the followers of Gotama. He heard talk of an old ferryman who lived by the river, a day's journey away, and whom many considered to be a sage. When Govinda moved on, he chose the path to the ferry eager to see this ferryman, for although he had lived his life according to the rule and was also regarded with respect by the younger monks for his age and modesty, there was still restlessness in his heart and his seeking was unsatisfied.

 

He arrived at the river and asked the old man to take him across. When they climbed out of the boat on the other side, he said to the old man: 'You show much kindness to the monks and pilgrims; you have taken many of us across. Are you not also a seeker of the right path?'

 

There was a smile in Siddhartha's old eyes as he said: 'Do you call yourself a seeker, O venerable one, you who are already advanced in years and wear the robe of Gotama's monks?'

 

'I am indeed old,' said Govinda, 'but I have never ceased seeking. I will never cease seeking. That seems to be my destiny. It seems to me that you also have sought. Will you talk to me a little about it, my friend?'

 

Siddhartha said: 'What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking You cannot find.''

 

‘How is that?’ asked Govinda'

 

'When someone is seeking,' said Siddhartha, 'it happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything because he is only thinking of the thing he is seeking, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal. You, O worthy one, are perhaps indeed a seeker, for in striving towards your goal, you do not see many things that are under your nose.’

 

'I do not yet quite understand,' said Govinda' 'How do you mean ?'

 

Siddhartha said: 'Once, O worthy one, many years ago, you came to this river and found a man sleeping there. You sat beside him to guard him while he slept' but you did not recognize the sleeping man, Govinda.'

 

Astonished and like one bewitched, the monk gazed at the ferryman.

 

‘Are you Siddhartha ?' he asked in a timid voice' 'I did not recognize you this time, too. I am very pleased to see you again, Siddhartha, very pleased' You have changed very much, my friend. And have you become a ferryman now ?'

 

Siddhartha laughed warmly. 'Yes, I have become a ferryman. Many people have to change a great deal and wear all sorts of clothes. I am one of those, my friend. You are very welcome, Govinda, and I invite you to stay the night in my hut.'

 

Govinda stayed the night in the hut and slept in the bed that had once been Vasudeva's. He asked the friend of his youth many questions and Siddhartha had a great deal to tell him about his life.

 

When it was time for Govinda to depart the following morning, he said with some hesitation: 'Before I go on my way, Siddhartha, I should like to ask you one more question. Have you a doctrine, belief or knowledge which you uphold, which helps you to live and do right ?'

 

Siddhartha said: 'You know, my friend, that even as a young man, when we lived with the ascetics in the forest, I came to distrust doctrines and teachers and to turn my back on them. I am still of the same turn of mind, although I have, since that time, had many teachers. A beautiful courtesan was my teacher for a long time, and a rich merchant and a dice player. On one occasion, one of the Buddha’s wandering monks was my teacher. He halted in his pilgrimage to sit beside me when I fell asleep in the forest. I also learned something from him and I am grateful to him, very grateful. But most of all, I have learned from this river and from my predecessor, Vasudeva. He was a simple man; he was not a thinker, but he realized the essential as well as Gotama. He was a holy man, a saint.'

 

Govinda said: 'It seems to me, Siddhartha, that you still like to jest a little. I believe you and know that you have not followed any teacher, but have you not yourself, if not a doctrine, certain thoughts? Have you not discovered a certain knowledge yourself that has helped you to live? It would give me great pleasure if you would tell me something about this.’

 

Siddhartha said: 'Yes, I have had thoughts and knowledge here and there. Sometimes, for an hour or for a day, I have become aware of knowledge, just as one feels life in one’s heart. I have had many thoughts, but it would be difficult for me to tell you about them. But this is one thought that has impressed me, Govinda. Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish.'

 

'Are you jesting ?' asked Govinda.

 

'No, I am telling you what I have discovered. Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it. I suspected this when I was still a youth and it was this that drove me away from teachers. There is one thought I have had, Govinda, which you will again think is a jest or folly: that is, in every truth the opposite is equally true, For example, a truth can only be expressed and enveloped in words if it is one-sided. Everything that is thought and expressed in words is one-sided, only half the truth; it all lacks totality, completeness, unity. When the Illustrious Buddha taught about the world, he had to divide it into Samsara and Nirvana, into illusion and truth, into suffering and salvation. One cannot do otherwise, there is no other method for those who teach. But the world itself, being in and around us, is never one-sided. Never is a man or a deed wholly Samsara or wholly Nirvana; never is a man wholly a saint or a sinner. This only seems so because we suffer the illusion that time is something real. Time is not real, Govinda. I have realized this repeatedly. And if time is not real, then the dividing line that seems to lie between this world and eternity, between suffering and bliss, between good and evil, is also an illusion.'

 

‘How is that ?' asked Govinda, puzzled.

 

'Listen, my friend! I am a sinner and you are a sinner, but some day the sinner will be Brahma again, will some day attain Nirvana, will some day become a Buddha. Now this 'some day' is illusion; it is only a comparison. The sinner is not on the way to a Buddha-like state; he is not evolving, although our thinking cannot conceive things otherwise. No, the potential Buddha already exists in the sinner; his future is already there. The potential hidden Buddha must be recognized in him, in you, in everybody. The world, Govinda, is not imperfect or slowly evolving along a long path to perfection. No, it is perfect at every moment; every sin already carries grace within it, all small children are potential old men, all sucklings have death within them, all dying people - eternal life. It is not possible for one person to see how far another is on the way; the Buddha exists in the robber and dice player; the robber exists in the Brahmin. During deep meditation it is possible to dispel time, to see simultaneously all the past, present and future, and then everything is good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman. Therefore, it seems to me that everything that exists is good - death as well as life, sin as well as holiness, wisdom as well as folly. Everything is necessary, everything needs only my agreement, my assent, my loving understanding; then all is well with me and nothing can harm me. I learned through my body and soul that it was necessary for me to sin, that I needed lust, that I had to strive for property and experience nausea and the depths of despair in order to learn not to resist them, in order to learn to love the world, and no longer compare it with some kind of desired imaginary world, some imaginary vision of perfection, but to leave it as it is, to love it and be glad to belong to it. These, Govinda, are some of the thoughts that are in my mind.'

 

Siddhartha bent down, lifted a stone from the ground and held it in his hand.

 

'This,' he said, handling it, 'is a stone, and within a certain length of time it will perhaps be soil and from the soil it will become plant, animal or man. Previously I should have said: This stone is just a stone; it has no value, it belongs to the world of Maya, but perhaps because within the cycle of change it can also become man and spirit, it is also of importance. That is what I should have thought. But now I think:

 

This stone is stone; it is also animal, God and Buddha. I do not respect and love it because it was one thing and will become something else, but because it has already long been everything and always is everything. I love it just because it is a stone, because today and now it appears to me a stone. I see value and meaning in each one of its fine markings and cavities, in the yellow, in the grey, in the hardness and the sound of it when I knock it, in the dryness or dampness of its surface. There are stones that feel like oil or soap, that look like leaves or sand, and each one is different and worships Om in its own way; each one is Brahman. At the same time it is very much stone, oily or soapy, and that is just what pleases me and seems wonderful and worthy of worship. But I will say no more about it. Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish. And yet it also pleases me and seems right that what is of value and wisdom to one man seems nonsense to another.'

 

Govinda had listened in silence.

 

'Why did you tell me about the stone?' he asked hesitatingly after a pause.

 

'I did so unintentionally. But perhaps it illustrates that I just love the stone and the river and all these things that we see and from which we can learn. I can love a stone, Govinda, and a tree or a piece of bark. These are things and one can love things. But one cannot love words. Therefore teachings are of no use to me; they have no hardness, no softness, no colours, no corners, no smell, no taste - they have nothing but words. Perhaps that is what prevents you from finding peace, perhaps there are too many words,… for even salvation and virtue, Samsara and Nirvana are only words, Govinda. Nirvana is not a thing; there is only the word Nirvana.'

 

Govinda said 'Nirvana is not only a word, my friend; it is a thought'

 

Siddhartha continued: ‘It may be a thought, but I must confess, my friend, that I do not differentiate very much between thoughts and words. Quite frankly, I do not attach great importance to thoughts either. I attach more importance to things. For example, there was a man at this ferry who was my predecessor and teacher. He was a holy man who for many years believed only in the river and nothing else. He noticed that the river’s voice spoke to him. He learned from it; it educated and taught him. The river seemed like a god to him and for many years he did not know that every wind, every cloud, every bird, every beetle is equally divine and knows and can teach just as well as the esteemed river. But when this holy man went off into the woods, he knew everything; he knew more than you and I, without teachers, without books, just because he believed in the river.'

 

 

Govinda said: 'But what you call thing is it something real, something intrinsic? Is it not only the illusion of Maya, only image and appearance? Your stone, your tree, are they real?'

 

‘This also does not trouble me much’, said Siddhartha. ‘If they are illusion, then I also am illusion, and so they are always of the same nature as myself. It is that which makes them so lovable and venerable. That is why I can love them. And here is a doctrine at which you will laugh. It seems to me, Govinda, that love is the most important thing in the world. It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect.’

 

'I understand that,' said Govinda, but that is just what the Illustrious One called illusion. He preached benevolence, forbearance, sympathy, patience - but not love. He forbade us to bind ourselves to earthly love.’

 

'I know that,' said Siddhartha, smiling radiantly, 'I know that, Govinda, and here we find ourselves within the maze of meanings, within the conflict of words, for I will not deny that my words about love are in apparent contradiction to the teachings of Gotama. That is just why I distrust words so much, for I know that this contradiction is an illusion. I know that I am at one with Gotama. How, indeed, could he not know love, he who has recognized all humanity's vanity and transitoriness, yet loves humanity so much that he has devoted a long life solely to help and teach people ? Also with this great teacher, the thing to me is of greater importance than the words; his deeds and life are more important to me than his opinions. Not in speech or thought do I regard him as a great man, but in his deeds and life.'

 

The two old men were silent for a long time. Then as Govinda was preparing to go, he said: 'I thank you, Siddhartha, for telling me something of your thoughts. Some of them are strange thoughts. I cannot grasp them all immediately. However, I thank you, and I wish you many peaceful days.'

 

Inwardly, however, he thought: Siddhartha is a strange man and he expresses strange thoughts. His ideas seem crazy. How different do the Illustrious One's doctrines sound ! They are clear, straightforward, comprehensible; they contain nothing strange, wild or laughable. But Siddhartha's hands and feet, his eyes, his brow, his breathing, his smile, his greeting, his gait affect me differently from his thoughts. Never since the time our Illustrious Gotama passed into Nirvana, have I ever met a man with the exception of Siddhartha about whom I felt: This is a holy man! His ideas may be strange, his words may sound foolish, but his glance and his hand, his skin and his hair, all radiate a purity, peace, serenity, gentleness and saintliness which I have never seen in any man since the recent death of our illustrious teacher.

 

While Govinda was thinking these thoughts and there was conflict in his heart, he again bowed to Siddhartha, full of affection towards him. He bowed low before the quietly seated man.

 

'Siddhartha,’ he said, ‘we are now old men. We may never see each other again in this life. I can see, my dear friend, that you have found peace. I realize that I have not found it. Tell me one more word, my esteemed friend, tell me something that I can conceive, something I can understand ! Give me something to help me on my way, Siddhartha. My path is often hard and dark,,

 

Siddhartha was silent and looked at him with his calm, peaceful smile. Govinda looked steadily in his face, with anxiety, with longing. Suffering, continual seeking and continual failure were written in his look.

 

Siddhartha saw it and smiled.

 

'Bend near to me !’ he whispered in Govinda’s ear. ‘Come, still nearer, quite close ! Kiss me on the forehead, Govinda.’

 

Although surprised, Govinda was compelled by a great love and presentiment to obey him; he leaned close to him and touched his forehead with his lips. As he did this, something wonderful happened to him. While he was still dwelling on Siddhartha’s strange words, while he strove in vain to dispel the conception of time, to imagine Nirvana and Samsara as, one, while even a certain contempt for his friend’s words conflicted with a tremendous love and esteem for him, this happened to him.

 

He no longer saw the face of his friend Siddhartha. Instead he saw other faces, many faces, a long series, a continuous stream of faces - hundreds, thousands, which all came and disappeared and yet all seemed to be there at the same time, which all continually changed and renewed themselves and which were yet all Siddhartha. He saw the face of a fish, of a carp, with tremendous, painfully opened mouth, a dying fish with dimmed eyes. He saw the face of a newly born child, red and full of wrinkles, ready to cry. He saw the face of a murderer, saw him plunge a knife into the body of a man; at the same moment he saw this criminal kneeling down, bound, and his head cut off by an executioner. He saw the naked bodies of men and women in the postures and transports of passionate love. He saw corpses stretched out, still, cold, empty. He saw the heads of animals, boars, crocodiles, elephants, oxen, birds. He saw Krishna and Agni. He saw all these forms and faces in a thousand relationships to each other, all helping each other, loving, hating and destroying each other and become newly born. Each one was mortal, a passionate, painful example of all that is transitory. Yet none of them died, they only changed, were always reborn, continually had a new face: only time stood between one face and another. And all these forms and faces rested, flowed, reproduced, swam past and merged into each other, and over them all there was continually something thin, unreal and yet existing, stretched across like thin glass or ice, like a transparent skin, shell, form or mask of water - and this mask was Siddhartha's smiling face which Govinda touched with his lips at that moment. And Govinda saw that this mask-like smile, this smile of unity over the flowing forms, this smile of simultaneousness over the thousands of births and deaths – this smile of Siddhartha - was exactly the same as the calm, delicate, impenetrable, perhaps gracious, perhaps mocking, wise, thousand-fold smile of Gotama, the Buddha, as he had perceived it with awe a hundred times. It was in such a manner, Govinda knew, that the Perfect One smiled.

 

No longer knowing whether time existed, whether this uncovering had lasted a second or a hundred years, whether there was a Siddhartha, or a Gotama, a Self and others, wounded deeply by a divine arrow which gave him pleasure, deeply enchanted and exalted, Govinda stood yet a while bending over Siddhartha's peaceful face which he had just kissed, which had just been the stage of all present and future forms. His countenance was unchanged after the mirror of the thousand-fold forms had disappeared from the surface. He smiled peacefully and gently, perhaps very mockingly, exactly as the Illustrious One had smiled.

 

Govinda bowed low. Uncontrollable tears trickled down his old face. He was overwhelmed by a feeling of great love, of the most humble veneration. He bowed low, right down to the ground, in front of the man sitting there motionless, whose smile reminded him of everything that he had ever loved in his life, of everything that had ever been of value and holy in his life.

*

 

Edited February 3, 2014 by ThisLife

[ThisLife]

 

In future I’ll be eliminating this section of my preamble before posting another story because I’ve decided that I won’t continue to add any more until, (or ‘if’), there gets to be a hundred viewings since the last story. That way it will only be those who enjoy reading stories who keep this thread alive. Nuff said.

 

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This current story is directly connected to the last one I posted, but in a very curious manner. Herman Hesse’s “Siddhartha” has come into my life at three radically different and widely separated times. The first time I read it I was just a teenager,… years before I could see any point to wondering about spiritual questions. At that time, Hesse’s beautiful, lyrical telling of the story combined with my complete ignorance of world religions, made me think that his book was simply a lovely and exotic description of Buddhism.

 

Forty years later Siddhartha came into my life again,… this time after I had been a faithful and dedicated member of a Buddhist community for almost twenty years, but who was then at the tail end of a long and painful process of disillusionment with organised religion. Now the book seemed to reveal itself to me in a very different way. To my perceptions at this time it appeared that Hesse was sharing his insights into how a religion, (even one as philosophically beautiful and perfect as Buddhism),… actually ‘ failed to deliver the goods’ as soon as it moved away from the individual and became an organisation.

 

Now, six years down the road from my painful separation, I read this novel again just before posting the last story on this forum. It’s a very old adage but time does, in fact,… heal all. My unfortunate attitude of reflected animosity towards Buddhism due to the shortcomings of one organisation has now all but disappeared. But, catching me by surprise yet again, after reading this book a third time the message that now jumped out loudly and clearly was voiced by Siddhartha almost at the very end of the book :

 

“Also with this great teacher, the thing to me is of greater importance than the words; the Buddha's deeds and life are far more important to me than his opinions. Not in speech or thought do I regard him as a great man, but in his deeds and in his life.'

 

Reading this, I remembered how I had been absolutely captivated by the epic story of Buddha’s life. For many years I had searched through bookstores and websites for the very best account of this unsurpassable tale I could find.

 

Perhaps perseverance pays off. But, at any rate I at last did manage to find perfection in that quest. One day I had the good fortune to finally hold in my hand a book by Robert Allen Mitchell called “ The Buddha : His Life Retold.” Although there are clearly many other versions of the Buddha’s life, none are written in such a remarkable voice of soft, lush cadences.

 

Below I’ve extracted Mitchell’s re-telling of an event in the Buddha’s life that not only profoundly affected me when I first read it, but which has also long been for me the one anecdote in his life story which seemed to best illustrate the sublime and practical wisdom of this most extraordinary of all people. I remember thinking at the time, “Why didn’t they ever stimulate us with useful insights like this at school instead of simply offering us the usual narrow range of Western ideas regarding existential questions ?”

 

Just before that however, I will share a bit of fascinating background information about the author Robert Allen Mitchell, written by one of America’s leading Zen roshis,… Philip Kapleau.

 

Finally, I will tack on a very short extract from the introduction that Mitchell gave to his book. I think it gives a lovely insight into the man and the reason why his own life’s work came to be centered on re-creating this epic tale of the flowering cycle, from seed - to death and dissolution,… of a Buddha.

 

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BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON THE AUTHOR

 

Robert Allen Mitchell, the author of THE BUDDHA: HIS LIFE RETOLD, was born in Bar Harbour, Maine, on October 24, 1917. He attended the University of Maine but left when his father died after a long struggle with cancer. Since the family had no medical insurance and the fees for his father's illness were considerable, the family was obliged to sell their home to pay the medical bills. As a consequence, Mitchell and his mother were forced to move into a small rustic summer camp in the rural section of Bar Harbour, where they lived in poverty for the rest of their lives.

 

Mitchell was an extremely intelligent and well-read person. He did his graduate work in Physics and Astrology at Harvard and through his life-long interest and commitment to Buddhism, he became self-educated in Pali and Sanskrit. He carried on a correspondence with Albert Einstein - and was also a prolific writer of short stories, spending many hours in the Bar Harbour summer home of the late novelist Mary Roberts Reinhardt, who reviewed his work and encouraged him.

 

Now, twenty five years after his death in 1964, his book is published. The manuscript itself was found in Mitchell's mother's home after her death in 1972.It was brought to me for evaluation by Ben Taylor, a student of mine, who had received it from Daniel J. Alexander, a distant relative of Robert Mitchell. I found the manuscript to be the most comprehensive biography of the life and teaching of the Buddha that I have read in English.

 

Roshi Philip Kapleau

Rochester, New York

Spring, 1989

 

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INTRODUCTION

 

This the life story of Prince Siddhartha Gautama, universally known as the Buddha. The story of the Buddha's eighty years on earth constitutes one of the most remarkable of human documents. Not only was Prince Siddhartha successful in attaining his Ideal, but his tremendous spiritual achievement resulted in the establishment of a religious system which has exerted an incalculably profound and gracious influence upon the lives of men for the past twenty-five centuries.

 

To divorce the teachings of the Buddha from an account of his life would not be wholly wise. In a special sense, the Buddha and his Dharma are one; the experience of Buddha-Dharma. Such is the inescapable imprint of Buddha’s warm and forceful personality, and such is the time-defying power of his unequalled intellect and unique spiritual consciousness.

 

The present volume includes many of the Buddha's more important discourses interspersed with historical and legendary narrative material. Drawn from both Pali and Sanskrit sources, most of the material selected for inclusion has been greatly abridged. The present story is accordingly a version, not a collection of translations; but even so, the ancient texts have been transcribed with an eye for accuracy and with a sympathetic feeling for the flavour of the originals.

 

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THE BUDDHA : HIS LIFE RETOLD

One day, when the rainy season had ended, Krsa Gautami, the wife of a rich man, was plunged deep into grief by the loss of her only son, a baby boy who had died just when he was old enough to run about.

 

In her grief Krsa carried the dead child to all her neighbors in Kapilavastu, asking them for medicine. Seeing her, the people shook their heads sadly out of pity.

 

“Poor woman! She has lost her senses from grief. The boy is beyond the help of medicine.”

 

Unable to accept the fact of her son’s death, Krsa then wandered through the streets of the city beseeching for help everyone she met.

 

 

“Please, sir,” she said to a certain man, “give me medicine that will cure my boy!”

 

The stranger looked at the child’s eyes and saw that the boy was dead. “Alas, I have no medicine for your child,” he said, “but I know of a physician who can give what you require.”

 

“Pray tell me, sir, where I can find this physician.”

“Go, dear woman, to Sakyamuni, the Buddha, just now residing in Banyan Park.”

Krsa went in haste to the Nigrodharama; and she was brought by the monks to Buddha.

 

“Reverend Lord,” she cried, “give me the medicine that will cure my boy!”

Lord Buddha, Ocean of Infinite Compassion, looked upon the grief-stricken mother with pity.

 

“You have done well to come here for medicine, Krsa Gautami. Go into the city and get a handful of mustard seed.” And then the Perfect One added: “The mustard seed must be taken from a house where no one has lost a child, husband, parent, or friend.”

“Yes, Lord!” exclaimed Krsa, greatly cheered. “I shall procure the mustard seed at once!”

 

Poor Krsa then went from house to house with her request; and the people pitied her, saying: “Here is the mustard seed: please take all you want of it.”

Then Krsa would ask: “Did a son or daughter, father or mother, die in your family?”

 

“Alas! The living are few, but the dead are many. Do not remind us of our deepest grief!”

And there was no house but that some relative, some dear one, had died in it.

 

Weary and with hope gone, Krsa sat down by the wayside, sorrowfully watching the lights of the city as they flickered up and were extinguished again, And at last the deep shadows of night plunged the world into darkness.

 

Considering the fate of human beings, that their lives flicker up and are extinguished again, the bereft mother suddenly realized that Buddha, in his compassion, had sent her forth to learn the truth.

 

“How selfish am I in my grief!” she thought. “Death is universal: yet even in this valley of death there is a Path that leads to Deathlessness for him who has surrendered all thought of self!”

 

Putting away the selfishness of her affection for her child, Krsa Gautami went to the edge of a forest and tenderly laid the dead body in a drift of wildflowers.

 

“Little son,” she said, taking the child by the hand, “I thought that death had happened to you alone; but it is not to you alone, it is common to all people.”

 

There she left him; and when dawn brightened the eastern sky, she returned to the Perfect One.

 

“Krsa Gautami,” said the Tathagata, “did you get a handful of mustard seed from a house in which no one has ever lost kith or kin?”

 

“That, Lord, is now past and gone,” she said. “Grant me support.”

 

“Dear girl, the life of mortals in this world is troubled and brief and inseparable from suffering,” declared Buddha, “for there is not any means, nor will there ever be, by which those that have been born can avoid dying. All living beings are of such a nature that they must die whether they reach old age or not.

“As early-ripening fruits are in danger of falling, so mortals when born are always in danger of dying. Just as the earthen vessels made by the potter end in shards, so is the life of mortals. Both young and old, both those who are foolish and those who are wise – all fall into the power of death, all are subject to death.

 

"Of those who depart from this life, overcome by death, a father cannot save his son, nor relatives their kinsfolk. While relatives are looking on and lamenting, one by one the mortals are carried off like oxen to the slaughter. People die, and their fate after death will be according to their deeds. Such are the terms of the world.

“Not from weeping nor from grieving will anyone obtain peace of mind. On the contrary, his pain will be all the greater, and he will ruin his health. He will make himself sick and pale; but dead bodies cannot be restored by his lamentation.

“Now that you have heard the Tathagata, Krsa, reject grief, do not allow it to enter your mind. Seeing one dead, know for sure: ‘I shall never see him again in this existence.’ And just as the fire of a burning house is quenched, so does the contemplative wise person scatter grief’s power, expertly, swiftly, even as the wind scatters cotton seed.

 

“He who seeks peace should pull out the arrow lamentations, useless longings, and the self-made pangs of grief. He who has removed this unwholesome arrow and has calmed himself will obtain peace of mind. Verily, he who has conquered grief will always be free from grief – sane and immune – confident, happy, and close to Nirvana, I say.”

 

Then Krsa Gautami won the stage of Entering-the-Stream, and shortly afterwards she became enlightened. She was the first woman to have attained Nirvana under the dispensation of Shakyamuni Buddha.

 

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Edited February 21, 2014 by ThisLife

[ThisLife]

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Judging from this thread's history of the number of readers who have tapped the "Like This" button, the stories most people seem to enjoy the most are extracts from factual accounts of Asian religious life. Since that was also my fascination for many years I still have a number of quite extraordinary tales that are sometimes rather difficult to come across. Obscure authors, or books long out of print, etc. On a rainy, drear Sunday morning like today, until this foul weather improves, perhaps it's the perfect opportunity to add another.

 

This extract is taken from what, without a shadow of doubt, is the most loved story in all of Tibet,…. . Milarepa. Living from c. 1052 – c. 1135 CE, he is generally considered to be one of Tibet's most famous yogis and poets. What follows below is the early life history of one of Tibet's first 'ordinary people' to evolve into a Buddha,... a Fully Awakened One.

 

But WHAT a story ! The unfolding events of his life which led up to this event, are as different from his Indian predecessor, Shakyamuni Buddha's path, as chalk from cheese. Having spent time living with the Tibetan community in exile, I can see how this classic story uncannily mirrors the differences between these two peoples.

 

The reason why I chose this account above all the other readily-available renditions is that for my tastes, the author accomplishes a perfect blend of serious historical accuracy,... with the drama of a first rate story teller who fuels you into wanting to keep turning to the next page. The book it is taken from is called "The Life of Milarepa", and it was written by Lobsang P. Lhalungpa.

 

My basis for the choice of sections added below sadly comes down to my own undeveloped spiritual nature which still thrills to the dash and 'derring-do' of adventure, much more than it does to their holy fulfillment. The following are chapters Two and Three from Lhalungpa's book,... telling the events of Milarepa's early home experiences and the rather 'hair-raising' activities he unexpectedly found himself embroiled in.

 

I suspect his childhood was quite different to many of ours here on this forum.

 

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Second Chapter :

Youth

 

*

 

Then Retchung asked, 'O Master, you are said to have suffered many misfortunes after the death of your father. How did these evils come upon you? Thus he pleaded, and the Master continued:

 

When I was about seven years old, my father, Mila Banner of Wisdom, was wasting away with a terrible disease. The doctors and magicians predicted that he would never get well and so abandoned him.

 

His relatives and friends also knew that he would not live. He himself was certain he would die. My uncle (Eternal Banner of Victory) and aunt (Glorious Contestant of Khyung) and all our relatives, close and distant friends, and prominent neighbours gathered together.

 

My father agreed to put his family and affairs in the care of a trustee. Then he made a detailed will to insure that his son should later take possession of his patrimony. And he read the will aloud for everyone to hear:

 

'To sum up clearly, since I shall not recover from my present illness and since my son is still small, here are the arrangements by which I entrust him to all his relatives and friends and especially to his uncle and aunt.

 

'In the mountains: my animals - yaks, horses, and sheep; in the valley, first of all, the field, Fertile Triangle, and several other parcels of land of which the poor are envious; under the house : cows, goats, and asses; in the loft: implements, gold, silver, copper, and iron, turquoise, fabrics, silk, and a granary. All of this makes up my wealth. In short, I have so much that I need not envy anyone. Take a part of these riches for the expenses which will follow my death. As to the rest, I entrust everything to all of you assembled here until my son will be old enough to take care of his property. I entrust him completely to the care of his uncle and aunt.

 

When this child is of an age to assume the family responsibilities let him marry Zessay, to whom he has been betrothed since childhood. Then let them receive all my goods without exception, and let my son take possession of his inheritance.

 

‘During this time let the uncle, aunt, and near relatives be aware of the joys and sorrows of my two children and their mother. Do not lead them into misery. After my death I shall be watching you from the realm of the dead.' Having thus spoken, he died.

 

Then the funeral rites were performed. AII the relatives came to an agreement on the remainder of the possessions, and all, particularly the well-wishers, said, 'White Jewel, take charge of the property yourself. Do what you think is good.' But the uncle and aunt said, ‘All here are your friends, but we, your near ones, will be better than friends. We shall do no wrong to the mother and children. In accordance with the will, we shall take charge of the property.’

 

Without listening to the arguments of my mother's brother or of the family of Zessay, my uncle took the men's goods and my aunt the women's. The rest was divided in half. Then the aunt and uncle said: 'You, mother and children, will take turns to serve us.' We no longer had any control over our possessions. In summer, at the time for work in the fields, we were the servants of the uncle. In winter, while working with wool, we were the servants of the aunt. Our food was fit for dogs, our work for donkeys. For clothes, some strips of rags were thrown over our shoulders and held together with a rope of grass. Working without rest, our limbs became raw and sore. Due to bad food and poor clothing we became pale and emaciated. Our hair, which at one time had fallen in curls of turquoise and gold, became sparse and gray, filled with nits and lice. Those with feeling, who saw or heard of this, shed tears. They spoke bluntly behind the backs of my uncle and aunt. As we were weighed down with misery, my mother said to my aunt, 'You are not the Glorious Contestant of Khyung, but rather Dumo Takdren, Demoness Equal of Tigers.’ This name, Demoness Equal of Tigers remained with my aunt.

 

In those days there was a well-known proverb: 'When the false master is master, the true master is driven out of the house like a dog.’ This proverb aptly described us, mother and children.

 

-In the days when our father, Mila Banner of Wisdom, was there, everyone, strong or weak, watched to see if our faces were smiling or sad. Later, when the uncle and aunt were as rich as kings' it was their faces, smiling or sad, which people regarded. The men said about my mother, 'How true is the proverb: "To a rich husband, an able wife: from soft wool, good cloth." Now that the husband is no longer there, it is as the proverb says. In times past, when her husband was master and held up his head, White Jewel was courageous and wise, as well as a good cook. Now, she is weak and timid.' Even those who had served us mocked us. Thus they acted according to the proverb 'One man's misery is another man's fun.'

 

The parents of Zessay gave me boots and new clothing, and said, 'Do not think you are poor when riches pass away, since they are said to be ephemeral like the dew in the meadow. In the past your ancestors did not become rich until quite late. For you also the time of abundance will come again.' And speaking in this way, they consoled us.

 

*

 

At last I reached my fifteenth year. There was at this time a field given to my mother as a dowry by her parents, called by the not very beautiful name of Trede Tenchung (Little Fur Carpet), which nevertheless produced an excellent harvest. My mother's brother had cultivated it himself, and had done everything he could to store away its yield.

 

Thus he had secretly collected a surplus of grain which he sold to buy a great quantity of meat. With white barley, flour was made. With black barley, beer was made for a feast, which he said was to reclaim the patrimony of White Jewel and her children. Then my mother borrowed carpets and put them in my house called Four Columns and Eight Beams.

 

She first invited my uncle and aunt, then close relatives, intimate friends, and neighbours, and finally those who had knowledge of the will written by my father, Mila Banner of Wisdom. To my uncle and aunt she presented a whole animal; to the others, according to their rank, a quarter of an animal or a third of a quarter. And she gave them beer in porcelain cups.

 

Then my mother stood up in the middle of the assemblage and said, 'When a son is born he is given a name. When one is summoned to a beer feast this means it is time to talk. I have something to say to all of you gathered here, both uncle and aunt, and the older ones who remember the last words of Mila Banner of Wisdom at the moment of his death.' So she spoke. And my mother's brother read the will. Then my mother continued, 'I do not need to explain to the older people who are here the terms of this will. Until now, the uncle and aunt have taken the trouble to direct us, both mother and children, in all things. Now my son and Zessay are old enough to have their own home. This is why I beg you, restore to us the goods which were entrusted to you, let my son marry Zessay and take possession of his patrimony according to the will.'

 

Thus she spoke. The uncle and aunt, who almost never concurred, became united in their greed. On our side, I was an only son. On their side, they had many children.

 

And so my uncle and aunt retorted with one voice, 'You have goods? Where are they? In former times, when Mila Banner of Wisdom was in good health, we loaned him a house, fields, gold, turquoise, dzos, horses, yaks, and sheep. At the time of his death he returned these goods to their owner. Do you possess a single piece of gold ? A single ounce of butter ? A single garment ? A single scrap of silk? We have not even seen the hoof of an animal. Who has written this will? We have had the goodness to nourish you when you were orphaned and destitute, so that you would not die of hunger. The proverb "As soon as they have power, greedy men will even measure out water" is indeed true.'

 

Having said this, the uncle snuffled, blew his nose, got up quickly, snapped his fingers, shook the panel of his skirt, stamped his foot, and said, 'What is more, even this house belongs to me. So, orphans, get out.' Saying this, he slapped my mother and struck my sister and me with the sleeve of his chuba.

 

Then my mother cried out, 'Father Mila Banner of Wisdom, see the fate of your family. You said you would watch us from the realm of the dead. Look at us now.' Thus she spoke and, weeping, she fell and rolled on the ground. We children could do nothing for her but weep. My mother's brother, fearing my uncle's many sons, could not fight back. People of the village, who loved us, said they felt sorry for us and there was not one of them who did not weep. The others present sighed deeply.

 

The uncle and aunt said to me, 'You demand your goods, but you already have a great deal. You prepared a feast for the neighbours and the people of the village without regard for the beer and the meat you squandered. We do not have such wealth. Even if we did, we would not give them to you, miserable orphans. So if you are many, make war on us. If you are few, cast spells.' With these words, they went away. Afterward, their friends also left.

 

 

My mother wept without ceasing while her brother, Zessay's parents, and our friends remained to console her, saying, ‘Do not cry; tears serve nothing. Ask for something from each one who has come to the feast. Everybody here will give you what you need, even the uncle and aunt may give you something good.’

 

My mother's brother then said, 'Do as they say and send your son to learn a skill. Then you, mother and daughter, can live with me and work in my fields. It is always good to occupy yourself with something useful. In any case, you must do something so as not to be helpless in front of your uncle and aunt.' My mother replied, 'Dispossessed of all my goods, I have never begged for anything to raise my children. I will not accept from the uncle and aunt a single piece of my own property. Persecuted by the uncle and aunt we will run at the sound of the drum, and run when the smoke rises. We shall put them to shame. After that, I myself will till my field.'

 

In the region of Tsa, in the village of Mithogekha, there was a master magician of the Nyingmapa Order, very much in demand in the villages, who knew the Cult of the Eight Nagas. My mother sent me to him to learn how to read. At the same time, our relatives, offering us their own goods, gave each of us a few things. The parents of Zessay brought me supplies of oil and firewood and, to console me, they even sent Zessay to where I was learning to read. My maternal uncle fed my mother and sister and thus they did not have to beg or work somewhere else.

 

Because her brother would not allow her to become destitute, my mother did work at home, one day spinning, the next day weaving. In this way she obtained some money and what was necessary for us, her children. My sister worked for others as much as she could to earn food and clothing. She ran at the sound of the drum and ran when the smoke was rising.

 

Suffering from hunger, our clothing in tatters and spirits low, we were not happy.

 

*

 

Thus the Master spoke. As he said these words all the listeners were deeply moved and, with grief in their hearts, remained silent for a moment, shedding tears. This is the second chapter, laying bare to the highest degree the reality of sorrow.

 

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Third Chapter :

Misdeeds

 

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Then Retchung said, 'Master, you told us that at first you had done evil deeds. How, may I ask, did you commit them?'

 

'I accumulated sins through casting spells and causing hailstorms.’

 

'Master, what circumstances led you to cast spells and cause hailstorms?'

 

Then the Master continued:

 

*

 

While studying at Mithogekha, one day I accompanied my tutor to the lower valley of Tsa, where he was invited to preside at a wedding feast. Drinking much beer, not only what I poured for him but also what all the others poured for him, my tutor became drunk. He sent me ahead with the presents he had received. I also was drunk. Hearing the singers, I too had a desire to sing, and having a good voice, I sang as I went along. The road passed in front of my house and I was still singing when I arrived at the door. In the house my mother was roasting barley and heard me. ‘What is this?' she said to herself. 'That sounds like the voice of my son. But how could he be singing while we are so miserable?' And not believing what she heard, she looked outside. As soon as she recognized me she cried out in surprise. Her right hand dropped the tongs; her left hand dropped the whisk; and, leaving the barley to burn, she took a stick in one hand and a handful of ashes in the other. She ran down the big steps, leaped over the little ones, and was outside. She threw the ashes in my face, struck me several times on the head, and shouted, 'Father Mila Banner of Wisdom, is this the son that you have begotten ? He is not worthy of you. Look at our fate, mother and son !’ And with this she fainted.

 

At this moment my sister came running up and said, ‘Elder brother, what are you doing? What has happened to mother?’ And her weeping brought me to my senses. Then I too shed many tears. We rubbed our mother's hands and called her name. After a moment she came to herself and got up. Then, fixing her tear-filled eyes on me, she said, 'Since we are the most unfortunate people on earth, is it proper to sing? When I think of it, I, your old mother, am consumed by despair and can only cry.' Then, lamenting loudly, all three of us began to weep. I said to her, 'Mother, you are right. Do not be so distressed. I will do whatever you wish.'

 

'I wish you were dressed in the mantle of a man and mounted on a horse, so that your stirrups would rip the necks of our detested enemies. That is not possible. But you could do them harm by guileful means. I would that, having thoroughly learned magic together with the destructive spell, you first destroy your uncle and aunt, then the villagers and the neighbours who have treated us so cruelly. I want you to curse them and their descendants down to the ninth generation. Now, see if you can do it.'

 

I replied, 'Mother, I will try. Prepare provisions and a gift for the lama.'

 

So that I might learn magic, my mother sold half the field, called Little Fur carpet. With the money she bought a turquoise called Great Sparkling Star, a white horse, well-loved in that area, named Senge Submey (Unbridled Lion), two bundles of dye, and two packs of raw sugar, which were soon used up' Thus she finished the preparations for my departure.

 

First I went to stay a few days in a caravanserai called Lhundup in Gungthang. Five amiable young men arrived saying they came from Ngari Dol and were going to the region of U and Tsang to study religion and magic. I proposed that they let me join them since I also was going to learn magic. They agreed. I brought them to my mother's house in Gungthang and treated them as guests for several days.

 

My mother secretly told them, 'This son of mine has no willpower. So you, his companions, should exhort him and spur him on to become deeply skilled in magic. When that time comes I shall offer you hospitality and generous rewards.’ Then, loading the two sacks of dye onto the horse, and carrying the turquoise on my person, we went on our way. My mother accompanied us for some distance.

 

While my companions were drinking a cup of farewell wine, my mother offered them much advice. Hardly able to separate herself from me, her only son, she held my hand tightly and took me aside. With her face bathed in tears and her voice choking with sobs she said to me, 'Above all, remember our misfortune and let the signs of your magic be manifested in our village. Then come back. The magic of your companions and ours is not the same. Their magic is that of well-loved children, who want it only for pleasure. Ours is that of people who have suffered tragedy. That is why an unyielding will is needed. If you return without having shown signs of your magic in our village, I, your old mother, will kill myself before your eyes.'

 

This I promised, and so we parted. I assured my mother of my love. I looked back continuously, and shed many tears. And my mother, who loved me dearly, watched us with tears in her eyes until we disappeared from view. In the ardour of my tender feelings, I asked myself if I should return to my mother for a moment. I had the feeling that I would never see her again. Finally, when we were out of sight, she went back to her village, weeping.

 

Some days later, it was rumoured that the son of White Jewel had gone away to learn magic.

 

*

 

We took the road to U and Tsang and arrived at Yakde in the valley of Tsangrong. There I sold my horse and the dye to a very rich man. In payment I received gold, which I carried on my person.

 

After crossing the Tsang Po, we turned toward U. In a place named Thunlok Rakha (Sheepfold of Tuhn) we met many venerable monks. I asked them if they knew of a master in the U region who was skilled in magic, spells, and hailstorms. One of the monks answered, 'At Kyorpo, in Yarlung, lives a lama named Yungton Trogyel (Terrifying Conqueror) of Nyag. He has great power in charms, spells, and terrible incantations.' This monk was his disciple. So we set out to find Lama Yungton and arrived at Kyorpo in Yarlung.

 

When we presented ourselves before the lama, my companions offered him only insignificant gifts, but I gave him everything, gold and turquoise. And I said, 'I further offer you my body, speech, and mind. My neighbours and certain people in my village cannot bear the happiness of others. Have compassion and grant me the most powerful spell that can be cast upon my village. Meanwhile, mercifully grant me food and clothing.' The lama smiled and answered,'I shall think about what you have told me.' But he did not teach us the real secrets of magic.

 

About a year passed, and all he had given us were a few incantations to make heaven and earth clash, and a smattering of various formulas and useful practices. All my companions were getting ready to leave. The lama gave each of them a well-sewn garment of broadcloth from Lhasa. But I was not satisfied. These practices were not powerful enough to produce any effect in my village. Thinking that my mother would kill herself if I returned without my spells having been effective, I resolved not to go. Seeing that I was not preparing to leave, my companions asked me, 'Good News, are you not leaving?' I answered, 'I have not yet learned enough magic.' They replied, 'These formulas are supremely magical if only we can strive to master them. The lama himself said that he had no others. We no longer have any doubts about it. Just go and see if the lama will give you others !' After thanking the lama and bidding him goodbye, they left. I too donned the clothing given by the lama and accompanied them for half a day on their journey. After we had wished each other good health, they set out for their homeland.

 

On the way back to the lama I filled the front of my garment with horse and donkey manure, cow dung, and dog droppings for the lama's field. Digging a hole in his fertile and life-giving field, I buried them there. The lama, who was on the terrace of his house, saw me and said to some of his disciples, 'Of the many disciples who have come to me, none is more loving than Good News, and there will never be another like him. The proof is that this morning he did not say farewell and now he has come back. When he came here for the first time, he told me that the people of his village and his neighbours could not endure the happiness of others. He asked me for magic and offered me his body, speech, and mind. Such persistence ! If the story he told is true, it would be a pity not to give him the secrets of black magic.'

 

One of the monks repeated these words to me. I said to myself joyfully, 'At last it is settled, I will get the real secrets of magic.' And so I went to the lama. He said to me, 'Good News, why did you not go home?' Then I returned the garment the lama had given me. I put my head down at his feet and told him, 'Precious lama, there are three of us, my mother, my sister, and myself. My uncle and aunt, a few neighbours, and some villagers have become our enemies. Through treatment we did not deserve, they reduced us to misery. I did not have the strength to defend myself. That is why my mother sent me to learn magic. If I return home without a single sign of magic having resulted from my mother will kill herself before my eyes. It is to keep her from destroying herself that I have not left. That is why I am asking you for the real secrets of magic.'

 

Having said this, I wept. The lama asked, ‘In what way have the people of your village harmed you ?’ Sobbing, I told him how father, Mila Banner of Wisdom, had died and how, after his death, the uncle and aunt had crushed us with misery. Then tears fell one by one from the lama's eyes. He said, ‘If what you say is true, it is a sad case. The magic that I practice will do. But we must not hurry. For this same magic I have been offered fortunes in gold and turquoise from Ngari Korsum in the west; vast quantities of tea, silk, and clothing from the three mountain regions of Kham in the east; horses, yaks, and sheep by the hundreds and thousands from Jyayul, Dakpo, and Kongpo in the south. But you alone have given me your body, speech, and mind. I am going to verify what you have told me right away.'

 

Living with the lama at that time was a monk who was swifter than a horse and stronger than an elephant. The lama sent him to my village to verify my story. The monk quickly returned and said, 'Precious lama, Good News has told the truth. He needs to be taught much magic.'

 

The lama said to me, ‘If I had taught you such magic right away, I fear that you, with your stubbornness, would have made me regret it. But now, since you are sincere, you must go to another master for further instruction. I have an incantation from the cult of the Maroon-faced Dza, a whose powerful mantra Hum causes death, while the mantra Paht causes unconsciousness.

 

'In the region called Nub Khulung in the Tsangrong lives a lama named Yonten Gyatso (Ocean of Virtues) of Khulung, who is a great doctor and magician. I gave him my secret formula. And in return he taught me how to call down hailstorms with the tip of one finger. After he had taught me this, we became friends and associates. Now those who come to me to learn magic, I must send to him. Those who go to him to learn how to cause hailstorms, he must send to me. Go with my son and find him.’

 

The elder son of the lama was called Darma Ouangchuk (Powerful Youth). In addition to provisions for the journey, the lama gave us a length of broadcloth and serge from Lhasa, a few small gifts, and a letter. Having arrived at Nub Khulung, we met the young lama of Nub. We offered him some pieces of wool and serge as well as the gifts and the letter from the lama. I carefully told him all the circumstances of the story and earnestly begged him to teach me magic. The lama answered, 'My friend is a loyal friend and true to his word. I shall teach you all sorts of magic. For this purpose construct a cell on the ridge of this mountain which will put you beyond human reach.'

 

We built a house above ground, which was made of solid beams laid side by side. We surrounded it with a continuous enclosure of stone blocks as big as yaks, without leaving any openings, so that no one else could see a door to the house or discover a means of attacking it. Then the lama gave us the magic incantation.

 

After we had performed the spell, seven days passed. Then the lama came and said, 'Formerly seven days were enough, and that should still suffice.' I replied, 'As my magic must work at a distance, I ask to continue for seven more days.' The lama answered, 'Very well, continue.' And so I did.

 

On the evening of the fourteenth day, the lama returned and said, 'Tonight there will be a sign around the mandala that magic has taken place.' And that same evening the loyal deities, guardians of the Order, brought us what we had asked for: the heads and the bleeding hearts of thirty-five people. They said, 'For several days you have repeatedly been invoking us. Here is what you wanted.' And they piled the heads all around the mandala. The next morning the lama returned and said, 'Of those to be destroyed, two people remain. Should they be destroyed or spared?' Full of joy, I said, ‘I beg you to let them live so they may know my vengeance and my justice.'

 

Thus it was that the uncle and aunt were unharmed.

 

We offered the loyal guardian deities a sacrifice of thanksgiving and we left our retreat. Today, our cell can still be seen at Khulung.

 

Meanwhile I wondered how the spell had manifested itself in my village of Kya-Ngatsa.

 

There had been a wedding feast for my uncle's eldest son. My uncle's sons and daughters-in-law arrived first with the men who hated us, thirty-five in all.

 

The other guests, who were friendly toward us, were talking on the way to the house, saying, 'When the false master becomes master, the true master is thrown to the dogs, just as the proverb says and as these pitiless people prove. If the magic of Good News has not yet taken effect against them, the power of the guardian deities of the Dharma will make itself felt.' Together they walked toward the house.

 

The uncle and aunt had gone out to discuss the meal to be served and the speech to be given. At this moment a former servant of ours who was now with my uncle had gone to draw water. She did not see the many horses tied up in the stable, but instead she saw scorpions, spiders, snakes, toads, and tadpoles. She saw a scorpion as big as a yak which grasped the pillars between its claws and tore them out. At this sight, the servant fled, terrified. Hardly was she outside when the stallions in the stable began mounting the mares and the mares began kicking the stallions. All the rearing, kicking horses struck against the pillars of the house, which then collapsed. Under the debris of the fallen house, my uncle's sons, his daughters-in-law, and the other guests, thirty-five in all, lay dead. The inside of the house was filled with corpses buried in a cloud of dust.

 

My sister Peta, seeing everyone weeping, ran quickly to get our mother. 'Mother ! Mother ! Uncle's house has collapsed and many people are dead. Come and see.'

 

My mother gave a cry of joy, and got up and went to look. She saw my uncle's house reduced to a cloud of dust and heard the shrieks of the villagers. As happy as she was astonished, she fastened a scrap of cloth to a long stick and, waving it in the air, cried in a loud voice, 'Glory to you, gods, lamas, and the Triple Refuge ! Well, villagers and neighbours, does Mila Banner of Wisdom have a son? I, White Jewel, am clothed in rags and eat bad food. Do you see that it was to nourish my son ? In the past the uncle and aunt said to us, "Mother and children, if you are many, then make war on us; if you are few, cast spells." So this is how we, few in number, have obtained more by magic than, had we been many, we would have obtained by war. Think of the people who were upstairs in the house, think of the treasures which were in their midst and think of the livestock in the stable. I have lived long enough to see and revel in this spectacle brought about by my son. Imagine what my happiness will be from today onward !'

 

Even those who were in their houses heard my mother's cry of vengeance. Some of them said, 'She is right.' Others said, 'She may be right, but her vengeance is too brutal.'

 

Hearing by what power these people had been killed, the villagers gathered together and said, 'Not satisfied with provoking this disaster, she now rejoices in it. It is going too far. Torture her and then rip the living heart from her breast.' The elders said, 'What is the use of killing her? What has happened to us is really her son's doing. You must first of all find her son and kill him. Afterward it will be easier to kill the mother.' Speaking thus, they came to an agreement.

 

The uncle heard this remark and said, 'Now that my sons and daughters are dead, I am not afraid to die.' And he set out to kill my mother. But the villagers stopped him, saying, 'It is because you did not keep your word in the past that this misfortune has befallen us. If you kill the mother before killing the son, we will oppose you.' They did not give my uncle a chance to act. Then the villagers conspired to kill me.

 

My maternal uncle went to my mother and said, 'After your words and conduct yesterday, the neighbours are ready to kill you and your son. Why did you shout out your vengeance? Was it not enough that the spell worked?' And he rebuked her strongly. My mother replied, 'Ill-fortune has not fallen on you. I understand what you are saying, but after the way they stole my goods it is difficult to keep silent.' And without saying another word, she wept. Her brother continued, 'It is true. You are right. But assassins may come, so lock yourself in.' Having spoken, he went away. And my mother, locking herself in, began to plan and scheme.

 

Meanwhile my uncle's servant, who had formerly been in my service, heard the people plotting together. Because of her attachment to my family she could not tolerate this and went secretly to tell my mother what had been decided by the council, advising her to look out for her son's life. My mother thought to herself, 'This decision, for the moment, clouds my joy.' She sold the remaining half of the field, Little Fur Carpet, for seven ounces of gold. As there was no man from the neighbourhood that she could send to me, and as no courier had arrived from elsewhere, my mother thought of coming herself to bring provisions and give me advice.

 

At this particular moment a yogin from U province, who was returning from a pilgrimage to Nepal, came to the door begging, and my mother asked him his story. As he was suitable to be a messenger, she said to him, 'Stay here a few days. I have a son who is in U and Tsang and I have to send him some news. Be good enough to take it to him.'

 

In the meantime my mother offered him abundant hospitality. Then having lit a butter lamp, she invoked help. ‘If my wish is granted, may my son's lama and the protecting deities cause the lamp to burn a long time. If it is not to be granted, let the lamp die quickly.' The lamp lasted a day and a night. My mother, believing that her wish would be fulfilled, said to the pilgrim, ‘Yogin, to journey across the country, clothing and boots are of great importance.' And she gave him leather and thread to mend his boots. She herself patched his worn cloak. Without telling the yogin, she sewed seven ounces of gold inside the lining of his cloak, over which she placed a square piece of black cloth. She embroidered this piece with stars of coarse white thread representing the constellation of the Pleiades in such a way that it could not be seen from the outside. Then she paid the yogin well, entrusted him with a sealed letter in secret writing, and dismissed him.

 

Afterward, my mother thought, 'As I do not know what the neighbours have decided to do, I must adopt a menacing air.’ She then told Peta, 'Announce to everybody that this yogin has brought a letter from your brother.'

 

Here is the letter which my mother wrote as though it came from me:

 

'Doubtless my mother and sister are in good health and have seen signs of the magic that has taken place. If certain neighbours persist in their hatred of you, send me their names and the names of their families. By means of spells, it will be as easy for me to kill them as to throw a pinch of food into the air. Thus I will destroy them to the ninth generation. Mother and sister, if the people of the village are still hostile to you, come and join me here. I will destroy every trace of this village. Although I am in seclusion, I have wealth and provisions beyond measure. Do not worry about me.'

 

Having written this, my mother folded the letter. she showed it first to her brother and his friends. Then she left it with her brother so that everyone would see it. As a result, they all changed their minds and gave up the idea of killing us. They took back the field, Fertile Triangle, from my uncle and gave it to my mother.

 

*

 

Meanwhile, the yogin came looking for me. Learning that I was in Nub Khulung, he sought me out. He gave me the letter and I stepped aside to read it.

 

'I hope, Good News, that you are in good health. Your old mother's wish to have a son is realized and the lineage of your father, Mila Banner of Wisdom, has been assured. Signs of your magic have appeared in the village and thirty-five people have been killed in the house that collapsed. As a result of this, the local people have ill-will toward us both, mother and daughter, so that is why you must make hail fall as high as the ninth course of bricks. Then the last wishes of your old mother will be realized. The people of the neighbourhood say they will seek you out and that, after having killed you, they will kill me. For both our sakes, mother and son, let us guard our lives with the greatest care. If your provisions are exhausted, look in the region facing north where, against a black cloud, the constellation of the Pleiades will appear. Beneath it are the seven houses of your cousins. There you will find all the provisions you could wish for. Take them. If you do not understand, ask no one else but this yogin who lives in that region.'

 

I did not understand the meaning of this letter. I missed my homeland and my mother. As I was in great need of provisions, being ignorant of the region and knowing no relatives there, I shed many tears. I asked the yogin, 'Since you know the country, where do my cousins live?’ The yogin answered,’In the central plain of Ngari.'

 

'Do you not know any other regions? Which is yours?'

 

'I know many other regions, but I do not know any others where your cousins live. I am from U province.'

 

'Now then, stay here a moment, I will be right back.'

I went to show the letter to the lama and asked him for the explanation. The lama scanned the letter and said to me, 'Good News, your mother is full of hatred. Even after the death of so many people she now wants you to send hailstorms. Who are your cousins in the north?' I answered, ‘I have never heard of them. It is the letter that mentions them. I asked the yogin but he does not know.'

 

The wife of the lama, who was marked with the sign of the great dakinis, read the letter aloud and said to me, 'Send for the yogin.'

 

When the yogin came, the lama's wife made a big fire and gave him some excellent beer. Then, removing the cloak from the yogin's back, she put it on herself and said, 'This is a nice cloak for travelling from place to place.' Having spoken, she walked up and down. Then she went up to the terrace of the house. There she removed the gold from the cloak, re-sewed the piece as before, and returning, placed the cloak on the yogin's back.

 

After having served the yogin the evening meal, she led him to his room and said, 'Go and tell Good News to come before the lama.' I arrived and she gave me the seven ounces of gold. I asked, 'Where did this gold come from?' The lama's wife answered, 'It was in the yogin's cloak. Good News, you have a prudent mother. The region facing north where the sun does not shine means the cloak of the yogin that the sun does not penetrate. The black hanging cloud means the square of black cloth which is patched on it. The constellation of the Pleiades which will appear means the stars sewn with white thread. And underneath, the seven houses of your cousins means the seven ounces of gold. If you do not understand, since the yogin lives in that region, ask no one else. That means, If you do not understand, since the gold is in the yogin's cloak, do not look elsewhere.'

 

Thus spoke the lama's wife. And the lama said, 'You women ! They say that you are full of guile. And it is very true.' And he laughed.

 

After that I gave a tenth of an ounce of gold to the yogin and he was satisfied. To the mistress of the house I offered seven-tenths of an ounce. Then I offered the lama three ounces of gold and said to him, 'You see that my old mother is also asking for a hailstorm. Please find it in your heart to teach me.'

 

The lama answered, 'If you want hailstorms, go and find Yungton Trogyel (Terrifying Conqueror) of Nyag.' And he gave me a letter and some gifts.

 

*

 

I left for the village of Kyorpo in the Yarlung. When I arrived before the lama, I laid at his feet three ounces of gold, the letter, and the gifts. I told him why I wished to send hailstorms. He asked me, 'Have you succeeded in making magic ?'

 

I answered, 'I have been completely successful, and through magic thirty-five people have been killed. Now, in addition, this letter asks for hailstorms. Please find it in your heart to teach me.'

 

'Very well, so be it,' said the lama. And he gave me the secret formula. I went to perform the rites in my old cell.

 

 

Beginning with the seventh day, a cloud invaded the magic cell. Lightning flashed, thunder rumbled, and the voice of the Maroon-faced Dza was heard. This led me to believe that I could call forth hail with my fingertip.

 

Every now and then the lama asked me, 'So as to know when to send the hail, how high is the harvest now, in your village?'

 

And I replied, 'It is hardly sprouting.'

 

And some time later, 'It is hardly high enough to hide the wood-pigeons.'

 

The lama said, 'And now where is it?'

 

I replied, 'The wheat is just beginning to bend.'

 

'Then it is time to send the hailstorm,' said the lama.

 

He gave me as a companion the messenger who had already been to my village. Disguised as wandering monks, we set out.

 

In the country, the old people could not remember such a good year. They had made a harvesting law, forbidding anyone to harvest when he pleased. When we arrived, the harvest was to be reaped the following day and the day after. I established myself in the high country.

 

After I had repeated the incantations, a little cloud hardly as big as a sparrow drifted by. I was disappointed. I invoked the guardian deities by name. My pleas were based on the terrible treatment I had received from the villagers. I threw off my cloak and began to cry. Then, inconceivably huge black clouds suddenly gathered in the sky. They swept down in a single mass and in an instant the hailstones burst upon the harvest and covered the whole valley up to a height of three courses of brick. Deep gorges were cut into the mountains. Seeing the loss of the harvest, the villagers wept.

 

Suddenly there was a great wind mixed with rain. As my companion and I were cold, we went into a cave whose entrance faced north. There we made a fire of tamarisk and there we stayed.

 

Some men of the village were hunting for sacrificial meat for the harvest thanksgiving. And they said, 'This Good News has sent us a misfortune that no other could have sent. He has already slain so many men ! Now, through his art, we no longer see anything of our magnificent harvest. If he fell into our hands we would tear out his still beating heart. And each of us would eat a piece of his flesh and drink a drop of his blood.'

 

They spoke thus because the wound in their hearts was incurable. As they talked in this way, coming back down the mountain, they happened to pass in front of the cave. An old man said, 'Silence ! Silence ! Speak softly ! Smoke is coming out of the cave. Who can that be ?'

 

'It is surely Good News. He has not seen us. If we men of the village do not kill him soon, he will surely succeed in destroying the whole region.' So saying they turned back.

 

My companion said to me, 'Leave ahead of me. I will pretend that I am you. I will tell them when leaving that this is my revenge. We will meet again four days' journey to the west at the caravanserai of Dingri.'

 

As he was conscious of his strength, he remained alone and without fear. At this moment, I longed to see my mother one more time, but, frightened of my enemies, I fled quickly and ran to Nyanang. Having been bitten in the leg by a dog, I could not arrive on time at the meeting place.

 

My companion, even though he was surrounded by the villagers, broke through their circle and escaped. The more they gained on him, the faster he ran but when they were outdistanced he slackened his pace. They were shooting at him with their weapons, and he returned blow for blow by hurling large stones.

 

He shouted at them, 'l will lay a curse on whoever ventures against me. How many men have I not already killed for revenge? And now what about your beautiful harvest which has disappeared? Is this not also my revenge ? That being so, if you are not good to my mother and my sister, I will lay a curse on your whole region from the top of the valley to the bottom. Those who are not killed will see their line destroyed to the ninth generation. If death and desolation do not strike this country, it will not be my fault. Wait and see ! Wait and see !'

 

Speaking thus, he moved away. And in fear they began to accuse one another, 'It was all your fault, it was all your fault.'

 

Quarrelling among themselves, they turned back.

 

My companion reached Dingri ahead of me. He asked the keeper of the caravanserai if someone resembling a yogin had arrived. The keeper answered, 'He has not come. But all you so-called yogins are very fond of drinking. In the next village there is a beer banquet. Go there. If you have no cup, I can lend you one. And he loaned him a wooden cup as deep and gray as the face of Yama, Lord of Death.

 

 

Having taken the cup with him, my companion went into the banquet hall and, since I was there at the end of the row of guests, he came and sat down beside me. He said to me, 'Why were you not at the meeting place yesterday ?'

 

'Yesterday I went to beg. A dog bit my leg and I could not walk very fast. But there is nothing to worry about.'

 

Setting out again from the banquet, we arrived at Kyorpo in Yarlung.

 

The lama said to us, 'Well, you two, you have done good work !'

 

'No one has been here before us. Who told you of it?'

 

The lama answered, 'Guardian deities have come, their faces beaming like the full moon. I have thanked them.'

 

And speaking thus, the lama showed great joy.

 

This is the way I accumulated black deeds out of vengeance against my enemies.

 

Thus spoke the Master. This is the third chapter, that of the destruction of enemies. Such was the work of Milarepa in the world.

*

Edited March 6, 2014 by ThisLife

[ThisLife]

*

 

 

The following account was for many years the story that for me embodied every dream of ‘the most fulfilling experience’ I could possibly imagine. I really don’t know how many times I must have read and re-read it over the years. Again, it is taken from John Blofeld’s extraordinary real-life, spiritual adventures during the years he lived in pre-Communist China in the 1930’s. For anyone interested, I included the author’s biographical background in the anecdote from his Peking days posted in this thread on December 6, and a bit more can be found in the account of his visit to a Taoist Monastery posted on December 16.

 

The extract below is the central tale taken from his wonderful autobiography, ‘The Wheel of Life’. In it Blofeld describes a pilgrimage he made to a remote, sacred mountain complex in China called ‘Wu T’ai’. The first few paragraphs below, (up to the chapter title with that name), are the background events which led to his decision to make this pilgrimage. I’ve included these causal links as well, not only because they are an integral part of the unfolding story, but also because they give the reader an exquisite and rare glimpse into what life was like in Peking before decades of communism destroyed those ways of living forever.

[NOTE :] In posting this I've just had a notification pop up that it is too long. So, I'll try to cut it in two parts, cobbling the Peking lead-up together with this introduction.

 

*

*

 

 

 

John Blofeld Wrote:

 

*

 

We chatted pleasantly of other matters over a freshly made pot of tea. After that, when I got up to take my leave, a novice was sent for to light me across the deserted courtyards. He arrived drowsy from interrupted sleep and carrying a long stick with a paper lantern bobbing on a string; its light was so dim that it barely sufficed to reveal the path. As the night was unusually dark, the temple halls with their great sweeping roofs, were at first invisible, but gradually they took shape, starkly black against the faint, scarcely perceptible luminosity of the starless sky. The swaying lantern, inscribed with two large scarlet characters –Harmony and Peace -cast a reddish glow which just reached down to the mossy flags of the successive courtyards. And when we came to the neglected outer courtyard, the slight glow startled insects, and perhaps reptiles, hidden in the thick carpet of rotting leaves, causing them to fly or slither away from under our feet.

 

In the lanes beyond the gateway were latticed windows, nests of intersecting squares and triangles softly lit from within by wicks floating in saucers of oil. For, in that quiet corner of the Northern City, the electric light had as yet failed to penetrate, probably because most of the inhabitants were too poor to pay for its installation. As so often before, I derived a peculiar delight from the absence in my immediate surroundings of any sound, sight or smell which could remind me of the severe damage caused to an ancient civilization by the great tidal wave of Western influence. Peking was probably the last important Chinese city in which corners like this, entirely unchanged by the passage of centuries, still remained.

 

A series of lanes led me to one of those broad, dimly lighted thoroughfares which owed their great width to architects who, though they had never envisaged modern traffic, had been concerned to allow space for the splendid cortege which had invariably accompanied the Son of Heaven during a progress through the city. The road was now smoothly paved and the rickshaw which carried me towards home moved at the speed of a fast-trotting horse. A little way from the mouth of my own lane, I shouted to the rickshaw-puller to halt. I had caught sight of a screen standing before a broad gateway which bore two gilded characters on a green background signifying 'bathing-hall'. As it was still too early for bed, I decided to spend two or three hours enjoying a hot bath and a Chinese-style massage. My spirit had just received its fair share of attention, it was now the body's turn.

 

A bowing attendant led me to the public drying-room where forty or fifty patrons lay about on partitioned platforms covered with clean towelling. When I had undressed and girded my loins with a towel to satisfy Pekingese prudery, I passed into the bathroom, where three baths the size of small swimming pools containing water at varying temperatures awaited my choice. I chose the middle one, knowing it would be quite hot enough to turn my whole body scarlet and, after soaping myself carefully beneath a shower, I cautiously lowered myself into it. There I was allowed to soak in peace until an attendant was free to give me a massage, for which purpose he spread-eagled me on a sort of crucifix inserted at the shallow end and leant against the side of the bath. The massage was so vigorous as to be actually painful, but it left me with a feeling of renewed strength. Back in the drying-room, where I was subjected to another sort of rather painful massage, I waited till the man had finished slapping my flesh and tweaking my nerves, and then lay back with a sigh of relief to enjoy a pot of good tea and some dumplings containing a confection of sugared beans. Presently, my left- and right-hand neighbours began to chat with me. Discovering to his surprise that I am a Buddhist, one of them asked me if I had ever been to the sacred mountain of Wu T'ai.

 

'No, I haven't. Do you advise me to go ?'

 

'Yes, yes. It is a wonderful place. Such mountains. It will take you a week by mule from the nearest station. But when you get there, ah! So many profound scholars. Wonderful! And there's a Living Buddha and a Great Lama all the way from Lhasa. Such people! And do you know, the whole plateau is covered with flowers - wild flowers, just like a garden. As for temples, you'll never believe till you see. Two hundred, three hundred; who knows ? I was posted there once as assistant clerk to the magistrate. What a wonderful time that was! Of course I was delighted to return to our Peking, but I'll never forget Wu T'ai Shan - never! And you, Mr P'u, as a Buddhist, you'll feel that you've got to Amida Buddha's Western Paradise already. Yes, really you will. Believe me. Heaven on earth.'

 

Until he got on to the subject of Wu T'ai, he had seemed a long-winded sort of man, but his enthusiasm for the place made his sentences positively staccato. By now, the conversation had become for me much more than a pleasant way of passing the evening. I was intrigued, especially when I remembered that my 'shaman' had come from Wu T’ai. By the time I began dressing, I was estimating my resources and planning an early visit to the fabulous mountain. It was then so late that we were almost the only Patrons left in the bath-house.

 

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Edited March 21, 2014 by ThisLife

[ThisLife]

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The Sacred Mountain of 'Wu T'ai

 

 

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Peking, for all its moods of softness, belongs indisputably to the North, where camels and horses take the place of buffaloes. There are times in spring when the sand of the Gobi Desert comes riding in opaque yellow clouds upon the wings of an evil wind, blotting out the sun, seeping through windows and doors, penetrating even into bookcases, and torturing the noses and throats of those who huddle within their houses. In winter, freezing winds bring tears to the eyes which soon form icicles clinging to the lashes. The city’s softer aspects are the residue of centuries of imperial rule during which a yearly harvest was reaped of all the manifold forms of beauty which China's far-flung provinces had to offer. So, in pleasant weather, Peking displays southern graces - a gentleness, a languor, a delicacy which offset the grimness of her intimidating gateways set amid ponderous fortifications.

 

The time came for me to take leave of this voluptuous softness and to journey to Wu T'ai Shan across the great North China plain – in autumn and early spring, yellow and parched as a desert; in winter, a dreary wilderness of snow; in summer, an endless vista of softly waving green or pale yellow. I must enter the lonely mountains lying several hundred miles to the west.

 

Fortunately it was June, my vacation having begun-early owing to a political strike at the university. The little train chugged slowly through the richly cultivated fields which, east and south, stretched to the horizon and far beyond; while, to the north and west, blue and purple hills were already visible. Bare, treeless slopes succeeded the great ocean of rippling green maize and kaoliang; and, before dusk, we came to Nank’ou, the principal gateway through the Great Wall. Like a monstrous Chinese dragon, the Wall sprawled across the hills, clinging to the ridges in a series of stupendous undulations. A single hundred-yard section of it would be accounted an engineering feat of some magnitude. How was it possible to visualize it rising and falling uninterruptedly from the China Sea almost to the borders of Turkestan ? the effort of imagination made me sleepy and, just before sunset, my eyes closed. So I knew nothing more until the train came jerking to a halt at Kalgan, Mongolia's gateway. For the first time I was within bowshot of camel caravanseries; of butter-pomaded Mongols who washed or were washed only thrice in their lives (after birth, before marriage and after death); of crowds of men in brocaded clothes, their silks glistening beneath the grease accumulations of years; of men who were fit to challenge Cossacks to feats of daring horsemanship - riders who could loose an arrow from the back of a fast-galloping steed and hit the target as unerringly as an army instructor on the regimental shooting-range. But these things I was left to imagine, to reconstruct from my reading and from my knowledge of the Mongols in Peking. Afraid to leave the train, I lay down on the hard, wooden seat, enjoying fitful dreams with a Mongolian background.

 

At midnight, we reached Tat'ung, having turned southwards back into China Proper. Even after a hot June day, the night air was chilly, so I was glad to find that my room at the inn was provided with a heated k'ang. In fact, it contained very little else. One third of the room- space consisted of a bare brick floor, the rest being taken up by the low brick platform covered with singed straw matting on which I now unrolled my bedding of thinly wadded summer quilts. The only article of furniture was a foot-high table about the size of a large tea-tray placed in the middle of the k'ang for use at meals. A bowl of hot water for washing, a rather grimy perfumed towel and a potful of hot red tea were the only luxuries available that night. Being lunchless and dinnerless, I was hungry, but too tired to care much.

 

An hour after dawn, a lad in a shabby blue cotton gown appeared bringing a very large bowl of coarse earthenware which contained my breakfast - boiled noodles in mutton broth, flavoured with garlic, onion and pepper. Such food does not make an ideal breakfast, but I found it tasty enough to have the bowl twice replenished. My next visitor was the inn-keeper, a crop-headed, harsh-looking man dressed in jacket and trousers of patched, unwashed white cotton. He asked how long I proposed to stay.

 

'Just one more night,' I answered. 'And, if you will find me horses and a guide, I should like to ride over to the Yunkang rock-temples this morning.'

 

This was easily arranged. With my guide mounted on another horse, I rode off through low hills, passing some of the ancient and still primitive coalmines of the region. They were being worked by thin, shabby wretches with packmules. Death by heart-failure overtook man and animal alike with frightening regularity, and they were alike too in being gaunt creatures with hardly any flesh between bone and skin, alike in their lack-lustre expressions, devoid of all joy and hope. I had been told that, in this province of Shansi, after generations of misgovernment, poverty was so great that the farmers scarcely ever tasted the eggs laid by their own fowls, even though they brought in little more than a silver dollar for a hundred and twenty of them – the price of one very good city-restaurant meal.

 

The Yunkang caves, like those of Ajanta, have one thing in common with that very different sort of monument - the Taj Mahal, in that they are among the few places in the world which cannot possibly disappoint even the most extravagant expectations. It is now thought that Buddhism first trickled into China as far back as the second century B.C. By the time these cave temples were hewn from the living rock in the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries A.D., the Indian religion was spreading like a bright flame across the face of Asia. The men who came into contact with it then were inspired with a great upsurge of the spirit comparable to that which led to the building of Europe’s loveliest cathedrals. Though Yunkang possesses fewer of those wondrous man-made caves than Ajanta, they are even more stupendous. In each cave, the principal Buddha-image (formed by cutting the rock from around it on three or four sides) is so enormous that, in at least one case, I estimated the nose alone to be twice as long as my six-foot body - perhaps much more than that, for it is difficult to judge the length of something high above one's head. The image most often photographed and reproduced in albums is one of the smallest among the principal images, easy to photograph because the cave has fallen around it; and even this one is often seen in reproductions with as many as fifty people standing on the hands and forearms without crowding. The large images are impossible to photograph as the space around them is too confined. At most, the camera can record some detail of face, limbs or body.

 

The staggering size of these images strikes the mind with wonder as soon as the caves are entered; but, before long, this wonder is thrust into the background by the even more astounding beauty of the sculpture, especially of the thousands of small figures surrounding the giant images. For centuries, these great statues have sat silently brooding on human sorrows, their lips touched with the faintest of compassionate smiles - but not in solitude. In each cave, walls and ceiling are a mass of intricate carvings. Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, devas, asparas, a host of spiritual beings-thousands upon thousands of them in every cave - stare down at the puny descendants of their inspired creators. Some reflect the brooding calm of the central images; others are running, leaping, flying, dancing, singing, twanging stringed instruments, blowing on horns, waving their arms, flapping their wings, making faces, rocking with laughter in so lively a manner that it is hard not to believe they are living beings petrified by a magician's spell.

 

I had never thought it possible that inanimate beauty could be so moving. Feeling that I had never seen anything to compare with it, I began to throw my mind back over China's other artistic achievements, wondering if the caves had some equal in other fields. I recalled Chinese architecture - grim, delicate, bizarre; paintings of rocks, mountains and waterfalls, birds, butterflies and every kind of flower; portraits of Buddhas, hermits and monks, officials, emperors and lovely women; porcelain of soft blues and greens, of brilliant reds and yellows, of crimson and ox-blood, of purest white or rainbow profusion of colour; figures of people, animals and plants in ivory, wood, jade, precious stones, silver and bronze - but there could be no end to such a list. Without attempting to think further, I concluded that even China (unless in the Tunhuang caves which I had never seen) has created nothing which exceeds the Yunkang rock-carvings in their power to evoke absolute certainty of a lovely and eternal Reality underlying the world of appearances and tantalizingly reflected by sensuous images and transient forms.

 

Begging my guide to leave me to myself, I wandered in and out of the caves, finding new beauties and fresh marvels each time I re-entered them. Within three hours, my mind had become so surfeited that I was glad to emerge into the open air and sit down to contemplate the simple and familiar sights of hill and sky. During the ride back to Tat’ung, I realized for the first time that an excess of beauty can be as overwhelming and as wearying as over-indulgence in drink, love-making or laughter.

 

I was compelled to stay in Tat'ung for several days; the inn-keeper would not hear of my making the week's journey to Wu T'ai without a proper caravan or an escort of some kind. At last, a suitable caravan was assembled, a group of people who, but for the absence of women, could have inspired illustrations for a Chinese translation of the Canterbury Tales. Of the thirty or forty members of this caravan, those I recollect most vividly are a mounted Mongol Lama in a splendid robe of purple silk; an elderly and very shabby old Mongol on foot who had spent two years on the journey from his home in Northern Manchuria, begging his food and carrying nothing but the clothes on his back; and my own muleteer, a gay young man from a farm which lay directly on our route, at whose house I was to spend a very comfortable night. Most travelled on foot, using horses and mules as pack- animals, but I preferred to make the journey in primitive luxury. For a small sum I was able to hire a mule-litter - a cross between a sedan-chair and the cabin of a very small boat. The floor consisted of netting on which my luggage had been carefully spread out and topped with my bedding to act as a sort of carpet. The walls and roof comprised a cylindrical tunnel supported on a wooden frame, very much like the cabin of a Cantonese sampan. The whole contraption was firmly anchored to two long shafts which projected before and behind so that it could be slung between two mules walking in single file.

 

For some reason, I and the muleteer who walked beside me were selected to lead the procession, while the much more important purple-robed Lama rode last of all. In general, holy-men and merchants occupied places of honour, front and rear, while the pedlars, illiterate pilgrims, and pack-animals formed the centre of the caravan. I found the motion of my wheel-less vehicle so soothing that I passed much of the time stretched flat on my back, dozing or drowsily busy with my thoughts, except now and then when I remembered that this was a pilgrimage and shamed myself into sitting cross-legged for an hour, practising meditation. More genuine pilgrims felt obliged to go on foot; indeed, Mongols often make far longer journeys, crawling on their knees or stopping at every three paces to prostrate themselves. The rough, rock-strewn path may have jarred the feet of the mules, but the litter swung between its poles as gently as a slim boat tossed upon lightly running seas. If I got down to stretch my legs, I had to walk very slowly for fear of losing sight of the caravan plodding ponderously behind.

 

The Chinese peasants and pilgrims chatted and sang as they toiled along the difficult track, which led steeply uphill nearly all the way. The purple-robed Lama could be seen in the distance, solemnly telling his beads as his horse ambled forward in our wake; while the Mongol beggar-pilgrim whom we came to call 'Old Manchuria' would pour forth a stream of pidgin-Chinese to anybody who would listen to him. At nights, we slept in small wayside inns, usually lying in a row on the k'ang, about eight of us to a room -- except once when my muleteer invited me to pass a night in much greater comfort at his parents' unusually prosperous farmhouse. I learnt that the old couple had never seen a Westerner at close quarters before, but their peasant politeness was so great that they treated me exactly like a Chinese guest, refraining from any questions beyond the normal polite exchange of biographical information.

 

All the farm-houses and inns were built round wide courtyards, the living-rooms on two sides with cloister-like stables for the animals opposite. The food was dreadfully monotonous, consisting chiefly of potato soup, porridge made from millet, and coarse maize-bread. Eggs were a luxury seldom obtainable. So, whenever we passed through one of the little walled cities or county-towns, I used to treat all the poorer members of the caravan to a mess of boiled pork and good wheat bread, either roasted in a pan with just a touch of oil or steamed in the form of rolls or meat-filled dumplings. I had thought myself poor, but found the cost of feeding so many people almost trifling.

 

A day's journey was almost exactly ninety li (thirty miles),the li varying slightly in length according to the hilliness of the road, this unit being based partly on the time it takes to cover a given distance rather than upon distance alone. There were inns at every half-stage. We would get up early enough to be able to set out at dawn, rest for two or three hours in the middle of the day, and arrive just before or just after nightfall. As many of the muleteers were opium-smokers, they insisted on this long midday halt so that they would enjoy at least two hour's placid smoking after their lunch. Naturally, they also smoked in the evenings as soon as their animals had been stabled and fed. Most declared that, without opium, they could not possibly stand up to such a hard life, which may well be the truth.

 

Once a day, with uncanny regularity, the leader of my pair of mules would throw himself on the ground and attempt to roll over while still in harness! This caused me many bumps and bruises as well as the destruction of all the brittle articles in my luggage. Each time, the ropes would snap, the litter fall into its component parts and my luggage be tossed with me on to the road. Everybody else appeared to think this a perfectly normal hazard of the journey, but on the fourth day I grew vexed and expressed my displeasure to the patient muleteer.

 

'But, Laoyeh, the animal is sick.'

 

'Then why did you offer me a sick animal ?'

 

'Because I have no other, Laoyeh.'

 

'Then please do something about it.'

 

'Yes, Laoyeh.'

 

That evening, he borrowed a savage-looking needle as long as a crochet-hook and, before I could expostulate, jabbed it into the mule's cheek, not far from the eye. I was horrified.

 

'Old Father Heaven! What have you done, you-you turtle’s egg [offspring of adultery].'

 

'Laoyeh, I am not a turtle's egg. You told me to cure the animal. I am trying.'

 

He seemed astonished and hurt by my outburst, which was the first time I had spoken harshly to him.

 

'But it was wanton cruelty. The animal can't help being sick. It is abominable to punish a creature for being ill.'

 

'Laoyeh, abuse me if you like. You have the right to do that. Am I not yours till the end of the journey ? But you should not have called me a turtle's egg. The women of our village are all virtuous. Look for turtles' eggs among the offspring of city women in Peking or Taiyuan.'

 

'Very well, Lao Weng; you are not a turtle's egg, of course. But you are a cruel master to your animals.'

 

'Cruel, Laoyeh, cruel ? Are doctors who cut out kidneys and slice the livers of living men cruel ?'

 

I stalked off to my sleeping quarters outraged by such wanton inhumanity to the wretched mule.

 

The next day, Weng watched me climb into the litter without giving me his usual cheery greeting. Obviously I had wounded him as deeply as he had wounded the mule, which I thought served him right. The day passed as usual, but in the evening I noticed that the front mule was stepping out much more cheerfully than before. Neither then nor on any of the three remaining days did he pitch me to the ground or even attempt to roll. It gradually dawned on me that what I had taken for vengeful cruelty had, in fact, been a primitive sort of acupuncture. 'When I apologized to the muleteer, he told me he had acquired something of this art from a wise old man. He had learnt of twenty-one places on the animal's body, one or more of which must be punctured in accordance with whatever malady attacked it or whatever organ was affected, these places generally having no obvious relationship with the seat of the trouble. It was all very mysterious.

 

The Chinese have long practised this art successfully on human beings, and, as I have since heard, there are now practitioners of it in Paris and elsewhere in Europe.

 

On the fifth or sixth day, we came to a deep ford across a wide and swiftly flowing river. Most of the men, who apparently did not share Pekingese prudery, calmly removed all garments below the waist and waded across, pulling their unwilling animals after them. But two or three of the mules were so frightened that no amount of beating would persuade them to cross. They planted their feet squarely on the earth and obstinately refused to budge. Suddenly shabby ‘Old Manchuria’ lost patience (though he had no animal of his own) and shouted:

 

'Turtles! Turtles! They Chinese not know how proper man do things Mongolia.'

 

Then, dragging off his trousers and tying them round his neck, he rushed ferociously towards the nearest reluctant mule on which he exerted such unexpected strength that the astonished, frightened animal allowed itself to be dragged into the water and goaded over to the other bank. After this loudly applauded success, the indomitable old man plunged back to our side and dragged a second mule into the water. If there were others, they followed of their own accord. Soon the whole caravan was across; but I, ashamed to remove my trousers, had to follow Purple Robe's example in being carried over on the back of the most stalwart muleteer; a man whose sinuous strength amazed me, for he was no more muscular than most other Chinese. He performed the service free of charge, reminding me of the three good meals he had had at my expense. My luggage was sodden and dripping; but, providentially, someone had had the wit to tie the bedding on to the roof of the litter, so that, at least, was dry.

 

But the next day, the hills had given place to real mountains and, here and there, we passed some of the numerous branches of the Great Wall; or, perhaps, they were short inner walls built to guard certain passes.

 

We were now approaching Wu T'ai itself. Its name means Five Peaks or, more literally, Five Terraces, referring to the five main peaks which rise from around a central plateau where most of the three hundred odd monasteries and temples are situated. The last day of the journey was mostly spent upon the ascent of an approach so steep as to be nearly perpendicular in the worst places. I had to make the tiring climb on foot, as the litter-mules could not have carried me up without hardship as well as danger to themselves and to me. At last, gasping and sweat-sodden, I reached the pass in the company of a few other stragglers. We found ourselves looking down on a sight which might have inspired the original conception of Shangri-La.

 

The wide, grassy plateau lay only a few hundred feet below the pass. Wild flowers grew in such extraordinary profusion that the old cliché ‘carpeted with flowers' seemed the most apt description possible. Here and there, nestling against the surrounding slopes or clinging to overhanging rocks were the monasteries, some large enough to house hundreds of monks, others small temples with only three or four living rooms attached. To one side of the plateau was a small hill running out like a small spur from the surrounding mountain walls. Its slopes were honey-combed with buildings, a monastery even bigger than the Lama Temple in Peking, approached by flights of steps leading from among the clustered roofs of a small town lower down and, at the foot, an exceedingly large chorten or Tibetan-style reliquary which resembled a gigantic white bottle. Somebody explained that the town was the residence of the Chinese county magistrate, the chief temporal authority; and that the monastery was the abode of the Kushog appointed by Lhasa as the spiritual ruler of all the thousands of Tibetan and Mongol lamas in the vicinity. Most of 'wu T'ai's temples had walls of faded crimson or yellow-ochre surmounted by golden-yellow tiles, once the prerogative of the Imperial Family and of divinities.

 

Though nearly eight thousand feet above the North China plain, the plateau is so sheltered that the vegetation reminded me of the lush south. Never, even upon the flowery slopes of the Dolomites, had I seen a sight so lovely; nor have I beheld its equal since, unless in some of the high Himalayan valleys.

 

Our route across one side of the plateau led us past an unusually large Chinese-style monastery, almost the only building in sight to remind me that I was still in-China Proper, very far from Tibet and some ten days' walk from Mongolia. The other buildings gave just the reverse impression. We did not stop until we had reached the sloping town just above the giant chorten and climbed a flight of steps leading to the gateway of the monastery of P'usa Ting, seat of the Kushog Lama. A merchant in the caravan informed me that, by the terms of a treaty concluded in Manchu times between the Governments of China and Tibet, when the latter was only a nominal dependency, the Lhasa-nominated Kushog was still entitled to exercise control over the monastic population of Tibetans and Mongols. His authority was much like that of a mediaeval cardinal - a Prince of the Church. However, the relatively few black-gowned, bare-headed Chinese monks did not have to submit to the Tibetan Kushog's authority, being responsible to their own abbots and, in case of crime, to the county magistrate. For Republican China recognized no religious authority except, to some extent, that of the religious leaders among their Mongol and Tibetan subjects, who might otherwise have rebelled. Incidentally, I learnt during the last lap of the journey that there was a local Living Buddha who, as an individual, did not command much respect in any quarter. Having been declared an Incarnation, he was forever a Living Buddha; but, as the role did not suit his tastes, he preferred to wear Western clothes; to associate with the local Chinese officials who sarcastically eulogized him as an 'advanced' type of Mongol; and to use his revenue as a Living Buddha for the enjoyment of the usual delights of a rich man in Northern and Central Asia - horses, women, wine, opium, cards and mahjong, together with whatever more eccentric or individual delights happened to please him.

 

The P'usa Ting Monastery crowning the small hill to which the little township clung was approached by long flights of white steps and built on a series of terraces. To either side of the steps were the shops of the craftsmen, all Chinese, who fashioned all sorts of Tibetan-style ritualistic objects of silk, silver, copper, gold and semi-precious stones, besides painting holy pictures and inscribing banners and charms in one, two or three languages-Chinese, Tibetan and Mongol. Some even added the nearly obsolete Manchu characters, explaining that four gives a more balanced effect to a work of art than three. The enormous monastery was encircled by a blood-red wall, the colour faded, chipped and peeling. On the lower terraces stood the principal halls of ceremony which, inside and out, were so magnificent and in such a glittering state of preservation that I have never, either before or since, seen any magnificence to compare with them. I felt that the sight of them gave me an accurate picture of what the Forbidden City must have looked like in the days of Ch'ien Lung or K'ang Hsi, the greatest of the Manchu Emperors. (I have since heard that both the Japanese and the Chinese Communists so pillaged and destroyed these temples that they are no longer recognizable. However, the present policy of the Peking Government is to make lavish concessions to the religious susceptibilities of the minority peoples of China, so it may well be that some degree of restoration has now been carried out.)

 

The topmost terrace was occupied by the Kushog's own apartments. My quarters were in the principal guest-block just below those of His Holiness. My room was both spacious and richly decorated. The k'ang, big enough for eight people, was spread with fine, gaily coloured Tibetan carpets and surrounded on three sides by a frieze depicting in brilliant colours various aspects of Tibetan life, both in this world and some others. The k'ang which, though large, occupied only about a quarter of the room, was provided with numerous small tables of carved wood covered with-gold and green lacquer. The rest of the room had a red tiled floor and a profusion of Chinese-style furniture decorated in the Tibetan manner. (In such connections, the word ‘Tibetan’ is more or less a synonym for ‘Mongolian’, as the decorative arts of the two races hardly differ.) Once more I was reminded of the Manchu Emperors. What I had seen of the Forbidden City and of the Summer Palace near Peking made it certain that even the Emperors and their consorts would not have regarded such a room as unworthy of forming part of their private apartments. It was a delicious pleasure to feel that, for a little while, I could enjoy some of the imperial splendour which, elsewhere in China and perhaps everywhere in the Far East except Lhasa, has completely vanished, or else been retained only in the form of palace museums. The similarity to the Forbidden city was no accident, for most of the .architectural and sumptuary privileges of Chinese royalty had been bestowed upon the principal Lamas and Living Buddhas of Tibet and Mongolia, partly in accordance with the old Manchu policy of wooing the two races into a state of willing and largely formal submission, and partly because the Manchu Imperial House observed the Lamaist Faith.

 

I was made welcome by two very elegant lamas, whom I discovered to be illiterate Chinese selected for their efficiency as butlers. Perhaps 'butler' is an unkind word to use. In effect, their duties were somewhere between those of a Reverend Receiver of Guests and of upper servants in charge of the large monastery staff, who might be laymen or monks. Their precise duty towards me was that of deputy hosts, and hosts I shall call them. Both were dressed in splendid dragon-embroidered robes-the first I had ever seen except at the theatre or at fancy-dress parties. I think the senior eunuchs and officials at the Manchu Court used to dress in exactly the same way, apart from the extraordinary lacquer hats worn by my hosts which looked un-Chinese, rather like coloured versions of the stiff hats formerly worn in Korea. Their manners and bearing were faultless, regal enough for them- to have passed muster as senior mandarins in the old days, so long as they were not called upon to read or write ! Certainly there was nothing ludicrous about them.

 

When I arrived at P'usa Ting, I told Wang Lama and Ma Lama that I would be able to accept their hospitality for a few weeks at the most. Later, news came from Peking to the effect that the students would not return to work until Chiang Kai-Shek had altered his policy of allowing the Japanese to gobble mouthful after mouthful of Chinese territory without resistance. On hearing this I foresaw that my stay might be extended for several months. Though sick at heart at the thought of China's sufferings, I was delighted at the prospect of staying so long in such surroundings, for I discovered that Wu T’ai was one of those rare places where Asia had remained wholly Asian, being unadulterated by any Western influence whatsoever. It was just the kind of place in which I had always desired to live; and, if my funds had been inexhaustible, I doubt if I could ever have brought myself to turn my back on so much beauty-at least until the invading Japanese came to drag me away by force. As it was, my funds were exhausted long before I began to think of leaving it, so I was forced to borrow from friends who providentially arrived from Tientsin. As to the precious guru-to-chela teaching which I hoped to find there, I received what seemed at the time disappointingly little; but it was probably as much as I was then in a fit condition to receive; and, in any case Wu T'ai offered me many other gifts, some of them hard to define, yet none the less valuable for their subtlety. At the very least, the spiritual side of my nature, which had long been weakened by Peking’s spiritually (as opposed to aesthetically) enervating climate, was daily-refreshed by the winds which blew across the plateau carrying the perfume of incense and wood-fires to the nostrils, and singing of the great central Asian plains beyond, where the world was either very old or very fresh and young. As soon as I had passed the stage of lying about on magnificent carpets and luxuriating in the princely comfort and splendour of my surroundings, which contrasted so strangely with the hardships of the journey, I began exploring the various neighbouring temples.

 

One of my first visits was to the little Mani Bhadra Monastery which provided lodgings for the poorer sort of Mongol pilgrim. 'Old Manchuria' called specially to take me over there, hinting mysteriously that I should be welcomed by 'an old friend'. Much intrigued, I gladly accompanied the old fellow whose prowess at the ford had won so much admiration. I loved him for his big heart, his strong limbs, contempt of hardship and body-shaking laugh. The immaculate lamas, Wang and Ma, were shocked by his ragged appearance and had been most unwilling to let him sully the regal splendour of my chamber; but gorgeous priests, wayside brigands, recalcitrant mules, blood-drinking demons and Chinese soldiers were all one to 'Old Manchuria". He had just pushed past Their Magnificences and burst into my room roaring with gusty nomad mirth.

 

The 'old friend' awaiting me at Mani Bhadra was, to my immense surprise, no other than the 'shaman' who had performed for me in Peking. He was lodging there during the building of his new temple and far too busy supervising the builders (all of them Mongols working voluntarily for the glory of the Faith rather than men chosen for their skill) to be able to spare any time disclosing some of Wu T'ai's inner mysteries to me. Besides, within a few days he intended to go off on another fund-collecting tour, this time to get money for the gold, silver, lacquer, porcelain and fine woods to be used for the new temple’s interior; but meanwhile he seemed very happy indeed to see me.

 

In his beautifully appointed cell, there was excellent salted tea churned with fresh goat’s butter and drunk from porcelain cups with silver filigree lids and turquoise-studded silver saucers. Alas, when I had taken leave from this busy man, 'Old Manchuria' insisted on my tasting some of his own hospitality. Again it took the form of salted buttered tea, but this time it had been prepared with hair-impregnated rancid camel’s butter, bluish black and doubtless many months old. Still worse, out of deference to my 'soft Chinese habits of cleanliness', He took a really filthy old cup and licked the inside clean with his tongue before pouring in the smelly tea ! Etiquette required that I quaff several cupfuls. I managed it by taking each at a single gulp like nasty medicine, so as not to have to savour it to the full; but this made him suppose that I was thirsty and cupful followed cupful !

 

Just behind the Mani Bhadra was a cave with a shallow depression in the floor containing water sacred to Samandabhadra Bodhisattva (P’u Hsien, Personification of Divine Action). It was said to have healing powers and to be of mysterious origin. I watched several scores of pilgrims fill their earthen bottles there, yet the water level never decreased, though the pool was very shallow, quite transparent and without any visible means of ingress - apparently there was neither hole nor spring. Eastern places of pilgrimage abound in such small mysteries, some manifestly due to natural phenomena, others much harder to explain, like the Bodhisattva Lights which I was to see later. My Mongol host procured a large, earthen bottle and, filling it at the sacred spring, handed it to me, with many ceremonious marks of esteem, as a remedy against future ills. It was touching to see the delight of these old beggar pilgrims ('Manchuria' and his friends) in being for once the donors of a gift instead of its recipients. In gratitude I assured 'Old Manchuria' that I should be very firm with Their Magnificences if ever they should bar his way to my table when he cared to grace it. Shaking with laughter, he cried:

 

'Good, good. They Chinese-Mongols; they not Mongol-Mongols. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Chinese-Mongols! Very funny! Yes, no ?'

 

From this and other incidents, I gathered that the contempt of the warrior nomads for their highly sophisticated but more sedentary neighbours south of the Wall has not changed since the days of Genghis Khan.

 

Another session of buttered tea followed our return from the cave, during which I told 'Old Manchuria' how, on the previous afternoon, two Mongol strangers had walked up to me in the street, demanded a cigarette each, and marched away without a word of thanks. I asked if he thought they were some sort of highwaymen who enjoyed this form of swaggering. The old fellow grinned uncomfortably, but hastened to defend his countrymen in his halting Chinese, by saying: 'Say "Thank you, thank you" – Chinese way. Give, take – Mongol way. Mongols all brothers. You things me; me things you. You sleep me tent; I eat you bread. "Thank you, thank you" - not good, not brother-talk. Just give, just take.' This explanation reminded me of something the innkeeper at Tat'ung had said contemptuously about Mongols:

 

'Our Chinese merchants find the Mongols too easy. Tell one of them that a Japanese ashtray is a Han dynasty mirror and he'll believe you. Though he may wonder why he can't see his face in it, he will not doubt your word. On the other hand, if a Mongol (except those accursed horse-dealers) tells you his nag is sound in four legs, why then, so it will prove to be. A stupid people !'

 

I was beginning to understand why so many Europeans in Peking were such fanatical Mongol-lovers. I saw that Mongols - gay, swaggering, robed in filthy, oily, lice-ridden splendour of silk and satin, straightforward, brave, kind, generous, incredibly 'handy' – have many virtues to compensate for the filth of years and the stink of rancid butter oozing from hair, clothes, unwashed bodies and breath. And their virtues are almost exactly complementary to those of the Chinese; so Peking's superlative elegance and refinement sometimes gives birth to a longing for the bluff heartiness of the Steppes.

 

 

 

On my way back to P'usa Ting that afternoon, l stopped among the crowd filling the precincts of the great white chorten. Mostly they were Mongol pilgrims, both rich and poor. A stream of them were circumambulating the chorten's base, muttering a never-ending string of invocations, some telling their beads, others with right arms extended so as to preserve the momentum of the great tubular prayer-cylinders encircling it. A richly clad Mongol layman, with an enormous circular fur hat cocked rakishly on one side to display the yellow satin crown, stood languidly staring at me with a half smile upon his lips, as though he would-like me to talk to him. When we had chatted for a while, I asked:

 

'What exactly is the purpose of these prayer-wheels?'

 

He looked as much taken aback as an English villager would be if questioned as to the purpose of church bells !

 

‘Have you not heard, Hsiensheng, that the sacred writings in these wheels are written on one thousand and eighty feet of the finest yellow silk ?'

 

He seemed to think that this was explanation enough.

 

‘Really ? Magnificent ! But, I mean, are invocations offered in this way efficacious ?'

 

‘Indeed, why not ? How else could all these illiterates repeat more than a few of them ? This way, they offer by turning what they would recite if they could. Their heart’s wish is the same - to honour the Three Precious Ones.'

 

'I see. But I've noticed even learned lamas twisting small hand-wheels in the same way.'

 

'Of course. To each man a single mouth. How else could any of us get through all the recitations we should like to offer in a lifetime ?'

 

‘And you, Sir ?’ Noticing some insignia of nobility on his costume I used a Chinese honorific for minor royalties. For answer, he plunged his hand into the pouch-like fold of his orange silk- gown which protruded over a bronze silk sash, and brought out a lovely prayer-wheel of silver and white cloisonné. With the merest flick of his wrist, he set it rotating smoothly like the flywheel of an engine and stood waiting for my reaction with a quizzical smile.

 

‘What a lovely thing!' I exclaimed spontaneously, forgetting all about 'You things me; me things you', and so found myself in an embarrassing position. Though he immediately offered me the wheel, he could have had no desire that I should take it, yet I had to be exceedingly careful in refusing it not to give the impression of scorning either the gift or its owner. Somehow or other, I did manage this without causing the bright black eyes to lose their lazy smile.

 

The circumambulators were not the only active worshippers in sight. Farther away from the chorten, nearer the outer wall of the precincts, were numerous devotees, both men and women, each with a broad seven-foot plank extending from just in front of his feet in the direction of the chorten, the farther end raised a few inches from the ground. These people apparently possessed unlimited energy, for they were performing the strenuous 'grand prostration' several hundred or a thousand times in succession and without a moment's intermission. First the hands were placed palm to palm above the head and brought slowly down to the level of the heart; then the devotee would stoop right down and grasp the two sides of his plank just in front of his feet; after that, the whole body would shoot forwards, the hands running along the edge of the plank from bottom to top, until the devotee was lying flat on his stomach with legs outstretched behind him and hands in front like a swimmer. The final movement consisted of raising the joined palms above the head again while the body remained prone, after which the devotee curled up like a caterpillar, rose to his feet and lifted his joined palms for the next prostration. With each of these separate movements a particular mantra was muttered and, if the mind were properly concentrated as well, then body, speech and mind merged into a single rhythm of pure veneration for the Buddha-Dharma represented by the chorten. Whereas a hundred and eight prostrations of this kind would leave me, even in my youthful days, almost too weak to stand, Mongols of both sexes and-all ages often perform one thousand and eighty prostrations at a time!

 

Everybody I met there seemed very willing to talk and to welcome my interest in their affairs. A Chinese craftsman among the bystanders provided me with some facts about the chorten.

 

'As you doubtless know already, Hsiensheng, Wu T'ai is the principal earthly dwelling of Manjushri Bodhisattva (Wen Shu, personification of Divine Wisdom). We Chinese hold that there are nine sacred mountains, five Taoist and four Buddhist, of which 'Wu T’ai is one. But to these Mongols and Tibetans, Wu T'ai is a place so sacred that merely to come here and circumambulate the chorten one thousand and eighty times ensures rebirth into a state many times nearer Nirvana than could otherwise be attained in this life. There is said to be a relic of the Buddha in the chorten, but whether the chorten was built for the relic or whether the relic was brought here for the chorten l do not know. Chiefly, the chorten forms a central place of worship where even the most illiterate pilgrims to this mountain may consumate their pilgrimage.'

 

My informant, though a Chinese, was a devout follower of the Vajrayana and loved to lavish his decorative gifts upon the embellishment of the temples. Obligingly he climbed the great steps with me and took me to see some of the work he had helped to complete in the Great Hall of P'usa Ting. The sweeping roof of yellow-glazed tiles, the colonnade of elaborately decorated scarlet pillars and the crimson walls made it almost a replica of one of the halls of state in the Forbidden City, except that it was in a much better state of repair. The fresh lacquer shone like molten bronze still glowing from the furnace; and the appointments of the interior were the richest I have ever seen before or since. The ceiling of carven panels blazed with multi-coloured stylistic designs; the tremendous pillars (formed of tree-trunks carried there from over a thousand miles to the south-west) were wrapped in gorgeous Lhasa carpets, the altar furnishings were of precious metals and fine porcelains; long, silken banners hung from the ceiling, beautifully embroidered with texts in Tibetan, Mongol and Chinese; and the principal statue of the Bodhisattva carrying his Sword of Wisdom was plated with, if not made of, pure gold. It glittered like a network of diamonds, reflecting the tiny points of flame from more than a hundred votive lamps. On a subsidiary altar were receptacles piled with heavy pieces of jewelry, the offerings of Mongol and Tibetan pilgrims - necklaces, bangles, brooches, large ear-ornaments, belt-clasps, buckles, weapon-holders and archery rings, all these being mostly of gold or silver inset with jade, turquoise, coral and other brilliant stones. I wondered how often these receptacles were emptied into the treasury, and I marvelled at the simple sincerity of the Mongols who themselves lived in tents or primitive shacks, keeping for their own use the barest necessities of life. Such generosity may, from one point of view, appear misplaced; but who can fail to be moved by its sublimity ?

 

A Lama explained to me once that the donors of these offerings gain merit in two ways - a little because their gifts help to supply the monasteries with the means required for their upkeep; much on account of the spirit of relinquishment involved, the degree of merit accruing from a gift being proportionate to the relative degree of sacrifice involved - exactly as in the biblical story of the widow's mite.

 

(Incidentally, the belief that the gift itself matters much more than what is done with it accounts for the scarcity of organized charities in Buddhist countries, which now causes some of the younger Asian Buddhists to reflect; yet in Burma and Siam, even today, many more people are willing to devote money to the building of unnecessary temples in places where temples abound, than to the upkeep of hospitals, schools and clinics.)

 

In the Second Hall, rites were being performed when we entered but the Chinese craftsman could not explain their significance. The booming of Tibetan horns, ten or fifteen feet long, the wail of flutes, the crash of drums and cymbals accompanied by voices which seemed to come from deep down inside the stomachs of the worshippers, produced an effect at once harsh and magical - harsh in the sense that such music is by no means sweet, magical in that devotees sustained by the powerful wings of those elemental sounds can rise easily into a state of inner tranquillity and arrest the karma-forming processes of conceptual thought.

 

A few days later, I attended the opening ceremony of 'Wu T’ai’s annual Holy Week. Thousands of Mongol pilgrims, with a sprinkling of Central Asians and Tibetans, took part. All men, and all dressed in crimson ceremonial kasa [togas], they sat cross legged in long, evenly spaced rows, facing inwards towards a central lane running east-west across the Great Court [a quadrangle very much larger than Trinity Great Court, Cambridge]. At one end of this lane sat the enthroned Kushog, robed from head to foot in cloth of gold, surrounded by colourful ecclesiastical dignitaries from each of the great monasteries. The rites opened with the same eerie music and chanting as that just described, but with upwards of a thousand people taking part in the chanting and with horns so long that each required six or eight children to hold it in position ! This time the wild music reminded me of the more sombre sounds of Nature - the rumbling of thunder or of a distant waterfall, the crash of a gathering avalanche or, perhaps, of cannon shot echoing among embattled heights. When the chanting had drawn to a close, there followed a 'theological' debate. The combatants, who leapt up from among the crowd and ran to the High Lama's dais, swayed their bodies and stamped their feet, striking their left palms with their right hands in what looked like a ritual dance, meanwhile bellowing forth questions and arguments at the tops of their voices. There were elders who trumpeted like bulls and even a few child contestants who had not yet lost their boyish treble. Every speaker received an attentive hearing from the huge assembly which now and then broke silence to roar applause, yelling with joy or laughing their splendid nomad belly-laughs. I wondered if the mediaeval debates at Oxford or Paris had had points in common with this one.

 

As I knew hardly a word of Mongol, I spent much of the time gazing about me. Crowded against the walls of the Great Court were many ladies, some with a fantastic hair-arrangement imitative of the magnificent horns of a mountain ram. I reflected that, just as the Manchus, who owed an empire to their horses, used to have the sleeves of their official robes cut to resemble horses' hoofs and to wear their hair braided into a 'horse's tail', so did these Mongols pay tribute to the flocks which provided them with so much-meat, butter, milk, cheese, garments, skin-tents, blankets, belts, straps, water-skins and many other daily necessities.

 

Just then, my 'shaman' appeared, having apparently delayed his departure for the sake of the festival. He swaggered up to the rostrum and attacked the venerable Master of the Debate so successfully that the audience rolled where they sat in paroxysms of laughter. Even the defeated Master was forced to join in, and from the outer circle of women came peal after peal of shrill mirth. I would have given much to understand! The combination of deep religious feeling with merriment and homely simplicity is always attractive. The Mongols who conduct their religious debates in this way and the Thais who bring picnic lunches to eat upon the floor of the temple seem to me more truly 'religious' than the hushed, sanctimonious worshippers I had grown used to during my boyhood. During the days which followed, I began to seek out various Lamas who had been recommended to me for one reason or another, but my ignorance of Tibetan and Mongolian created a barrier which, in most cases, was difficult to overcome. My deepest inspiration came from the simple Mongol pilgrims who inspired me with the belief that learning and scholarship are by no means essential to the truly religious life or to gaining freedom from the Wheel. On this mountain dedicated to Divine Wisdom, I learnt that such Wisdom must be sought for in silence and not at all by discursive thought. As one Lama expressed it, 'First purify the temple of your body by expelling all extraneous thought; next, rest in perfect silence with all the doors and windows of that body-temple wide open and, with deep longing in your heart, silently invite the Stream of Wisdom to pour in.'

 

Another Lama to whom I went to pay my respects at about this time asked me if I found wu T'ai beautiful, which led to my asking him the place of beauty in the process of Enlightenment. 'Does not the cultivation of dispassion,' I asked, 'require that we withdraw from beauty as much as from ugliness, and do not the sutras teach that beauty may be an impediment to Truth ?'

 

'How wrong you are,' he answered frankly. 'Beauty is an impediment only when we desire its exclusive possession. But the contemplation of natural loveliness - mountains, forests, waterfalls, and the right contemplation of works of art do not excite any longings for hampering possessions, or any lusts. Rather they reflect the silent, shining perfection of Nirvana. We of the Vajrayana learn to seek Nirvana in samsara; it is the beauty all around us here which makes us so sure that Nirvana surrounds us now. When the Third Eye (the eye of the spirit) is opened, you will not seek Nirvana elsewhere than in your own heart and own surroundings. The joy of beholding the scarlet and gold of sunrise or the multi-coloured carpet of flowers on this sacred plateau is of the same order as the joy of the Ultimate Oneness, though it be only a reflection of a reflection’s reflection. When you go back to the city and find ugliness around you, place flowers or jades in your house to remind you of the beauty which awaits the opening of your spirit's eye.'

 

Of course the ordinary Mongol pilgrims did not understand things thus. To the more simple-minded among them, the Personification of Wisdom had become another god, a process analogous to the deification of Sophe among certain Byzantine sects - yet even this development deserves more than the scornful shoulder-shrug with which some Western scholars have reacted to it. For Buddhists, Divine Wisdom has nothing to do with factual knowledge or book-learning. Prajna is that intuitive knowledge of Reality which lies far above the level of conceptual thought; indeed it is interrupted and blocked out by conceptual thought. It follows that one-pointed meditation on Prajna, whether conceived of in the abstract or as a deity, is more likely to lead to Prajna's realization than any careful analytical study of the sutras or any amount of discursive meditation to discover whether Prajna is a substance, a state, or otherwise. The latter type of 'scientific' meditation cuts the mind into many compartments and makes access of Intuitive Wisdom impossible. Thus, there are teachers who claim that direct approach to truth comes more easily to the illiterate or semi-illiterate than to the scholar, the former having less mental sediment to dispose of.

 

Scattered on lonely peaks and precipitous slopes, or dotting the fair, sun-warmed plateau were shrines and temples to Manjushri (Wisdom) without number. Generally he was depicted in his benign form as a compassionate being whose smile belied the ferocity of the blue lion he bestrode or the menace of his upraised Sword of Wisdom. Sometimes, he appeared as a lovely youth - symbol of eternal spring; but occasionally he could be seen in wrathful form as the blue-bodied, bull-headed, thousand-armed Yamantaka ringed by a circlet of blue flames and dancing on a bed of corpses. I do not remember the significance of this symbolism. Christian missionaries, on seeing such figures in Buddhist temples, find in them a justification of their belief that the 'heathen' are ruled by fear; but in this they err; for, though in all Buddhist countries terrible monsters, demons and Raksha can be seen in the temples, Buddhists are never taught to fear them. In some cases they represent the powers of evil which, having been converted to Buddhism, now hold the office of Guardians of the Holy Dharma; in other cases, the beings themselves are held to be divine, but their hideous, ferocious forms symbolize Buddhism's hostility towards the impersonal forces of ignorance and evil (the two are really synonymous) and they are never in any single case regarded as hostile to living beings. That would be impossible, for Buddhism teaches that the worst 'sinner' is a poor, sad creature deluded by his ignorance of Truth, and therefore to be pitied rather than hated or despised. In the case of Yamantaka, though I do not remember the significance of the symbolism in detail, I know that the wrathful forms of the various Bodhisattvas in general symbolize the perfection of Truth which, lying beyond all duality on the plane of the One Mind, is beyond good and evil, beauty or ugliness; hence symbolism only in terms of beauty and tranquillity would imply the exaltation of the part at the expense of the whole. The lesson to be learnt from the wrathful and peaceful aspects of the Bodhisattvas is that beauty and ugliness are ultimately one, or rather that both of them vanish when perfection is achieved. This must be so, for light is inconceivable without dark; therefore, if Ultimate Perfection contains the one, it must also contain the other, whereas its own perfection raises it above both.

 

Before Wu T'ai's innumerable altars, incense and butter-lamps burnt day and night. Some of the pilgrims spent as much as five years on the return journey, travelling on foot from the farthest reaches of Mongolia's deserts and the uttermost confines of Tibet's wilderness of snow to lay their offerings upon these altars. The deep religious satisfaction of the multitudes, twirling their prayer-wheels, clicking their rosaries, bowing themselves to the earth, chanting sutras and intoning invocations before the shrines has probably had no counter- part in the West since mediaeval times. Such boundless sincerity soon put me to shame when I reflected on my own coldly intellectual and sceptical approach to Truth. Wu T'ai taught me that doctrine matters little, that faith, sincerity and a burning desire for Enlightenment provide us with more than nine-tenths of the equipment we need for the journey to Nirvana.

 

One day, the lamas Wang and Ma suggested that I pay a visit to the Venerable Neng Hai, Abbot of the great Chinese monastery I had passed on my way across the plateau to P'usa Ting - a very Jewel of Wisdom, they called him. I took their advice, but rather unwillingly, as my visits to Wu T'ai's greatest men had previously been disappointing and left me with a strong prejudice in favour of the lesser known Teachers there. For example, my visit to the Kushog Lama (possibly ill-timed) had been a very formal and unproductive affair. Affably, but rather absent-mindedly, accepting a ceremonial scarf from my hands, he had condescended to return it by draping it around my neck with his own illustrious fingers. A good beginning, except that nothing much followed. A few formal words of welcome, a blessing, somebody signalling that it was time to leave - that was all. As for my visit to the Living Buddha, that had been very much worse. A plump youth with a face almost as colourless as his Western-style suit of Shantung silk, he scarcely bothered to look up at me from the photographs he was studying with two Chinese officials from the magistrate's yamen. At the moment when I rose to kneeling position from the ritual prostration, he suddenly laughed in my face as though I were a performing ape, thereby providing me with the only instance of discourtesy from a man of high degree which I encountered during seventeen years in China!

 

'Aha, what have we here ? A European Buddhist ? Very nice, very nice indeed. May I press you to a glass of Buddha-nectar ?' He waved his hand towards a half-empty brandy bottle standing on the table next to the photographs. 'No ? Aha. Then to what else am I indebted for the honour of your – er - your etcetera, etcetera - you know what I mean ?'

 

The Chinese officials were staring woodenly at the tablecloth, laughter in their eyes, lips firmly compressed lest they, too, be guilty of unmerited discourtesy.

 

'I came to offer my respects,' I answered coldly. 'Having done so, I ask permission to retire.’

 

'Granted, granted,' he cried petulantly, clearly stung by my tone and perhaps afraid that his Chinese companions considered him too boorish. 'You may go. We – er - are attending to important affairs. I thank you.'

 

'With great deliberation, I repeated the triple prostration as elaborately as I could, forcing myself to concentrate on the teaching: 'Bowing to the Robe, you bow to the Buddha, not to the poor, naked wretch it conceals.'

 

'With these two episodes in mind, I approached the Chinese monastery scarcely expecting that the Abbot of so grand a place would have much time to spare for me. In general, I had found Mongols and Tibetans more spiritual than the Chinese. Ergo, in a place where the Tibetan Kushog had been briefly courteous but uninterested in me and the Mongolian Living Buddha positively insulting, it seemed unlikely that the leading Chinese Abbot would take me to his bosom merely because I was a co-religionist from the outermost rim of the world. I had yet to learn that the Venerable Neng Hai fully deserved his reputation as scholar and saint.

 

Neng Hai had spent many years in the Tibetan and Mongolian borderlands, chiefly in the Chinese province of Kokonor (Ch'ing Hai, the Blue Sea or Lake) where the three cultures blend. He was now attempting a compromise between Lamaism and Chinese Buddhism, incorporating the salient features of both. Symbolically, he wore robes of Lamaistic yellow-ochre cut in the Chinese fashion with butterfly-wing sleeves. His monastery, Kuangchi Moup'ang, was outwardly like any other important Chinese monastery, but included a subsidiary Great Hall where initiates practised the higher branches of Vajrayana meditation and rites. My first meeting with him came near to confirming my worst fears. He was scarcely more cordial than the Kushog Lama had been, but in this case the reason was too obvious for me to feel hurt. He had just returned to his sleeping place after delivering a two-hour sermon and, not being of strong physique, was naturally tired. Seated cross-legged on his couch, he accepted my prostrations and offered me a little earthenware plaque of the Bodhisattva Manjushri which he suspended from my neck by a blue ribbon. After that I was free to go, partly because he was really tired and partly, as he told me later, because he took me for one of the countless pilgrims who used to come to him for no other purpose than to be able to include him among the 'sights' seen on Wu T’ai. During subsequent meetings, he became very warm towards me and to this circumstance I owe much of my knowledge of the Vajrayana.

 

One day I asked him: 'Your Reverence, will you tell me why you, brought up as a Master of Zen, now prefer to instruct your disciples through the medium of the Vajrayana ? Such cases must be very rare.’

 

Yes, rare,' he replied, 'for few of our Chinese monks know enough, of the Vajrayana to appreciate its great value. As for your question, I can answer it best in symbolic language. Regardless of sect, or even of religion, we must symbolize the Ultimate Perfection as a calm and shining void, whereas Samsara is a vast whirlpool of shifting forms. Some regard them as separate and seek to pass from the ‘lower’ into the 'higher'; others, accepting their oneness in theory, strive to realize it in fact. Symbolically, we may imagine an enormous circle, pure and motionless in the centre, turgid and violently disturbed at the outer rim, but without any definite boundary line between the stillness at the heart and the violent motion at the circumference. There are, so to speak, various intervening states. As the Taoists have said, the One becomes two (positive and negative); the two, eight; the eight, sixty-four; the sixty-four, myriads of transient entities. Visualize, therefore, pure spirit at the centre, from which spring certain major forces of tremendous power; visualize these forces as dividing and subdividing towards the circumference, and subdividing yet again and again until the myriads of 'separate’ objects result. Visualize these main, secondary, tertiary and lesser forces as the Transformers which, mutually interacting, produce all that is - myriads and myriads of ever-changing entities. You may, for reasons I shall not go into now, visualize the centre as pure white; from this radiate the four main Transformers in the form of flames - green, yellow, blue and red respectively; and with smaller flames issuing in turn from them, coloured in intermediate hues. As we go towards the circumference, the flames get ever more numerous by subdivision and, of course, smaller and less clearly defined, until at last they merge into the outer whirling chaos - mud-coloured, smoke-coloured, unclear, murky.

 

Now, a Zen adept (and some of other, sects, other faiths) seeks to leap from the muddy whirlpools straight into the pure white, radiant stillness at the centre. This can be done and has been done, but it is an extraordinary feat of which few are capable. Most of us do well to aim first at a more modest result. The Sages of the Vajrayana have, through Enlightenment, been able to make a detailed study of the intermediate forces and the Main Transformers nearer the heart of the circle. (With patience, faith and pertinacity, you may discover them for yourself.) They have even learnt to harness these transforming forces and they have handed down to their disciples methods for harnessing the force or forces suited to each one individually. By concentrating upon a force selected by your teacher and harnessing it according to his instructions, you will gain much power - power which all too many adepts foolishly misuse to perform vain "miracles". But you must use this power to penetrate more deeply into the circle, to come in contact with the secondary and even with the primary forces; these, being Transformers of tremendous power, will sweep you towards the Centre; in this very life, they will transform your Samsaric surroundings into Nirvana itself. Thus will you achieve what you may not be strong enough to achieve by the more direct method of Zen, unless you are one of those for whom Zen is the best way of all.

 

'As evidence of the truth of all this, consider how many men of different faiths have wrought marvels and achieved sainthood through the power of their God or gods, all attained through fervent prayer and contemplation. What is that God but another name for the Centre, those gods but other names for the Transformers ? Names are unimportant. Have you not met Buddhists groping in the outer darkness and Muslims or Christians whose faces shine with Truth ? Just as many Mongols here regard Manjushri as a god, rather than the personification of Divine Wisdom, so do Christians mistake the Divine Forces for angels, the Centre for God; yet what does it matter ? All prayers, rites and methods of concentration which open up the inner man must bring forth the inner Light, whereon their purpose is achieved. I am a Vajrayanist only because I conceive, rightly or wrongly, that the Vajrayana Sages have mapped the road more completely and better understood the methods of harnessing the Transformers than people of most other sects and faiths. I have met Christian missionaries at Kokonor who are laughable in their ignorance; I have also met two missionaries of the Heavenly Lord (Catholic) Sect who are fully Enlightened Bodhisattvas! Let those Buddhists who are still lost in darkness kneel before them in all humility.

 

'Truth, as you have known for a long, long time, resides only in the innermost depths of your own being; but there are many layers of truth and many paths to approach Ultimate Truth. The Vajrayana possesses knowledge of more than a thousand of those paths (which are yet the One Path). Other teachers know of one, two or three. So it is to the Vajrayana Sage you must go, if you would learn which of those many paths is exactly suited to you. If you prove worthy, such a teacher will render up to you the keys for unlocking each of the great gates of brass which bar the way to Everlasting Truth.’

 

So saying, he paused and stared at me in silence for what seemed many minutes. Then he asked me certain questions concerning my initiation at the hands of the Dorje Rimpoche. When I had answered as best I could, he exclaimed with a sigh :

 

'Such a wonderful opportunity lost! How very sad that you were too young and ignorant to benefit !' Several similarly enigmatic remarks followed, until finally he said:

 

'Yet the seed once planted cannot die. 'Water it diligently and it will surely sprout. How could you have been so foolish as to arrive late for that Grand Initiation ? In the first part, which you missed, lay something of priceless value to you. Your karma is the strangest admixture of good and evil. Ah well, rest tranquil in the knowledge that, when the time comes, the Greenness will be there !’

 

'Greenness ?'

 

'Yes, the colour of the trees, the colour of the Northern Region.’

 

'I don't understand, Your Reverence.’

 

But he had walked away, leaving me with an enigma not to be resolved for many years.

 

Staying in Neng Hai's monastery were a doctor and a banker, two good friends of mine from Tientsin. Though both were wealthy men and likely to bestow large gifts in return for the hospitality they enjoyed, they were entertained in a manner infinitely spartan compared with the luxury I enjoyed at P’usa Ting. The food was strictly vegetarian, the sleeping rooms as simple as could be, the taking of wine, even by visitors, strictly forbidden. The contrast between the two monasteries was significant. Chinese Buddhism, with the partial exception of Zen, places emphasis on the renunciation of the world - this doctrine being a necessary corrective for the Chinese attachment to physical ease and comfort. Tibetan Buddhism, 'catering' for the spartan Tibetans and Mongols, teaches the realization, of Nirvana through Samsara or ‘seeking Truth through life’. Though Tibet has its hermits like Milarepa (who cut his trousers into covers for nose and fingers, claiming that if the sexual organ needs concealment, the same must be true of fingers and nose, since one protuberance cannot be more or less vile than another), the Vajrayana on the whole prefers the method of accepting life's glitter, rather-than withdrawing from it, since a properly controlled study of baubles is more likely to lead to personal conviction of their worthlessness than the method of turning away from them and believing them worthless. This doctrine can be safely practised by the wise anywhere, and even by the majority of people in those countries where material comfort is still far too rare and slight to be overwhelming as it has become in the modern West and, to a lesser extent, in the cities of China. Hence the spartan simplicity of Chinese monastery guest-rooms as compared with the splendour of the richer Tibetan monasteries.

 

On the day of my first visit to Neng Hai, my Tientsin friends, Dr Chang and Mr Li, walked back to P'usa Ting with me, as they were due to bestow offerings upon the pilgrims assembled for Holy Week. Once more I took my place in the outermost row of the crimson-togaed Mongols seated in the Great Court. The long opening invocation was chanted as usual; I had by this time learnt that it was associated with the offering of a mandala - a complicated pattern of precious stones laid upon a mound of rice by the officiating Lama. It represented the whole universe, including sun, moon, earth and stars, together with all precious things therein contained. The words of the invocation include some more or less to this effect. 'If the whole universe were mine, with its limitless wealth of beauty, I would offer all of it without exception, as a token of my boundless respect for the Holy Dharma, well knowing that even such an offering is far from worthy of an object thus sublime.' In other words, even the glory of sun and moon fades before the brilliance of transcendental Wisdom, Enlightenment, Reality !

 

My Chinese friends were both dressed in dark silks which formed a striking contrast with the glittering garments of the senior Lamas and the Kushog's robe of cloth-of-gold. After saluting the Kushog and extolling the merits of the assembled pilgrims, who had endured such hardships among burning deserts and dizzy mountains in order to do honour to the Bodhisattva Manjushri upon the sacred mountain, they each handed a sack of silver coins to a gaily dressed attendant. Thereupon, the two attendants moved up and down the long ranks of seated pilgrims, placing five mou (half a silver dollar) in the hands of each. Such a gift was at that time equal to the price of four or five simple meals; the total must have amounted to several thousand dollars. Spiritual refreshment followed. More brightly clad attendants appeared, each carrying a tall, silver vessel decked with peacocks' feathers and sacred kusa grass. The pilgrims cupped their hands in turn, receiving a few drops of holy water from the spout of the vessel, of which they sipped one part and placed the remainder upon their heads.

 

'What is this holy water ?’ I asked an elderly Chinese-speaking Mongol on my left.

 

'This holy water first is water. First, people take to temple as offering of purity. Then it symbolized what people gave up. Now brought from temple for us, it symbolizes merit come back to us. Two Chinese pilgrims make big merit by our help. We receive gifts, so they can get merit. Now we gain merit, for helping them get their merit.’

 

My informant's Chinese was far from good, but I think that this more or less renders his meaning. His words contained an idea quite new to me; namely that, though it may be more blessed to give than to receive, yet he who receives confers a favour upon the giver ! The more I thought about it, the more I found this idea acceptable.

 

After the close of the ceremony, I rejoined my two friends and arranged with them to go upon a tour of the five sacred peaks as soon as Holy Week should be over. Meanwhile, I particularly enjoyed the spectacular events occurring on the last two days of that festival. On the penultimate day, a grand religious dance was held. As with the other public festivals, it took place in the Great Court; but, this time, everybody except the performers was crowded in a densely packed circle, men, women and children all mixed together and forming a kaleidoscopic mass of shifting colours. Close inspection revealed that the silk and satin brocades were covered with grease-stains and every other sort of grimy discolouration, while hair faces glistened with butter and sweat. From a little distance, the crowd looked elegant enough to grace an imperial reception, so rich-looking their furs,

silks and heavy jewelry. Presently the Kushog arrived, accompanied by the usual scintillating throng, together with the Chinese civil authorities in their drab, postman-like official uniforms, and the Living Buddha, dressed in a suit of sharkskin. His Holiness’s boredom was manifest, his smile sardonic and condescending; but to the Mongols he was every inch a Living Buddha, an incarnation of divinity. Though they all knew of his loose manner of living, their veneration for him was unimpaired, unless in the privacy of their own hearts. I imagine that this provides a close analogy with the veneration accorded by mediaeval Europe to the most loose-living of popes.

 

I am not one of those who dismiss the Tibetan belief in Living Buddhas or Divine Incarnations as mere nonsense. I prefer to think that the Lamas entrusted with the task of discovering such an incarnation from among children born soon after the decease of his predecessor, may sometimes err. In any case, it was quite impossible for me to believe in the divinity of Wu T'ai's Living Buddha, who was very well known for a dissolute mode of life and for scorning his sacred duties quite openly. On the other hand, to a firm believer in the reincarnation of all living creatures, there is nothing incredible in the claim that certain very holy persons can choose where they will be reincarnated and that they can be identified by their old followers after rebirth. 'Living Buddha' would seem to be something of a misnomer, except perhaps in two or three cases. The phrase 'Sacred Incarnation' would be less susceptible to misinterpretation.

 

Of the dancing, my Chinese friends and I could understand only the general theme. The chief dancers, masked and fantastically garbed, were divided into two main groups - the Forces of Good and the Forces of Evil, each with its own range of costumes and each with dance-movements peculiar to itself or to the sub-groups into which it was divided. The characters included Bodhisattvas, gods, heroes, warriors, kings and lamas on the one hand; ghosts, witches, skeletons, spirits, demons, magicians and so on formed the other group. Minor characters, such as birds, animals and monsters, seemed to be attached to both parties. Curiously the skeletons (boys dressed in black costumes, adorned with bones crudely painted across them in white and wearing skull-masks) had enormous male sexual organs attached to them - a survival from pre-Buddhist days, no doubt; but why should skeletons be thus distinguished ?

 

The dancing, like the accompanying music, was exciting, bizarre, fantastic, macabre, now and then tensely thrilling, but never in my judgement even remotely beautiful. On the whole, I preferred the Forces of Evil; for, when the arena was given over to that horrid company, there was a kind of truth expressed. I mean that the groups of gyrating, contorted, hideously grimacing monsters did succeed in giving an impression of living evil; while by no stretch of imagination could the stately, sword-wielding Virtuous Ones be thought to mirror, however distortedly, the grave inevitability of ultimate justice, or the peaceful triumphs of such gentle virtues as benevolence, pity and compassion. Besides, it was tiresome to see the smug-faced Virtuous Ones gain such easy victories over the recognizable symbols of folly and vice. I had heard it said that such dances stemmed from a pre-Buddhist period when 'primitive' men, finding themselves at the mercy of Nature's terrible forces, were by no means convinced of the ultimate triumph of good; so perhaps the easy victories gained by the Virtuous Ones were added by later choreographers with tongue in cheek.

 

The dancing, though splendidly colourful, was entirely eclipsed by the events of the following day. Early in the morning, a magnificent procession set out from P'usa Ting and followed the traditionally serpentine route to another of the principal monasteries. According to ancient custom, the Kushog Lama and all his followers were obliged to pay this visit of state every year. With the passing of centuries, the procession and attendant rites had become more and more elaborate. Even the producers of such magnificent spectacles as Henry V or Quo Vadis, The Ten Commandments and so on might be excused for goggling at the display I was fortunate enough to behold that day. The procession equalled a Roman Triumph in scale and probably surpassed it in the lavishness of equipment and paraphernalia. I doubt if the most skilful pen could do justice to it and I am very sure that I can at most give some vague notion of its splendour.

 

All the morning I stood on a little knoll and watched the two-mile- long procession approach and recede, winding its way across the flower-spangled plateau. The gorgeous, scintillating splendour of men and bedecked animals, their jewels, precious metals, silks and brocades gleaming in the sun, robbed the wild flowers of their colours, stole the blue from the sky and the crimson or ochre from the monastery walls.

 

First came a group of grave, satin-clad beings on white steeds with silver-chain harness and embroidered saddle-cloths. They were followed by a rainbow-coloured troupe of musicians, the trumpeters with eight gaily dressed children marching before each to support their prodigiously long instruments, which thundered continuously. Immediately after these musicians came the Bodhisattva's palanquin, its silken curtains parted so that the golden statue shone like fire in the August sun and lightning seemed to flash from the blade of the enormous Sword of Wisdom. The procession of riders and footmen which followed stretched almost two miles to the rear, the great dignitaries and their followers from each of 'Wu Tai's three hundred monasteries having laid aside their ecclesiastical togas for gay costumes exactly like those worn thirty years before by the mandarins and eunuchs taking part in solemn ceremonies before the Throne of the Son of Heaven. Even the costumes of lamas Wang and Ma (too junior in the hierarchy to take part in the procession) would have seemed drab in such a throng. Almost at the end of the procession came the Kushog on foot, his immediate attendants bearing those ancient symbols of royalty or divinity, a ten-foot gilded pole supporting a golden fan and a many-tiered ceremonial umbrella of white and gold. His face was entirely hidden by a fringe of golden tassels falling forward from his headdress; from a little distance, he looked less like a human being than an animated image entirely covered by plates of gold. So much pomp and splendour was hard to reconcile with the gently austere doctrine of Gautama Buddha; as a spectacle, the procession has never in my experience been equalled.

 

The traditional route twisted and turned so that the procession would pass through the outer domains of numerous intervening monasteries and enable the various abbots to pay their respects. In each place, a portable altar had been raised, surrounded by dignitaries who lighted incense and candles as the procession drew near. Twice they performed the triple prostration, first to welcome the palanquin of the Bodhisattva and again to pay respects to the Kushog. The latter was preceded by two resplendent figures bearing long poles to which was attached a horizontal silken banner or curtain, of which the lower edge was only some three feet above the ground, so that the whole formed a moving screen for His Holiness. As he approached, individuals would spring from the ranks of spectators lining both sides of the route, hurl themselves under this screen and then roll hurriedly out of the way of the oncoming Lama. There was a degree of skill in this exercise, for to have touched the banner with one's head would have brought upon one the bystanders' scorn and to have collided with the Kushog would have been so destructive of his majestic dignity as to amount to a kind of sacrilege. Just as I was picturing such an unfortunate collision in my mind, my legs unexpectedly started carrying me forward and, almost as though somebody else had willed it, I found myself flopping to the ground beneath the curtain and then rolling vigorously away as the golden shoes approached. My feelings at that moment were those of a car driver whose vehicle suddenly skids out of control. I have often pondered that curious little event and tried to account for it, but always in vain. I supposed I must have desired to do it just for fun and that I was in too much haste for the desire to register properly in my mind, but even this explanation seems very odd.

 

When the procession had passed, I sat down on the little knoll from which I had witnessed its approach and waited for it to return. Meanwhile I reflected upon my enormous good fortune. Except in Lhasa and perhaps one or two other Tibetan cities, such grandeur cannot be seen in the world today, unless in its synthetic Hollywood form; for pageantry on a vast scale has vanished from the earth. In many countries the totality of all the colourful experiences of a lifetime might not amount to half what I had seen in a space of less than two hours. The days of emperors, kings and princes have gone; their descendants have vanished from the earth or else retain the merest shadow of their forefathers' glory. Even in places where majestic pageantry still exists, as in the Vatican, those taking part seem to be in fancy dress on account of the drab modern clothes of the spectators. Fortunate indeed was I to have beheld during the late thirties of this century a spectacle which perhaps equalled in splendour the progress of the great Ch'ien Lung on his way to sacrifice at the Altar of Heaven, or one of the solemn processions of the mediaeval Church, or the enthronement of some world-conquering monarch such as Alexander. Not only was the procession itself the very acme of gorgeous splendour, but the lovely, flower-decked plateau, the green and purple mountains beyond, the brightly coloured buildings of a score of monasteries and the gay ornaments and costumes of the spectators all combined to provide a harmonious background only somewhat less splendid than the writhing rainbow-hued 'dragon' winding its way across the sacred ground.

 

Alas, soon after, Wu T'ai was destined to be a battlefield. There, Japanese fought Chinese and Communists fought the Kuomintang Government. It grieves me beyond words to contemplate how many of her former glories might possibly remain ?

Edited March 21, 2014 by ThisLife

[ThisLife]

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Just for a complete change of time, venue, and style I thought I would temporarily move away from the inspiring written records of Asian spiritual quests, and share an altogether different life story. I can never, for very long, resist adding to this literary stew a healthy shot of Bill Bryson’s quirky and uplifting adventures. The collection of extracts below were all taken from his book, “Neither Here Nor There”, in which he writes about travelling around Europe in 1989.

 

Admittedly, a small part of my attraction to Bill Bryson was the discovery that he and I were both born in the same year, both went travelling for the first time to Europe in exactly the same year,…. and have both ended up living in England ever since. When I first read this book I thought he had captured the very essence of travelling in Europe, all served up with his own unique style of humour and insight.

 

Many of the stories below are from a kind of ‘repeat travel adventure’ he made seventeen years later, but I found the whole pastiche just a wonderful shared account of the joyful ‘ups’ and periodic loneliness of the ‘downs’, that interweave to make up the wandering life. So, this extract is just a bit of fun for the dreams of footloose travel that I’m certain must live somewhere inside every one of us.

 

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Neither Here Nor There

 

 

The first time I came to Europe was in 1972, skinny, shy, alone. In those days the only cheap flights were from New York to Luxembourg, with a refuelling stop en route at Keflavik Airport at Reykjavik. The aeroplanes were old and engagingly past their prime - oxygen masks would sometimes drop unbidden from their overheated storage compartments and dangle there until a stewardess with a hammer and a mouthful of nails came along to put things right, and the door of the lavatory tended to swing open on you if you didn't hold it shut with a foot, which brought a certain dimension of challenge to anything else you planned to do in there - and they were achingly slow. It took a week and a half to reach Keflavik, a small grey airport in the middle of a flat grey nowhere, and another week and a half to bounce on through the skies to Luxembourg.

 

Everyone on the plane was a hippie, except the crew and two herring-factory executives in first class. It was rather like being on a Greyhound bus on the way to a folk-singers' convention. People were forever pulling out guitars and mandolins and bottles of Thunderbird wine and forging relationships with their seatmates that were clearly going to lead to lots of energetic sex on a succession of Mediterranean beaches.

 

As our estimated time of arrival got closer I was continually watching out of the window for Europe. I still remember that first sight. The plane dropped out of the clouds and there below me was this sudden magical tableau of small green fields and steepled villages spread across an undulating landscape, like a shaken-out quilt just settling back onto a bed. I had flown a lot in America and had never seen much of anything from an aeroplane window but endless golden fields on farms the size of Belgium, meandering rivers and pencil lines of black highway as straight as taut wire. It always looked vast and mostly empty. You felt that if you squinted hard enough you could see all the way to Los Angeles, even when you were over Kansas. But here the landscape had the ordered perfection of a model-railway layout. It was all so green and minutely cultivated, so compact, so tidy, so fetching, so . . . European. I was smitten. I still am.

 

I had brought with me a yellow backpack so enormous that when I went through customs I half expected to be asked, 'Anything to declare? Cigarettes? Alcohol? Dead horse?', and spent the day teetering beneath it through the ancient streets of Luxembourg City in a kind of vivid daze - an unfamiliar mixture of excitement and exhaustion and intense optical stimulation. Everything seemed so vivid and acutely focused and new. I felt like someone stepping out of doors for the first time. It was all so different: the language, the money, the cars, the number plates on the cars, the bread, the food, the newspapers, the parks, the people. I had never seen a zebra-crossing before, never seen a tram, never seen an unsliced loaf of bread (never even considered it an option), never seen anyone wearing a beret who expected to be taken seriously, never seen people go to a different shop for each item of dinner or provide their own shopping bags, never seen feathered pheasants and unskinned rabbits hanging in a butcher's window or a pig's head smiling on a platter, never seen a packet of Gitanes or the Michelin man. And the people - why, they were Luxembourgers. I don't know why this amazed me so, but it did. I kept thinking, That man over there, he's a Luxembourger. And so is that girl. They don't know anything about the New York Yankees, they don't know the theme tune to The Mickey Mouse Club, they are from another world. It was just wonderful.

 

 

I spent a few days tramping through the wooded hills of the Ardennes. The backpack took some getting used to. Each morning when I donned it I would stagger around for a minute in the manner of someone who has been hit on the head with a mallet, but it made me feel incredibly fit. It was like taking a wardrobe on holiday. I don’t know that I have ever felt so content or alive as in those three or four days in the south of Belgium. I was twenty years old and at large in a perfect world. The weather was kind and the countryside green and fetching and dotted with small farms where geese and chickens loitered along roadsides that seldom saw a passing car.

 

Every hour or two I would wander into some drowsing village where two old men in berets would be sitting outside a cafe with glasses of Bols and would silently watch me approach and pass, responding to my cheery 'Bonjour!' with the tiniest of nods, and in the evening when I had found a room in a small hotel and went to the local cafe to read a book and drink beer I would get those same tiny nods again from a dozen people, which I in my enthusiasm took as a sign of respect and acceptance. I believe I may even have failed to notice them edging away when, emboldened by seven or eight glasses of Jupiter pils or the memorably named Donkle Beer, I would lean towards one of them and say in a quiet but friendly voice, 'Je m'appelle Guillaume. J'habite Des Moines.'

 

And so the summer went. I wandered for four months across the continent, through Britain and Ireland, through Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Italy, lost in a private astonishment. It was as happy a summer as I have ever spent. I enjoyed it so much that I came home, tipped the contents of my rucksack into an incinerator, and returned the next summer with a high-school acquaintance named Stephen Katz, which I quickly realized was a serious mistake.

 

Katz was the sort of person who would lie in a darkened hotel room while you were trying to sleep and talk for hours in graphic, sometimes luridly perverted detail about what he would like to do to various high-school nymphettes, given his druthers and some of theirs, or announce his farts by saying, “Here comes a good one. You ready ?” and then grading them for volume, duration and odorosity, as he called it. The best thing that could be said about travelling around with Katz was that it spared the rest of America from having to spend the summer with him.

 

He soon became background noise, a person across the table who greeted each new plate of food with 'What is this shit?’, a hyperactive stranger who talked about boners all the time and unaccountably accompanied me wherever I went, and after a while I more or less tuned him out and spent a summer that was almost as enjoyable, and in a sense as solitary, as the one before.

 

Since that time, I had spent almost the whole of my adulthood, fifteen of the last seventeen years, living in England, on the fringe of this glorious continent, and seen almost none of it. A four-day visit to Copenhagen, three trips to Brussels, a brief swing through the Netherlands - this was all I had to show for my fifteen years as a European. It was time to put things right.

 

I decided at the outset to start at the North Cape, the northernmost point of the European mainland, and to make my way south to Istanbul, taking in along the way as many of the places Katz and I had visited as I could manage.

 

I remembered on my first trip to Europe going alone to a movie in Copenhagen. We had all sat together and watched the movie, thirty of us crowded together like refugees in an overloaded lifeboat, rubbing shoulders and sharing small noises, and it had occurred to me then that there are certain things that some nations do better than everyone else and certain things that they do far worse and I had began to wonder why that should be.

 

Sometimes a nation's little contrivances are so singular and clever that we associate them with that country alone - double-decker buses in Britain, windmills in Holland (what an inspired addition to a flat landscape: think how they would transform Nebraska), sidewalk cafes in Paris. And yet there are some things that most countries do without difficulty that others cannot get a grasp of at all.

 

The French, for instance, cannot get the hang of queuing. They try and try, but it is beyond them. Wherever you go in Paris, you see orderly lines waiting at bus stops, but as soon as the bus pulls up the line instantly disintegrates into something like a fire drill at a lunatic asylum as everyone scrambles to be the first aboard, quite unaware that this defeats the whole purpose of queuing.

 

The British, on the other hand, do not understand certain of the fundamentals of eating, as evidenced by their instinct to consume hamburgers with a knife and fork. To my continuing amazement, many of them also turn their fork upside-down and balance the food on the back of it. I've lived in England for a decade and a half and I still have to quell an impulse to go up to strangers in pubs and restaurants and say, 'Excuse me, can I give you a tip that'll help stop those peas bouncing all over the table ?'

 

Germans are flummoxed by humour, the Swiss have no concept of fun, the Spanish think there is nothing at all ridiculous about eating dinner at midnight, and the Italians should never, ever have been let in on the invention of the motor car.

 

One of the small marvels of my first trip to Europe was the discovery that the world could be so full of variety, that there were so many different ways of doing essentially identical things, like eating and drinking and buying cinema tickets. It fascinated me that Europeans could at once be so alike - that they could be so universally bookish and cerebral, and drive small cars, and live in little houses in ancient towns, and love soccer, and be relatively unmaterialistic and law-abiding, and have chilly hotel rooms and cosy and inviting places to eat and drink - and yet be so endlessly, unpredictably different from each other as well. I loved the idea that you could never be sure of anything in Europe.

 

 

France

 

On my first trip to Paris I kept wondering' Why does everyone hate me so much? Fresh off the train, I went to the tourist booth at the Gare du Nord, where a severe young woman in a blue uniform looked at me as if I were infectious. 'What do you want?' she said' or at least seemed to say.

 

'I'd like a room, please,' I replied, instantly meek.

 

'Fill this out.' She pushed a long form at me. 'Not here. Over there.' She indicated with a flick of her head a counter for filling out forms, then turned to the next person in line and said, 'What do you want ?'

 

I was amazed - I came from a place where everyone was friendly, where even funeral directors told you to have a nice day as you left to bury your grandmother - but I soon learned that everyone in Paris was like that. You would go into a bakery and be greeted by some vast slug-like creature with a look that told you you would never be friends. In halting French you would ask for a small loaf of bread. The woman would give you a long, cold stare and then put a dead beaver on the counter.

 

'No, no,' you would say, hands aflutter, 'not a dead beaver. A loaf of bread.'

 

The slug-like creature would stare at you in patent disbelief, then turn to the other customers and address them in French at much too high a speed for you to follow, but the drift of which clearly was that this person here, this American tourist, had come in and asked for a dead beaver and she had given him a dead beaver and now he was saying that he didn't want a dead beaver at all, he wanted a loaf of bread. The other customers would look at you as if you had just tried to fart in their handbags, and you would have no choice but to slink away and console yourself with the thought that in another four days you would be in Brussels and probably able to eat again.

 

The other thing I have never understood about the French is why they are so ungrateful. I've always felt that, since it was us that liberated them - and let's face it, the French Army couldn't beat a girls’ hockey team - they ought to give all Allied visitors to the country a book of coupons good for free drinks in Pigalle and a ride to the top of the Eiffel Tower. But they never thank you. I have had Belgians and Dutch people hug me round the knees and let me drag them down the street in gratitude to me for liberating their country, even after I have pointed out to them that I wasn't even sperm in 1945. But this is not an experience that is ever likely to happen to anyone in France.

 

 

Denmark

 

Is there anything, apart from a really good chocolate cream pie and receiving a large, unexpected cheque in the post, to beat finding yourself at large in a foreign city on a fair spring evening, loafing along unfamiliar streets in the long shadows of a lazy sunset, pausing to gaze in shop windows or at some church or lovely square or tranquil stretch of quayside, hesitating at street corners to decide whether that cheerful and homey restaurant you will remember fondly for years is likely to lie down this street or that one? I just love it. I could spend my life arriving each evening in a new city.

 

You could certainly do worse than Copenhagen. It is not an especially beautiful city, but it's an endlessly appealing one. It is home to one and a half million people - a quarter of the Danish population - but it has the pace and ambience of a university town. Unlike most great cities, it is refreshingly free of any delusions of self-importance. It has no monuments to an imperial past and little to suggest that it is the capital of a country that once ruled Scandinavia: Other cities put up statues of generals and potentates. In Copenhagen they give you a little mermaid. I think that's swell.

 

The Danes are so full of joie de vivre that they practically sweat it. In a corner of Europe where the inhabitants have the most blunted concept of pleasure (in Norway, three people and a bottle of beer is a party; in Sweden the national sport is suicide), the Danes' relaxed attitude to life is not so much refreshing as astonishing. Do you know how long World War II lasted for Denmark? It was over in a day - actually less than a day. Hitler's tanks crossed the border under cover of darkness and had taken control of the country by dawn. As a politician of the time remarked, 'We were captured by telegram.' By evening they were all back in the bars and restaurants.

 

Copenhagen is also the only city I've ever been in where office girls come out at lunchtime to sunbathe topless in the city parks. This alone earns it my vote for European City of Culture for any year you care to mention.

 

 

Italy

 

 

For a week, I just walked and walked. I walked till my feet steamed. And when I tired I sat with a coffee or sunned myself on a bench, until I was ready to walk again.

 

Having said this, Rome is not an especially good city for walking. For one thing, there is the constant danger that you will be run over. Zebra crossings count for nothing in Rome, which is not unexpected but takes some getting used to. It is a shock to be strolling across some expansive boulevard, lost in an idle fantasy involving Ornella Muti and a vat of Jell-O, when suddenly it dawns on you that the six lanes of cars bearing down upon you at speed have no intention of stopping.

 

It isn't that they want to hit you, as they do in Paris, but they just will hit you. This is partly because Italian drivers pay no attention to anything happening on the road ahead of them. They are too busy tooting their horns, gesturing wildly, preventing other vehicles from cutting into their lane, making love, smacking the children in the back seat and eating a sandwich the size of a baseball bat, often all at once. So the first time they are likely to notice you is in the rear-view minor as something lying in the road behind them.

 

Even if they do see you, they won't stop. There is nothing personal in this. It's just that they believe that if something is in the way they must move it, whether it is a telephone pole or a visitor from the Middle West. The only exception to this is nuns. Even Roman drivers won't hit a nun - you see groups of them breezing across eight-lane arteries with the most amazing impunity, like scraps of black and white paper borne along by the wind - so if you wish to cross some busy place like the Piazza Venezia your only hope is to wait for some nuns to come along and stick to them like a sweaty T-shirt.

 

I love the way the Italians park. You turn any street corner in Rome and it looks as if you've just missed a parking competition for blind people. Cars are pointed in every direction, half on the pavements and half off, facing in, facing sideways, blocking garages and side streets and phone boxes, fitted into spaces so tight that the only possible way out would be through the sun roof. Romans park their cars the way I would park if I had just spilled a beaker of hydrochloric acid on my lap.

 

I was strolling along the Via Sistina one morning when a Fiat Croma shot past and screeched to a smoky halt a hundred feet up the road. Without pause the driver lurched into reverse and came barrelling back-wards down the street in the direction of a parking space that was precisely the length of his Fiat, less two and a half feet. Without slowing even fractionally, he veered the car into the space and crashed resoundingly into a parked Renault.

 

Nothing happened for a minute. There was just the hiss of escaping steam. Then the driver leaped from his car, gazed, in profound disbelief at the devastation before him - crumpled metal, splintered tail lights, the exhaust pipe of his own car limply grazing the pavement - and regarded it with as much mystification as if it had dropped on him from the sky. Then he did what I suppose almost any Italian would do. He kicked the Renault in the side as hard as he could, denting the door, punishing its absent owner for having the gall to park it there, then leaped back in his Fiat and drove off as madly as he had arrived, and peace returned once again to the Via Sistina, apart from the occasional clank of a piece of metal dropping off the stricken Renault. No one but me batted an eye.

 

Italians will park anywhere. All over the city you see them bullying their cars into spaces about the size of a sofa cushion, holding up traffic and prompting every driver within three miles to lean on his horn and give a passable imitation of a man in an electric chair. If the opening is too small for a car, the Romans will decorate it with litter - an empty cigarette packet, a wedge of half-eaten pizza, twenty-seven cigarette butts, half an ice-cream cone with an ooze of old ice-cream emerging from the bottom, danced on by a delirium of flies, an oily tin of sardines, a tattered newspaper and something truly unexpected, like a tailor's dummy or a dead goat.

 

Even the litter didn't especially disturb me. I know Rome is dirty and crowded and the traffic is impossible, but in a strange way that's part of the excitement. Rome is the only city I know, apart from New York, that you can say that about. In fact, New York is just what Rome reminded me of - it had the same noise, dirt, volubility, honking, the same indolent cops standing around with nothing to do, the same way of talking with one's hands, the same unfocused electric buzz of energy. The only difference is that Rome is so wondrously chaotic- New York is actually pretty well ordered. People stand patiently in queues and for the most part obey traffic signals and observe the convention, of life that keep things running smoothly.

 

Italians are entirely without any commitment to order. They live their lives in a kind of pandemonium, which I find very attractive. They don’t queue, they don't pay their taxes, they don’t turn up for appointments on time, they don’t undertake any sort of labour without a small bribe, they don't believe in rules at all. On Italian trains every window bears a label telling you in three languages not to lean out of the window. The labels in French and German instruct you not to lean out, but in Italian they merely suggest that it might not be a good idea. It could hardly be otherwise.

 

 

At the time of my visit, the Italians were working their way through their forty-eighth government in forty-five years. The country has the social structure of a banana republic, yet the amazing thing is that it thrives. It is now the fifth biggest economy in the world, which is a simply staggering achievement in the face of such chronic disorder. If they had the work ethic of the Japanese they could be masters of the planet. Thank goodness they haven’t. They are too busy expending their considerable energies on the pleasurable minutiae of daily life - children, good food, arguing in cafes - which is just how it should be.

 

I was in a neighbourhood bar on the Via Marsala one morning when three workmen in blue boiler suits came in and stopped for coffees at the counter. After a minute one of them started thumping another emphatically on the chest, haranguing him about something, while the third flailed his arms, made mournful noises and staggered about as if his airway were obstructed, and I thought that at any moment knives would come out and there would be blood everywhere, until it dawned on me that all they were talking about was the quality of Schillaci's goal against Belgium the night before or the gas mileage of a Fiat Tipo or something equally innocuous, and after a minute they drained their coffees and went off together as happy as anything.

 

What a wonderful country.

 

*

 

Several days later, having travelled to Capri in the south of the country, I was having dinner in a splendid, friendly, almost empty restaurant on a back street. Sitting in a window seat with a view over the sea I unexpectedly had the chilling thought that I was becoming stupefied with all this ease and perfection. I began to feel that sort of queasy guilt that you can only know if you have lived among the English - a terrible sense that any pleasure involving anything more than a cup of milky tea and a chocolate digestive biscuit is somehow irreligiously excessive. I knew with a profound sense of doom that I would pay for this when I got home - I would have to sit for whole evenings in an icy draught and go for long tramps over wild, spongy moors and eat at a Wimpy at least twice before I began to feel even the tiniest sense of expiation. Still, at least I was feeling guilty for enjoying myself so much, and that made me feel slightly better.

 

It was after eight when I emerged from the restaurant, but the neighbouring businesses were still open - people were buying wine and cheese, picking up a loaf of bread, even having their hair cut. The Italians sure know how to arrange things. I had a couple of beers in the Caffe Funicolare, then wandered idly into the main square. The German and Japanese tourists were nowhere to be seen, presumably tucked up in bed or more probably hustled back to the mainland on the last afternoon ferry. Now it was just locals, standing around in groups of five or six, chatting in the warm evening air, beneath the stars, with the black sea and far-off lights of Naples as a backdrop. It seemed to be the practice of the townspeople to congregate here after supper for a half-hour's conversation. The teenagers all lounged on the church steps, while the smaller children raced among the grown-ups' legs. Everyone seemed incredibly happy. I longed to be part of it, to live on this green island with its wonderful views and friendly people and excellent food and to stroll nightly here to this handsome square with its incomparable terrace and chat to my neighbours.

 

I stood off to one side and studied the dynamics of it. People drifted about from cluster to cluster, as they would at a cocktail party. Eventually they would gather up their children and wander off home, but then others would come along. No one seemed to stay for more than half an hour, but the gathering itself went on all evening. A young man, who was obviously a newcomer to Capri, stood shyly on the fringe of a group of men, smiling at their jokes. But after a few moments he was brought into the conversation, literally pulled in with an arm, and soon he was talking away with the rest of them.

 

I stood there for ages, perhaps for an hour and a hall then turned and walked back towards my hotel and realized that I had fallen spectacularly, hopelessly and permanently in love with Italy.

 

*

 

Florence was packed with tourists and with people trying to sell them things. When I was there in 1972, it had been crowded, but it was August and you expected it. But this was a weekday in April, in the middle of the working year, and it was far worse. I walked down to the Uffizi Palace and around the Piazza della Signoria and the other fixtures of the old part of town and it was the same everywhere - throngs of people, almost all of them from abroad, shuffling about in that aimless, exasperating way of visitors, in groups of five and six, always looking at something about twenty feet above ground level. What is it they see up there?

 

In my adolescent years whenever I was in crowded places I often pretended I had a ray gun with me, which I could use to vaporize anyone I didn't like the look of - dawdlers, couples in matching outfits, children called Junior and Chip. I always imagined myself striding through the crowd, firing the gun at selected targets and shouting, 'Make way, please! Culling !' I felt a little like that now.

 

There were hundreds of Japanese - not just the traditional busloads of middle-aged camera-toters but also students and young couples and backpackers. They were at least as numerous as the Americans, and the Americans were everywhere, plus hordes of Germans and Australians and Scandinavians, and Dutch and British and on and on. You wonder how many people one city can absorb.

 

Here's an interesting statistic for you: in 1951, the year I was born, there were seven million international airline passengers in the world. Nowadays that many people fly to Hawaii every year. The more popular tourist places of Europe routinely receive numbers of visitors that dwarf their own populations. In Florence, the annual ratio of tourists to locals is 14:1. How can any place preserve any kind of independent life when it is so manifestly overwhelmed? It can't. It's as simple as that.

 

It is of course hypocritical to rail against tourists when you are one yourself, but none the less you can't escape the fact that mass tourism is ruining the very things it wants to celebrate. And it can only get worse as the Japanese and other rich Asians become bolder travellers. When you add in the tens of millions of eastern Europeans who are free at last to go where they want, we could be looking back on the last thirty years as a golden age of travel, God help us all.

 

 

Switzerland

 

I examined six or seven restaurants, mystified by the menus, wishing I knew the German for liver, pig's trotters and boiled eyeball, before chancing upon an establishment called the Restaurant de la Place at the top of the town. Now this is a nice surprise, I thought, and went straight in, figuring that at least I'd have some idea what I was ordering, but the name Restaurant de la Place was just a heartless joke. The menu here was in German, too.

 

It really is the most unattractive language for foodstuffs. If you want whipped cream on your -coffee in much of the German-speaking world, you order it 'mit Schlag'. Now does that sound to you like a frothy and delicious pick-me-up, or does that sound like the sort of thing smokers bring up first thing in the morning ? Here the menu was full of items that brought to mind the noises of a rutting pig: Knoblauchbrot, Schweinskotelett ihrer Wahl, Portion Schlagobers (and that was a dessert).

 

I ordered Entrecote and Frites, which sounded a trifle dull after Italy (and indeed so it proved to be), but at least I wouldn't have to hide most of it in my napkin rather than face that awful, embarrassing cry of disappointment that waiters always give when they find you haven't touched your Goat's Scrotum En Croute. At all events, it was an agreeable enough place, as much bar as restaurant: dark and plain, with a tobacco-stained ceiling, but the waitress was friendly and the beer was large and cold

 

I suppose you have to admire the Swiss for their industriousness. Here, after all, is a country that is small, mountainous, has virtually no natural resource and yet has managed to become the richest nation on earth. (Its per capita GDP is almost twenty-five per cent higher than even Japan’s and more than double Britain's.) Money is everything in Switzerland – the country has more banks than dentists - and their quiet passion for it makes them cunning opportunists. The country is land-locked, 300 miles from the nearest sniff of sea, and yet it is home to the largest manufacturer of marine engines in the world. The virtues of the Swiss are legion: they are clean, orderly, law-abiding and diligent - so diligent that in a national referendum in the 1970s they actually voted against giving themselves a shorter working week.

 

And this of course is the whole problem. They are so desperately dull, and wretchedly conservative. A friend of mine who was living in Geneva in 1968, when students all over Europe were tearing the continent apart, once told me that the students of Geneva decided to hold a riot of their own, but called it off when the police wouldn't give them permission. My friend swears it's a true story. It is certainly true that women didn't get the vote in Switzerland until 1971, a mere half-century after they got it everywhere else, and in one of the cantons, Appenzell Innherhoden, women were excluded from cantonal votes until 1990. They have a terrible tendency to be smug and ruthlessly self-interested. They happily bring in hundreds of thousands of foreign workers - one person in every five in Switzerland is a foreigner - but refuse to offer the security of citizenship. When times get tough they send the workers home - 300,000 of them during the oil shocks of 1973, for instance - making them leave their homes, pull their children from schools, abandon their comforts, until times get better. Thus the Swiss are able to take advantage of cheap labour during boom times without the inconvenient social responsibilities of providing unemployment benefit and health care during bad times. And by this means they keep inflation low and preserve their own plump, complacent standard of living. I can understand it, but I don't have to admire it.

 

Instead I decided to leave Switzerland. At the train station I found my platform, unburdened myself of my rucksack and gratefully took a seat on a bench. I allowed my eyelids to droop and passed the time by composing Swiss riddles.

 

 

Q : What is the best way to make a Swiss roll ?

A : Take him to a mountaintop and give him a

push.

 

Q : How do You make a Swiss Person laugh ?

A : Hold a gun to his head and say, 'Laugh''

 

Q : What do you call a great lover in Switzerland ?

A : An immigrant.

 

Q : How can you spot a Swiss anarchist ?

A : He doesn't use the post code.

 

Q : What do you call a gathering of boring people in Switzerland?

A : Zurich.

 

Tiring of this, I switched, (for no explainable reason), to multiple-choice Adolf Hitler-Eva Braun jokes, but I had only completed one -

 

Q : What were Adolf Hitler's last words to Eva

Braun?

 

 

a] Did you remember to cancel the milk?

b] Bang! OK, it's your turn.

c] All right, all right, I'll see to it that they name a range of small electrical appliances after you.

 

- when the train pulled in. With more than a little relief, I boarded it, pleased to be heading for yet another new country.

 

 

 

Turkey

 

 

The one truly unbearable thing in Istanbul is the Turkish pop music. It is inescapable. It assaults you from every restaurant doorway, from every lemonade stand, from every passing cab. If you can imagine a man having a vasectomy without anaesthetic to a background accompaniment of frantic sitar-playing, you will have some idea of what popular Turkish music is like.

 

In an attempt to escape this music’s ‘ever-presence’ I decided to take a walk through the city’s central park. At the bottom of a gently sloping central avenue, the park ended in a sudden and stunning view of the Bosphorus, glittery and blue. I took a seat at an open-air taverna, ordered a Coke and gazed across the water to the white houses gleaming on the brown hillside of Uskudar two miles across the strait. Distant cars glinted in the hot sunshine and ferries plied doggedly back and forth across the Bosphorus and on out to the distant Princes' Islands, adrift in a bluish haze. It was beautiful and a perfect place to stop.

 

I had clearly come to the end of my own road. That was Asia over there; this was as far as I could go in Europe. It was time to go home. My long-suffering wife was pregnant with her semi-annual baby. The younger children, she had told me on the phone, were beginning to call any grown man 'Daddy'. The grass was waist-high. One of the field walls was tumbling down. The sheep were in the meadow. The cows were in the corn. There was a lot for me to do.

 

And I was, I admit, ready to go. I missed my family and the comfortable familiarities of home. I was tired of the daily drudgery of keeping myself fed and bedded, tired of trains and buses, tired of existing in a world of strangers, tired of being forever perplexed and lost, tired above all of my own dull company. How many times in recent days had I sat trapped on buses or trains listening to my idly prattling mind and wished that I could just get up and walk out on myself ?

 

At the same time, I had a quite irrational urge to keep going. There is something about the momentum of travelling that makes you want to just keep moving, to never stop. That was Asia over there, after all - right there in my view. Asia. The thought of it seemed incredible. I could be there in minutes. I still had money left. An untouched continent lay before me.

 

But I didn't go. Instead I ordered another Coke and watched the ferries. In other circumstances I think I might have gone. But that of course is neither here nor there.

 

*

Edited April 1, 2014 by ThisLife

[ThisLife]

*

 

Since it's Spring, the season for celebrating the return of life in new and exciting forms, I thought I'd try and join in with this 'flow' and add a story by an author I've never mentioned before. Truman Capote is a household name in the world of literature and I'd long wanted to introduce myself to his writings since he was so famous when I was in my reading prime. But I've never had a taste for anything to do with murder or violence, and so I couldn't bring myself to read, "In Cold Blood", or any of his most well-known works.

 

However, one day in a second-hand bookstore I came across a hardcover copy of a book of his short stories under the intriguing name of, "Music for Chameleons." Happily for me, many of the stories were simply pleasant anecdotes of his life,.... and the one I've added below has always remained in my mind as the most pleasant and amusing of them all. (And it even has a 'religious twist' as an added bonus for readers here in this forum for spiritual seekers !)

 

　

*

*

 

　

 

A Day’s Work

 

 

　

Scene: A rainy April morning, 1979. I am walking along Second Avenue in New York City, carrying an oilcloth shopping satchel bulging with house-cleaning materials that belong to Mary Sanchez, who is beside me trying to keep an umbrella above the pair of us, which is not difficult as she is much taller than I am, a six-footer. Mary Sanchez is a professional cleaning woman who works by the hour, at five dollars an hour, six days a week. She works approximately nine hours a day, and visits on the average twenty-four different domiciles between Monday and Saturday: generally her customers require her services just once a week.

 

Mary is fifty-seven years old, a native of a small South Carolina town who has "lived North" the past forty years. Her husband, a Puerto Rican, died last summer. She has a married daughter who lives in San Diego, and three sons, one of whom is a dentist, one who is serving a ten-year sentence for armed robbery, a third who is "just gone, God knows where. He called me last Christmas, he sounded far away. I asked where are you, Pete, but he wouldn't say, so I told him his daddy was dead, and he said good, said that was the best Christmas present I could've given him, so I hung up the phone, slam, and I hope he never calls again. Spitting on Dad's grave that way. Well, sure, Pedro was never good to the kids. Or me. Just boozed and rolled dice. Ran around with bad women. They found him dead on a bench in Central Park. Had a mostly empty bottle of Jack Daniel's in a paper sack propped between his legs; never drank nothing but the best, that man. Still, Pete was way out of line, saying he was glad his father was dead. He owed him the gift of life, didn't he? And I owed Pedro something too. If it wasn't for him, I'd still be an ignorant Baptist, lost to the Lord. But when I got married, I married in the Catholic church, and the Catholic church brought a shine to my life that has never gone out, and never will, not even when I die. I raised my children in the Faith; two of them turned out fine, and I give the church credit for that more than me."

 

Mary Sanchez is muscular, but she has a pale round smooth pleasant face with a tiny upturned nose and a beauty mole high on her left cheek. She dislikes the term "black," racially applied. "I'm not black. I'm brown. A light-brown coloured woman. And I'll tell you something else. I don't know many other coloured people that like being called blacks. Maybe some of the young people. And those radicals. But not folks my age, or even half as old. Even people who really are black, they don't like it. What's wrong with Negroes? I'm a Negro, and a Catholic, and proud to say it."

 

I've known Mary Sanchez since 1968, and she has worked for me, periodically, all these years. She is conscientious, and takes far more than a casual interest in her clients, many of whom she has scarcely met, or not met at all, for many of them are unmarried working men and women who are not at home when she arrives to clean their apartments; she communicates with them, and they with her, via notes: "Mary, please water the geraniums and feed the cat. Hope this finds you well, Gloria Scotto."

 

Once I suggested to her that I would like to follow her around during the course of a day's work, and she said well, she didn't see anything wrong with that, and in fact, would enjoy the company: "This can be kind of lonely work sometimes." Which is how we happen to be walking along together on this showery April morning. We're off to her first job: a Mr. Andrew Trask, who lives on East Seventy-third Street.

 

*

 

TC : What the hell have you got in this sack?

 

MARY : Here, give it to me. I can't have you cursing.

 

TC : No. Sorry. But it's heavy.

 

MARY : Maybe it's the iron,

 

RC : You iron their clothes? You never iron any of mine.

 

MARY : Some of these people just have no equipment. That's why I have to carry so much. I leave notes: get this, get that. But they forget. Seems like all my people are bound up in their troubles. Like this Mr. Trask, where we're going. I've had him seven, eight months, and I've never seen him yet. But he drinks too much, and his wife left him on account of it, and he owes bills everywhere, and if ever I answered his phone, it's somebody trying to collect. Only now they've turned off his phone.

 

(We arrive at the address, and she produces from a shoulder-satchel a massive metal ring jangling with dozens of keys. The building is a four-story brownstone with a midget elevator.)

 

TC : (after entering and glancing around the Trask establishment - one fair-sized room with greenish arsenic-coloured walls, a kitchenette, and a bathroom with a broken, constantly flowing toilet) : Hmm. I see what you mean. This guy has problems.

 

MARY : (opening a closet crammed and clammy with sweat-sour laundry) : Not a clean sheet in the house! And look at that bed! Mayonnaise ! Chocolate! Crumbs, crumbs, chewing gum, cigarette butts, Lipstick! What kind of woman would subject herself to a bed like that ? I haven't been able to change the sheets for weeks. Months.

 

(She turns on several lamps with awry shades; and while she labours to organize the surrounding disorder, I take more careful note of the premises, Really, it looks as though a burglar had been plundering there, one who had left some drawers of a bureau open, others closed. There's a leather-framed photograph on the bureau of a stocky swarthy macho man and a blond hoity-toity Junior League woman and three tow-headed grinning snaggle-toothed suntanned boys, the eldest about fourteen. There is another unframed picture stuck in a blurry mirror: another blonde, but definitely not Junior League - perhaps a pickup from Maxwell's Plum; I imagine it is her lipstick on the bed sheets. A copy of the December issue of True Detective magazine is lying on the floor, and in the bathroom, stacked by the ceaselessly churning toilet, stands a pile of girlie literature -- Penthouse, Hustler, Oui; otherwise, there seems to be a total absence of cultural possessions. But there are hundreds of empty vodka bottles everywhere - the miniature kind served by airlines. )

 

TC : Why do you suppose he drinks only these miniatures ?

 

MARY : Maybe he can’t afford nothing bigger. Just buys what he can. He has a good job, if he can hold on to it, but I guess his family keeps him broke.

 

TC : What does he do ?

 

MARY : Airplanes.

 

TC : That explains it. He gets these little bottles free.

 

MARY : Yeah? How come ? He’s not a steward. He’s a pilot.

 

TC : Oh, my God.

 

(A telephone rings, a subdued noise, for the instrument is submerged under a rumpled blanket. Scowling, her hands soapy with dishwater, Mary unearths it with the finesse of an archaeologist.)

 

MARY : He must have got connected again. Hello ? (Silence) Hello ?

 

A WOMAN'S VOICE : Who is this ?

 

MARY : This is Mr. Trask’s residence.

 

WOMAN'S VOICE : Mr. Trask’s residence ? (Laughter; then, hoity-toity) To whom am I speaking?

 

MARY : This is Mr. Trask’s maid.

 

WOMAN’S VOICE : So Mr. Trask has a maid, has he ? Well, that's more than Mrs. Trask has. Will Mr. Trask’s maid please tell Mr. Trask that Mrs. Trask would like to speak to him?

 

MARY : He's not home.

 

MRS. TRASK : Don’t give me that. Put him on.

 

MARY : I'm sorry, Mrs. Trask. I guess he’s out flying.

 

MRS. TRASK (bitter mirth) : Out flying? He’s always flying, dear. Always.

 

MARY : What I mean is, he’s at work.

 

MRS. TRASK : Tell him to call me at my sister’s in New Jersey. Call the instant he comes in, if he knows what’s good for him.

 

MARY : Yes, ma'am. I’ll leave that message. (She hangs up) Mean woman. No wonder he's in the condition he's in. And now he's out of a job. I wonder if he left me my money. Uh-huh. That's it. On top of the fridge.

 

(Amazingly, an hour or so afterward she has managed to somewhat camouflage the chaos and has the room looking not altogether shipshape but reasonably respectable. With a pencil, she scribbles a note and props it against the bureau mirror: "Dear Mr. Trask yr. wive want you fone her at her sistar place sinsirly Mary Sanchez." Then she sighs and perches on the edge of the bed and from her satchel takes out a small tin box containing an assortment of roaches; selecting one, she fits it into a roach-holder and lights up, dragging deeply, holding the smoke down in her lungs and closing her eyes. She offers me a toke.)

 

TC : Thanks. It's too early.

 

MARY : It's never too early. Anyway, you ought to try this stuff. Mucho cojones. I get it from a customer, a real fine Catholic lady; she's married to a fellow from Peru. His family sends it to them. Sends it right through the mail. I never use it so's to get high. Just enough to lift the uglies a little. That heaviness. (She sucks on the roach until it all but burns her lips ) Andrew Trask. Poor scared devil. He could end up like Pedro. Dead on a park bench, nobody caring. Not that I didn't care none for that man. Lately, I find myself remembering the good times with Pedro, and I guess that's what happens to most people if ever they've once loved somebody and lose them; the bad slips away, and you linger on the nice things about them, what made you like them in the first place. Pedro, the young man I fell in love with, he was a beautiful dancer, oh he could tango, oh he could rumba, he taught me to dance and danced me off my feet. We were regulars at the old Savoy Ballroom. He was clean, neat – even when the drink got to him his fingernails were always trimmed and polished. And he could cook up a storm. That’s how he made a living, as a short-order cook. I said he never did anything good for the children; well, he fixed their lunch-boxes to take to school. All kinds of sandwiches wrapped in wax paper. Ham, peanut butter and jelly, egg salad, tuna fish, and fruit, apples, bananas, pears, and a thermos filled with warm milk mixed with honey. It hurts now to think of him there in the park, and how I didn’t cry when the police came to tell me about it; how I never did cry. I ought to have. I owed him that. I owed him a sock in the jaw, too. I’m going to leave the lights on for Mr. Trask. No sense letting him come home to a dark room.

 

(When we emerged from the brownstone the rain had stopped, but the sky was sloppy and a wind had risen that whipped trash along the gutters and caused passers-by to clutch their hats. Our destination was four blocks away, a modest but modern apartment house with a uniformed doorman, the address of Miss Edith Shaw, a young woman in her mid-twenties who was on the editorial staff of a magazine. "Some kind of news magazine. She must have a thousand books. But she doesn’t look like no bookworm. She’s a very healthy kind of girl, and she has lots of boyfriends. Too many - just can’t seem to stay very long with one fellow. We got to be close because . . , Well, one time I came to her place and she was sick as a cat. She’d come from having a baby murdered. Normally I don’t hold with that; it’s against my beliefs. And I said why didn’t you marry this man ? The truth was, she didn’t know who the dad was. And anyway, the last thing she wanted was a husband or a baby.")

 

MARY : (surveying the scene from the opened front door of Miss Shaw's two-room apartment): Nothing much to do here. A little dusting. She takes good care of it herself. Look at all those books. Ceiling to floor, nothing but library.

 

(Except for the burdened bookshelves, the apartment was attractively spare, Scandinavianly white and gleaming. There was one antique: an old roll-top desk with a typewriter on it; a sheet of paper was rolled into the machine; and I glanced at what was written on it:

 

"Zsa Zsa Gabor is

3o5 years old

I know

Because I counted

Her Rings"

 

And triple-spaced below that, was typed:

 

"Sylvia Plath, I hate you

And your damn daddy.

I'm glad, do you hear,

Glad you stuck your head

In a gas-hot oven!"

 

TC : Is Miss Shaw a poet ?

 

MARY : She's always writing something. I don't know what it is. Stuff I see, sounds like she's on dope to me. Come here, I want to show you something.

 

(She leads me into the bathroom, a surprisingly large and sparkling chamber. She opens a cabinet door and points at an object on a shelf : a pink plastic vibrator moulded in the shape of an average-sized penis.)

 

Know what that is ?

 

TC : Don't you ?

 

MARY : I'm the one asking.

 

TC : It's a dildo vibrator.

 

MARY : I know what a vibrator is. But I never saw one like that. It says "Made in Japan."

 

TC : Ah, Well. The Oriental mind.

 

MARY : Heathens. She's sure got some lovely perfumes. If you like perfume. Me, I only put a little vanilla behind my ears.

 

(Now Mary began to work, mopping the waxed carpet-less floors, flicking the bookshelves with a feather duster; and while she worked she kept her roach-box open and her roach-holder filled. I don't know how much "heaviness" she had to lift, but the aroma alone was lofting me. )

 

MARY : You sure you don't want to try a couple of tokes? You're missing something.

 

TC : You twisted my arm.

 

(Man and boy, I've dragged some powerful grass, never enough to have acquired a habit, but enough to judge quality and know the difference between ordinary Mexican weed and luxurious contraband like Thai-sticks and the supreme Maui-Wowee. But after smoking the whole of one of Mary's roaches, and while halfway through another, I felt as though seized by a delicious demon, embraced by a mad marvelous merriment: the demon tickled my toes, scratched my itchy head, kissed me hotly with his red sugary lips, shoved his fiery tongue down my throat. Everything sparkled; my eyes were like zoom lenses; I could read the titles of books on the highest shelves: The Neurotic Personality of Our Time by Karen Horney; Eimi by e.e, cummings; Four Quartets; The Collected Poems of Robert Frost.)

 

TC : I despise Robert Frost. He was an evil, selfish bastard.

 

MARY : Now, if we're going to curse –

 

TC : Him with his halo of shaggy hair. An egomaniacal double-crossing sadist. He wrecked his whole family. Some of them. Mary, have you ever discussed this with your confessor ?

 

MARY : Father McHale ? Discussed what ?

 

TC : The precious nectar we're so divinely devouring, my adorable chickadee. Have you informed Father McHale of this delectable enterprise ?

 

MARY : What he don't know won't hurt him. Here, have a Life Saver. Peppermint. It makes that stuff taste better.

 

(Odd, she didn't seem high, not a bit. I'd just passed Venus, and Jupiter, jolly old Jupiter, beckoned beyond in the lilac star-dazzled planetary distance. Mary marched over to the telephone and dialed a number; she let it ring a long while before hanging up.)

 

MARY : Not home. That's one thing to be grateful for. Mr. and Mrs. Berkowitz. If they'd been home, I couldn't have took you over there. On account of they're these real stuffy Jewish people. And you know how stuffy they are !

 

TC : Jewish people? Gosh, yes. Very stuffy. They all ought to be in the Museum of Natural History. All of them.

 

MARY : I've been thinking about giving Mrs. Berkowitz notice. The trouble is, Mr. Berkowitz, he was in garments, he's retired, and the two of them are always home. Underfoot. Unless they drive up to Greenwich, where they got some property. That's where they must have gone today. Another reason I'd like to quit them. They've got an old parrot - makes a mess everywhere. And stupid! All that dumb parrot can say is two things: "Holy cow !" and "Oy vey !" Every time you walk in the house it starts shouting "Oy vey !" Gets on my nerves something terrible. How about it? Let's toke another roach and blow this joint.

 

(The rain had returned and the wind increased, a mixture that made the air look like a shattering mirror. The Berkowitzes lived on Park Avenue in the upper Eighties, and I suggested we take a taxi, but Mary said no, what kind of sissy was I, we can walk it, so I realized that despite appearances, she, too, was travelling stellar paths. We walked along slowly, as though it were a warm tranquil day with turquoise skies, and the hard slippery streets ribbons of pearl-coloured Caribbean beach. Park Avenue is not my favourite boulevard; it is rich with lack of charm; if Mrs. Lasker were to plant it with tulips all the way from Grand Central to Spanish Harlem, it would be of no avail. Still, there are certain buildings that prompt memories. We passed a building where Willa Cather, the American woman writer I've most admired, lived the last years of her life with her companion, Edith Lewis; I often sat in front of their fireplace and drank Bristol Cream and observed the firelight enflame the pale prairie-blue of Miss Cather's serene genius-eyes. At Eighty-fourth Street I recognized an apartment house where I had once attended a small black-tie dinner given by Senator and Mrs. John F. Kennedy, then so young and insouciant. But despite the agreeable efforts of our hosts, the evening was not as enlightening as I had anticipated, because after the ladies had been dismissed and the men left in the dining room to savour their cordials and Havana cigars, one of the guests, a rather slope-chinned dress-maker named Oleg Cassini, overwhelmed the conversation with a travelogue account of Las Vegas and the myriad showgirls he'd recently auditioned there: their measurements, erotic accomplishments, financial requirements - a recital that hypnotized its auditors, none of whom was more chucklingly attentive than the future President.

 

When we reach Eighty-seventh street, I point out a window on the fourth floor at 106o Park Avenue, and inform Mary: "My mother lived there. That was her bedroom. She was beautiful and very intelligent, but she didn't want to live. She had many reasons - at least she thought she did. But in the end it was just her husband, my stepfather. He was a self-made man, fairly successful - she worshipped him, and he really was a nice guy, but he gambled, got into trouble and embezzled a lot of money, and lost his business and was headed for Sing Sing."

 

Mary shakes her head: "Just like my boy. Same as him."

 

We're both standing staring at the window, the downpour drenching us. "So one night she got all dressed up and gave a dinner party; everybody said she looked lovely. But after the party, before she went to bed, she took thirty Seconals and she never woke up."

 

Mary is angry; she strides rapidly away through the rain: "She had no right to do that. I don't hold with that. It's against my beliefs.")

 

SQUAWKING PARROT : Holy cow !

 

MARY : Hear that ? What did I tell you ?

 

PARROT : Oy vey ! Oy vey !

 

( The parrot, a surrealist collage of green and yellow and orange moulting feathers, is ensconced on a mahogany perch in the relentlessly formal parlour of Mr. and Mrs. Berkowitz, a room suggesting that it had been entirely made of mahogany: the parquet floors, the wall panelling, and the furniture, all of it costly reproductions of grandiose period-piece furniture - though God knows what period, perhaps early Grand Concourse. Straight-back chairs; settees that would have tested the endurance of a posture professor. Mulberry velvet draperies swathed the windows, which were incongruously covered with mustard-brown venetian blinds. Above a carved mahogany mantelpiece a mahogany-framed portrait of a jowly, sallow-skinned Mr. Berkowitz depicted him as a country squire outfitted for a fox hunt: scarlet coat, silk cravat, a bugle tucked under one arm, a riding crop under the other. I don't know what the remainder of this rambling abode looked like, for I never saw any of it except the kitchen.)

 

MARY : What’s so funny? What you laughing at ?

 

TC : Nothing. It's just this Peruvian tobacco, my cherub. I take it Mr. Berkowitz is an equestrian ?

 

PARROT: Oy vey ! Oy vey !

 

MARY : Shut up ! Before I wring your damn neck.

 

TC : Now, if we're going to curse . . . (Mary mumbles; crosses herself ) Does the critter have a name?

 

MARY : Uh-huh, Try and guess.

 

TC : Polly.

 

MARY : (truly surprised): How'd you know that ?

 

TC : So she's a female.

 

MARY : That's a girl's name, so she must be a girl. Whatever she is, she's a bitch. Just look at all that crap on the floor. All for me to clean it up.

 

TC : Language, language.

 

POLLY : Holy cow !

 

MARY : My nerves. Maybe we better have a little lift. (Out comes the tin box, the roaches, the roach-holder, matches.) And let's see what we can locate in the kitchen. I’m feeling real munchie.

 

(The interior of the Berkowitz refrigerator is a glutton’s fantasy, a cornucopia of fattening goodies. Small wonder the master of the house has such jowls. "Oh yes", confirms Mary, "they're both hogs. Her stomach. She looks like she's about to drop the Dionne quintuplets. And all his suits are tailor-made: nothing store-bought could fit him. Hmm, yummy, I sure do feel munchie. Those coconut cupcakes look desirable. And that mocha cake, I wouldn’t mind a hunk of that. We could dump some ice cream on it." Huge soup bowls are found, and Mary masses them with cupcakes and mocha cake and fist-sized scoops of pistachio ice cream. We return to the parlour with this banquet and fall upon it like abused orphans. There's nothing like grass to grow an appetite. After finishing off the first helping, and fueling ourselves with more roaches, Mary refills the bowls with even heftier portions.)

 

MARY : How you feel ?

 

TC : I feel good.

 

MARY : How good ?

 

TC : Real good.

 

MARY : Tell me exactly how you feel.

 

TC : I'm in Australia.

 

MARY : Ever been to Austria ?

 

TC : Not Austria. Australia. No, but that's where I am now. And everybody always said what a dull place it is. Shows what they know! Greatest surfing in the world. I'm out in the ocean on a surfboard riding a wave high as a, as a –

 

MARY : High as you. Ha-ha.

 

TC : It's made of melting emeralds. The wave. The sun is hot on my back, and the spray is salting my face, and there are hungry sharks all around me. Blue Water, White Death. Wasn't that a terrific movie ? Hungry white man-eaters everywhere, but they don't worry me - frankly, I don't give a fuck...

 

MARY : (eyes wide with fear ) : Watch for the sharks ! They got killer teeth. You'll be crippled for life. You'll be begging on street corners,

 

TC : Music !

 

MARY : Music ! That's the ticket.

 

(She weaves like a groggy wrestler toward a gargoyle object that had heretofore happily escaped my attention: a mahogany console combining television, phonograph, and a radio. She fiddles with the radio until she finds a station booming music with a Latin beat. Her hips manoeuvre, her fingers snap, she is elegant yet smoothly abandoned, as if recalling a sensuous youthful night, and dancing with a phantom partner some remembered choreography. And it is magic, how her now-ageless body responds to the drums and guitars, contours itself to the subtlest rhythm: she is in a trance, the state of grace saints supposedly achieve when experiencing visions. And I am hearing the music, too; it is speeding through me like antihistamine - each note ringing with the separate clarity of cathedral chimings on a silent winter Sunday. I move toward her, and into her arms, and we match each other step for step, laughing, undulating, and even when the music is interrupted by an announcer speaking Spanish as rapid as the rattle of castanets, we continue dancing, for the guitars are locked in our heads now, as we are locked in our laughter, our embrace: louder and louder, so loud that we are unaware of a key clicking, a door opening and shutting. But the parrot hears it.)

 

POLLY : Holy cow !

 

WOMAN'S VOICE : What is this ? What's happening here ?

 

POLLY : Oy vey ! Oy vey !

 

MARY : Why, hello there, Mrs. Berkowitz. Mr. Berkowitz. How ya doin' ?

 

(And there they are, hovering in view like the Mickey and Minnie Mouse balloons in a Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Not that there's anything mousey about this twosome. Their infuriated eyes, hers hot behind harlequin spectacles with sequined frames, absorb the scene: our naughty ice-cream moustaches, the pungent roach smoke polluting the premises. Mr. Berkowitz stalks over and stops the radio.)

 

MRS. BERKOWITZ : Who is this man ?

 

MARY : I din't think you was home.

 

MRS. BERKOWITZ : Obviously. I asked you: Who is this man ?

 

MARY : He's just a friend of mine. Helping me out. I got so much work today.

 

MR. BERKOWITZ : You're drunk, woman.

 

MARY : (deceptively sweet) : How's that you say?

 

MRS. BERKOWITZ : He said you're drunk. I'm shocked. Truly.

 

MARY: Since we're speaking truly, what I have truly to say to you is: today is my last day of playing nigger around here - I'm giving you notice.

 

MRS. BERKOWITZ : You are giving me notice ?

 

MR. BERKOWITZ : Get out of here! Before we call the police.

 

(Without ado, we gather our belongings, Mary waves at the parrot: "So long, Polly. You're okay. You're good girl. I was only kidding." And at the front door, where her former employers have sternly stationed themselves, she announces: "Just for the record, I've never touched a drop in my life."

 

Downstairs, the rain is still going. We trudge along Park Avenue, then cut across to Lexington.)

 

MARY : Didn't I tell you they were stuffy.

 

TC : Belong in a museum.

 

(But most of our buoyancy has departed; the power of the Peruvian foliage recedes, a letdown has set in, my surfboard is sinking, and any sharks sighted now would scare the piss out of me.)

 

MARY : I still got Mrs. Kronkite to do. But she's nice; she'll forgive me if I don't come till tomorrow. Maybe I'll head on home.

 

　

TC : Let me catch you a cab.

 

MARY : I hate to give them my business. Those taxi people don't like coloureds. Even when they're coloured themselves. No, I can get the subway down here at Lex and Eighty-sixth.

 

(Mary lives in a rent-controlled apartment near Yankee Stadium; she says it was cramped when she had a family living with her, but now that she's by herself, it seems immense and dangerous : "I've got three locks on every door, and all the windows nailed down. I'd buy me a police dog if it didn't mean leaving him by himself so much. I know what it is to be alone, and I wouldn't wish it on a dog.")

 

TC : Please, Mary, let me treat you to a taxi.

 

MARY : The subway's a lot quicker. But there's someplace I want to stop. It's just down here a ways.

 

(The place is a narrow church pinched between broad buildings on a side street. Inside, there are two brief rows of pews, and a small altar with a plaster figure of a crucified Jesus suspended above it. An odour of incense and candle wax dominates the gloom. At the altar a woman is lighting a candle, its light fluttering like the sleep of a fitful spirit; otherwise, we are the only supplicants present. We kneel together in the last pew, and from the satchel Mary produces a pair of rosary beads - "I always carry a couple extra" - one for herself, the other for me, though I don't know quite how to handle it, never having used one before. Mary's lips move whisperingly.)

 

MARY : Dear Lord, in your mercy. Please, Lord, help Mr. Trask to stop boozing and get his job back. Please, Lord, don't leave Miss Shaw a bookworm and an old maid; she ought to bring your children into this world. And, Lord, I beg you to remember my sons and daughter and my grandchildren, each and every one. And please don't let Mr. Smith's family send him to that retirement home; he don't want to go, he cries all the time . . .

 

(Her list of names is more numerous than the beads on her rosary, and her requests in their behalf have the earnest shine of the altar's candle-flame. She pauses to glance at me. )

 

MARY : Are you praying ?

 

TC : Yes.

 

MARY : I can't hear you.

 

TC : I'm praying for you, Mary. I want you to live forever.

 

MARY : Don't pray for me. I'm already saved. ( She takes my hand and holds it ) Pray for your mother. Pray for all those souls lost out there in the dark. Pedro. Pedro.

 

*

Edited April 12, 2014 by ThisLife

[ThisLife]

*

At this time of year, with Spring happening everywhere around me, a short-lived desire annually arises to sort through and tidy up all the accumulated bits and pieces from the previous year’s living. With that sentiment in mind, today I thought I would shake out and give a spring-airing to my final saved anecdote on the spiritual writer who, for the last eight-or-so years, has had the strongest influence in my own search for spiritual meaning: Wayne Liquorman. As I mentioned here in an earlier post Wayne had had a somewhat unusual 'career path' for a guru considering that for the 19 years immediately preceding his 'Awakening’ he had been a dedicated and full-blown alcoholic and a drug addict

Nevertheless, when this extraordinary and life-transforming event happened to him, (and for quite a number of years afterwards), he never wrote a single word about his experience or ever gave a public talk. Years later when asked about this, Wayne replied in his typically abrupt way;

 

"I didn't want a bunch of miserable seekers cluttering up my living room like they did at Ramesh’s. Everyday he had a couple of people sitting in his living room. That didn’t appeal to me. I had a business, I had a family, what did I want with that scene ? Plus, I’d been travelling around with him long enough to know that everything you can say about this stuff is just BULLSHIT. Did I really want a job as a bullshit artist ? - I already had that. I was in business."

 

(He's very often quite shockingly straight forward with his answers.)

What finally broke his silence was a book of poems he published under the pseudonym of Ram Tzu, entitled "No Way". In the two extracts below I've first included the response he gave to a question asked about his motivation for writing under a false name. Then secondly I've cobbled together a mini collection of what I feel to be the three most insightful poems from this book.

*

*

 

Wayne Liquorman wrote:

{Q} : I have all three of your books. I have a question about Ram Tzu. That's your poetry book, and it's like you just kind of used Ram Tzu as a knowledgeable personality - instead of saying "Wayne" you say "Ram Tzu"?

{Wayne} : OK, this is what happened with that: this understanding, this event, happened in 1989, and at the time I was very, very happy to be Ramesh's publisher, his roadie, his tour operator,… all the various functions that I was able to perform for him. It was a great joy in my life.

In the process of doing all of that I had a lot of chance to watch him with people. Previously I hadn't had a lot of experience with spiritual circles, spiritual communities, spiritual seekers and all the rest of that. I'd been busy for nineteen years in the bars and the drug houses. [laughter], so I didn't get to a lot of satsangs. Then, once I got sober I was busy learning how to live soberly and most of my energy was there. This spiritual stuff just carried on in the spaces around that. As a result, at the time I met Ramesh and became involved with him I really had very, very little experience with the world of seekers. Moreover, after a few years of watching them I was completely appalled by the entire spectacle [laughter]. It very quickly became clear to me that I was not at all temperamentally suited to being a spiritual teacher. It was the last thing in the world that I was interested in. I had a successful business, and it was getting more successful all the time. I was making a lot of money and able to provide money to support Ramesh and his teaching. At the time it seemed a very worthwhile thing to do because Non-Duality teachings have always had such small numbers of people interested in them that there is never enough money. One does not get rich as an Advaita teacher, I promise you. [laughter]

And then those poems started appearing.

I was down on [inaudible] Avenue, at this place where I used to take a break every afternoon. I would walk over there and have an espresso and sit at this little table out on the sidewalk and watch the pretty girls go by,… and a thought came. I took a pencil and I wrote it down on a napkin, and it was one of these poems.

I went the next day, and another one came. The next day I brought a pen, [laughter], and a notebook. And I just kept going, every day, with the book and the pen. Sometimes two, sometimes three of them would come, and it just flowed out. After a month or so of that there were a hundred of them, and I packaged them up and I sent them off to Ramesh, just for entertainment. ("Ram" is Ramesh, and "Tzu" is from Lao –Tzu. They were the two agents 'provocateurs' in my spirituality, so that's how and why I made up the name "Ram Tzu".)

And Ramesh said “These are good. You should publish them”, so I did. But I had no desire to sort of "come out," if you will. I just put the book out there, used the pen name Ram Tzu, remained happily in the background, , ,... and that was that.

*

*

 

Ram Tzu wrote:

 

{1}

 

 

You want your purveyors of Truth
To look and act special.

You want them different
And special
And powerful.

You prefer to imagine them
Cloaked in light
Rather than sitting on the toilet.

You like them passionless, sexless,
Mellow, gentle and kind.

You like the idea of miracles
And will invent them when necessary.

Your strategy is to keep them
Out there
Far away from you
Exotic and mysterious.

You revel in the myth
Of the Enlightened individual
Hoping to someday be so empowered.

What you can’t tolerate
Is for them to appear
As ordinary as you.

Ram Tzu knows this…

You always miss the Truth
Because it is just too plain to see.

*

*

{2}

You think something’s wrong
There must have been a mistake.

You think things should be different
By different you mean better
And you’re pretty sure
You know what better is.

You would eliminate
All the bad stuff.

War
Disease
Suffering
Famine
Pollution.

Those would be good for starters.

Who could argue with that ?

You would save cute animals
You would ban bombs
You would halt injustice
You would make everyone happy.

Why not ?
It could happen.

And if it does, Ram Tzu knows this…

God will be very grateful
For your help.

*

*

{3}

You stand at the edge
Ready to throw yourself in.

What a shock to discover

There is no where to go
And no one to throw.

 

 

*

_________________
.
The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.

The second best time is now.


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chinese Proverb

Edited April 21, 2014 by ThisLife

[ThisLife]

 

From the responses that have come back regarding this thread it seems that the type of story that appeals to most in this forum are the factual tales of practitioners’ lives in Asian countries. Since, for many years I was repeatedly drawn to these same cultures, religions, and philosophies, myself,…. I am always happy to share more of these beautiful records left by others who, many years ago, also found themselves drawn to Eastern pathways in their search for meaning and purpose. Most of my accounts were written before our current times. Today, virtually everything of any attractive value that gets ‘discovered’, is first commercially re-packaged and promoted in the media,… and then finally, marketed and systematically exploited until every last drop of profit has been squeezed from it.

 

As a contrast, the story below is one of my all-time favourites. Again, it has been taken from John Blofeld’s 1930s accounts written in “The Wheel of Life”, of his years in China, and Peking. The events here took place at the very beginning of his search, on one of the remote islands off Hong Kong, (where he first set foot in Asia). It tells the extraordinary story of his first ever meeting with a Taoist recluse living high in the mountains of one of these islands.

 

*

*

 

 

Tiger-bone Wine and a Flute

 

 

The steamer which threads the blue-green, island-dotted sea to Lantao generally carried among its passengers some of those lay-recluses who had retired from the clamour and undisguisedly 'red in tooth and claw' struggle of Hong Kong's business world, to seek the solitude of the hermitages clinging to the slopes of Mount T'ai Yu. For the Chinese, unless fully ordained monks or nuns, are seldom willing to sever family ties completely, and these lay-recluses generally visit their families once or twice a year. I recognized some of them by their distinctive low-collared gowns (much the same for both sexes), while many of those who had temporarily discarded religious dress could be identified in other ways. For even hermits develop occupational characteristics - tricks of speech, manner and facial expression by which they may be distinguished.

 

An hour or so before dusk, the steamer, which had long been skirting Lantao Island, put in at the port of T'ai O. It was met by sampans rowed by women in crow-black jackets and trousers, darting out to transport passengers and luggage to the jetty. Soon I was walking up the narrow main street overshadowed by unpretentious houses of very dark grey brick. The air was permeated by the stink of acres of dead fish spread out to dry in the sun. As, for some reason which I could not understand, nobody would volunteer to guide me and carry my light luggage up to the monastery near T'ai Yu's peak, I had to accept the only alternative to passing a night among the mosquitoes and the gradually overpowering smell of fish. This was to be carried up the mountain in a sedan-chair of light wickerwork borne by two women paddling along front and back with the shafts resting on their shoulders. They knelt to lift me from the ground and experienced some difficulty in rising, but seemed to get along easily enough after that.

 

The mountain path led steeply upwards from the dusk-blurred rice-fields, surrounding T'ai O. It was constructed of horizontally laid slabs of rough-hewn granite and it wound up thinly wooded slopes where some of the lower hermitages lay scattered. Their temple-like buildings were prettily secluded behind groves of trees or bamboo hedges and were approached through heavy wooden gates with stone lintels. By the time the bearers began to tire, they had reached a neglected hermitage distinguished by an inscription on a horizontal stone inset above the gateway, announcing in large gold letters that it was 'The Garden of Mysterious Causes'. Here the women set me down and began to rest themselves, chatting volubly and puffing cheap Chinese cigarettes which smelt like burning hay. I got stiffly out from the sedan-chair and strolled into a stone-flagged courtyard lying behind the green-lacquered gates. The doors of the main shrine-room stood wide open, revealing an interior so gloomy that nothing could be seen except for the objects contained in a pool of light cast by two giant candles of crimson wax burning on the altar. Their rays caught the gilded statue of a Taoist divinity, a probably ancient but far from lovely image of the Empress of Heaven. Soon after I had gone over to examine it, I heard the tipping of a wooden staff behind me and, looking over my shoulder, beheld a diminutive old woman emerging into the light. Her eyes were filmed with luminous white scales and she was obviously quite blind. When she spoke, her high-pitched voice reminded me of a five-year-old child's.

 

'You are welcome, sir. You have come to stay the night ?'

 

'Thank you, no. I hope to reach the Po Lin Monastery in time for some supper.'

 

She sighed with theatrical resignation. 'Then at least you will take a cup of tea. It shall be brought instantly. Ah Mu-u-u-ui! Tea for the guest.'

 

These last words, uttered in a shrill ugly scream, had hardly ceased echoing when a small pigtailed girl in dingy black clothes materialized from the darkness like a tiny genii. She was carrying a tray of tea-things. I felt obliged to sit down and accept the tea with good grace, though I knew its purpose was merely to extort a silver dollar towards the upkeep of the hermitage. Presently the old creature, who had been peering towards me as if willing her eyes to see, remarked with some animation: 'Sir, you are a foreigner, are you not ?' Her phrasing of the question revealed that she was a woman of small education, for she had used the phrase 'red-furred devil' for 'foreigner' without being conscious of its rudeness.

 

'Yes, Madam Recluse, a red-furred devil,' I answered gravely.

 

'How did you guess ?'

 

'The ears of the blind as are the eyes of the deaf,' she quoted with a grim chuckle. 'You speak well, sir, but not as we do.'

 

Supposing that my bearers would be growing impatient, I finished the cup of tepid tea and got up to go. It was the thin green variety called 'Dragon's Well', which is costly, but this particular potful had obviously suffered three or four waterings in the course of the afternoon. I placed a silver dollar on the tray and murmured something about an insignificant donation, for fear that the ragged child should conceal it for her own use. Almost at once I regretted not having let her do this, for I guessed that her life under the old martinet was miserable enough.

 

'You are too kind,' came the perfunctory answer and then, more energetically, the recluse added : 'The path is steep, sir, steep and dangerous. There are precipices hard to avoid in the dark. Go up slowly, sir. Go up slowly !'

 

Suddenly the night seemed less warm. The child-like piping voice had sounded grimly prophetic and I was not too sure that the old crone was innocent of taking a certain pleasure in implanting gloomy apprehensions in my mind. Making some vague reply, I groped my way out towards the gate, while struggling with what then seemed an absurd conviction that her words were intended to have a wider application than the obvious one, though on the face of it it was more probable that her failure to secure a paying guest for the night had made her pettish. I climbed back into my chair; which soon resumed its camel-like swayings.

 

When we reached the steepest part of the long slope, the tilt was sharp enough to bring my knees up rather higher than my face. The bobbing lantern dangling from one of the shafts dispelled the darkness sufficiently to illumine a disquieting view of yawning blackness just beyond the left side of the narrow path skirting the mountain's edge. Apart from the chirping of insects, the slip-slap of straw sandals against rough granite, and the heavy breathing of my female bearers, the night was ominously silent.

 

Our next stop was before a wayside shrine. The lantern's soft glow revealed a mere hole in the rock-face to the right of the path. It had been clumsily daubed with crimson, and in the hollow loomed a crude image of a bearded god with sword held ready to slash off the heads of his enemies. The bearers seemed to fear him, for they lighted a few incense-sticks from the lantern-flame and carefully thrust them among the scarlet stubs crowding the cheap earthenware burner at the foot of the shrine. Perhaps this was the deity who decided whether to guide them safely past or to hurl them over the dangerous precipices. Their brief devotions completed, they signed to me to take my seat and, kneeling between the shafts as they had done before, staggered to their feet exerting far more strength to raise me from the ground than they required for the actual business of carrying me forward. I reflected that the god they had just propitiated was one of those exceedingly ancient deities who go further back into history than the oldest of China's various organized religions, like the hob-goblins of Europe.

 

For another hour I swayed through the night until, on rounding a sharp bend, I saw several lights shining out high in the darkness above me. The path had now become so steep that the bearers no longer protested when I offered to get down and walk. This decision saved us a lot of time and, sooner than I had expected, because of the difficulty of judging distance in the darkness, I was standing before the monastery gate while the two women shouted shrilly for admission.

 

The gleam of oil lamps on smooth, unpainted wood; black-gowned monks with butterfly-wing sleeves billowing as they hastened forward to receive me, serving boys sent scurrying off in search of warm water, soap and a pot of tea; a plank-bed in an otherwise bare cell fragrant with the smell of a freshly stuffed rice-straw mattress - this was a world to which I had become so accustomed during my recent travels that I felt some of the pleasure of a wanderer returning home. And, as expected, I had no sooner washed my face and drunk a cup or two of tea than I was summoned to a good dinner of rice and spiced vegetables, piping hot and so quickly served that it would have been reasonable to look round for Aladdin’s lamp.

 

While I was eating this meal in the guests' refectory, the Reverend Receiver of Guests sat with me, pressing me to the choicest morsels in each dish. He had the rather forbidding features of a mediaeval churchman and spoke with great formality. When I showed signs of lingering over a plate of sliced blood-oranges, he informed me that the Abbot was waiting to receive me immediately 'after rice'. The oranges were so good that I stayed to finish off the plate, making up for the delay by hastening to the Abbot's private quarters as fast as I could walk with the dignity suited to a temple. There I was received by a tall, heavily built prelate with a kindly but unremarkable face, who insisted on my omitting the usual prostrations and waved me to a chair. The formal interchange of names and other details was quickly disposed of, and then came an enquiry as to the length and purpose of my visit.

 

'Please make it a long visit,' he added hospitably.

 

'Thank you, Your Reverence. A fortnight, perhaps. I have not come just for a holiday, though; so I may find that I need longer, if I shall not be in anybody's way. I have come to ask your assistance in making a particular study of Zen and of Zen meditation methods.'

 

The Abbot's gaze of friendly enquiry gave Place to an uncertain smile.

 

'So you are a Buddhist, Mr. P'u ? That is praiseworthy, very praiseworthy. Of course, I shall do whatever I can. But I hardly think . . . I mean, we do have a Hall of Zen here and nominally there are sessions twice a day, but in practice very few of the monks attend regularly. We are not strict, you know. Everyone is left to do very much as he pleases in such matters. As for study, I’m afraid the Fa-Shih [Expounder of the Dharma] is away in Kowloon, so there will be nobody to instruct you. I myself . . .' He paused and smiled confidingly. 'I'm just a simple man, a "business abbot" you might say. As in lay life I was a business man I have been selected to attend to matters of administration and the supervision of the monks - my abilities are confined to such trifles. Yet it is necessary to have such a Person as my humble self in this capacity, for the Hong Kong Government actually taxes temples as though we were a business organization ! So there it is. But – er - if you wish to practice Zen, the Hall is open to you day and night. Use it as you wish. Or you may find the temple garden or the mountainside more conducive to solitary meditation.'

 

'Thank you, Reverence. I am fortunate.'

 

We chatted for a little while longer on general subjects and I happened to mention the old blind woman at the Garden of Mysterious Causes.

 

'So!' exclaimed my host. 'So you have met Grandma Wang ? A little mad, they say - a little cantankerous, perhaps. Is she not ? It is strange, though. I have heard people assert that, far from being mad, she has the gift of prophecy, the gift of seeing further than two-eyed people can hope to do. Accurate prophecy, so they say. I suppose she didn't happen to . . . But, no, of course not. You were only there for such a very little time, were you not ?'

 

'H'm,' I replied thoughtfully. 'She certainly did not say anything of importance to me. She just warned me that the path up to this monastery is dangerous to climb in the dark. But, of course, one hardly needs psychic powers to realize that steep precipices are dangerous to anyone being carried up in a chair at night ! All the same, there was something peculiar about the tone of her voice and I remember wondering at the time if she had some hidden meaning.'

 

'We both laughed rather uncomfortably. Just then my eye fell upon the old-fashioned wooden clock above the doorway. As it was long past the usual bed-time for Buddhist monks, who rise always before dawn, I stood up to take leave.

 

Overtired from the long journey by boat and chair, I undressed quickly and threw myself down on the straw pallet with such abandon that the thin planks creaked ominously. Instead of sleeping at once, I fell into a state of drowsy contentment, pleasantly conscious of the change from my bed-sitting-room in Hong Kong. Here the mountain air was fresh; there was also a pleasant tang from the ocean far below and the attractive smell of rice-straw. Now and then a faint smell of sandalwood drifted across from the Hall of Ceremony on the other side of the monastery. At intervals of perhaps three minutes came the mournful d-o-o-ong of a great bronze bell struck once. It intimated that somewhere in a candle-lit bell-tower a solitary monk was passing the night intoning the scriptures for the dead; I was pulled back with a jerk from a dreamy state close to sleep by a vision of the horrid torments pictured in symbolical representations of the Buddhist hells. Some people believed quite literally in those horrors, but at least they were never held to be everlasting. The dreadful doctrine of eternal damnation, of punishment which by its very infinity is out of all proportion to the worst depravities possible in a brief life of seventy years, is quite foreign to the peoples of the Far East. Even a Buddhist who has sinned grievously and who has a lively belief in hellish torments can comfort himself with the thought that, once cleansed of his stock of evil Karma he will emerge from hell to continue going the rounds of self-forged karmic destiny until sense-attachments lose their chaining power and leave him free to seek refuge in Nirvana. Nirvana ? Who could say what it really meant ? It is a state sublime and indescribable, a direct realization of the Supreme Reality, a final escape from the bondage of life's Wheel, and analogous to the Christian mystic's goal of union with the Godhead, or with the ordinary Christian's 'living eternally in the presence of God'. A hard teaching, because of the number of lives to be lived through and the oceans of troubles to be encountered on the way, but less terrifying than the frightful, hope-destroying conviction of life eternal amid the flames of hell.

 

The bell kept me awake for a while. I reflected that, in Buddhism, there is the further encouragement offered by the doctrine of the Short Path. My teachers, Chinese and Tibetan, had insisted that there are methods (methods of which the Rimpoche had recently put me in possession) whereby Nirvana can, with stupendous effort, be reached within the course of a mere handful of lives, or even in this present life ! I smiled as I dozed off, remembering my Cambridge friends' warnings that Buddhists are 'lost in pessimism'. I think I must have been still smiling when I fell asleep.

 

The next few days were full of enchantment. I roamed the lovely upland valleys and lingered before gaps in the mountains framing ever-changing views of the blue, foam-flecked sea sprinkled with vividly green mountainous islands; and in the early mornings the blue expanse would be dotted with the dark yellows and browns of the slow-sailing fishing-junks. Again and again I was reminded of a series of delicately tinted water colours by Chinese masters of a sort which I had once taken to be purely imaginative. My walks took me to isolated hermitages where I could rest from the heat in a cool room, chatting with recluses of either sex over cups of jasmine or lychee-scented tea. In the evenings, I would return hungry to the monastery to be regaled with the very special vegetarian food reserved for guests - crisp, golden bean curd fried in sesamum oil, very young and tender bean-sprouts, pickled bamboo-shoots, maidenhair-seaweed, lotus-seeds and more substantial vegetables such as heart of cabbage, bitter melon and that most delectable of all Chinese vegetables known as kai-tsai. I wondered if the plain-living monks were some of them sufficiently attached to the sensuous world to envy their fortunate guests.

 

Yet the more I steeped myself in the atmosphere of the sacred mountain, the less time I gave to the serious business of meditation. Only once did I pass an hour sitting solemnly erect in the fragrant gloom of the Meditation Hall, nor did I make the slightest use of the monastery library's collection of Zen treatises. I tried to assure myself that communion with nature is just another form of Zen, though well knowing that Zen demands a far more strenuous effort than that entailed in the contemplation of natural beauties and the enjoyment of warm sunshine on my skin. The positive distaste which all pious efforts had suddenly begun to inspire in me recalled the old blind woman's 'prophecy'. I felt that her words really had been prophetic, that somehow she had discovered in the recesses of my own mind symptoms of that reaction against the spiritual life which is likely to afflict a youth who for several months has been pushing himself further in the direction of piety than it is natural for him to go. In this context her 'Go up slowly, go up slowly' took on a profound meaning. The fact that she was a horrid old witch with none of the sweetness of the better sort of recluse in no way invalidated the possibility of her having special powers of mind-reading, especially as she was blind.

 

I have often thought that our moods attract experiences in keeping with them and, sure enough, no sooner had I frankly abandoned myself to a sort of Taoistic communion with Nature than I came upon a Taoist recluse who had been doing just that for the greater part of his life. I had already enquired of the Reverend Receiver of Guests if there were any Taoists of note in the neighbourhood, only to receive from that somewhat narrow prelate a characteristically sour answer.

 

'Why bother with those people ? As a Buddhist, you ought rather to avoid those who enjoy making a display of spectacular powers. Taoist hermits delight in all sorts of childish antics far removed from the exalted teachings of their ancient sages, Lao-Tzu and Chuang-Tzu. Haven't you seen their pictures ? Immortals disporting themselves with music, chess and wine among the purple mountains of Fairyland. Drunk with eternal youth, they fly upon the backs of cranes or ride their many-coloured steeds - unicorns, griffins and even dragons !' His lips met in a thin line of disapproval and I secretly rejoiced that sanctimonious churchmen are so rare in China.

 

'Ah,' I answered teasingly. 'How I should love to ride a unicorn ! Not as a substitute for Nirvana, you understand. Just by the way.'

 

Like most Chinese when people begin to argue, he rose to his feet with a swish of his long gown and murmured something about business to attend to elsewhere. After that, he allowed me his company more sparingly than before.

 

On a clean-washed morning, soon after one of the first showers of the rainy season that year, the breeze blew so coolly that I decided upon a long walk to a lonely part of the island where few hermits dwell. Presently I wandered off the main path to follow a seldom-used track leading through coarse grass and across a wide, boulder-strewn depression. It brought me round the shoulder of a hill to a smaller depression, thickly wooded. Yellow wild flowers like anemones grew among the grass. Clumps of bamboo fell to creaking and clacking with each gust of wind, until the breeze died and a heavy silence, punctuated by the tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk of grass-hidden insects, enhanced my feeling of having entered a forgotten land, a sort of Wellsian 'Country of the Blind’. The neglected track widened here and grew more clearly defined, as though this part of it were more frequented. No houses or people were in sight.

 

Suddenly I paused, startled by a swift pattering of feet from somewhere just behind me. As I looked round, a little girl shot past me, her two jet-black pigtails flying out behind her, her tiny feet pounding the earth like toy piston rods. The long sleeves of her apple-green pyjama-jacket flailing as she ran called to mind a butterfly skimming the grass in panic flight from some predatory bird. This was certainly no ordinary village girl, no daughter of the black-clad peasants of Lantao.

 

Following her with my eyes, I watched her branch sharply to the left and scramble up a narrow slope set in an otherwise perpendicular rock face. At astonishing speed, she flew up to the top and disappeared across a platform of rock some twenty or thirty feet above the path. The roof and walls of a grey-brick hermitage with an ornamental frieze below the eaves were now clearly visible from where I stood and, spurred by the thought of tea and a place to rest, I began to climb up after her. Dragging myself up the rocky slope proved even more difficult than it looked; roots and grasses trapped my legs and loose pebbles slipped from under me. Indeed, my mode of ascent was ludicrously different from hers. When I reached the top; there was no sign of the girl; instead a tall, dignified recluse in an ample robe of blue stood gazing at me. There war no doubt about his being a Taoist, for his long hair was gathered up into a bun and fastened with an ornamental wooden comb, protruding from a hole in the top of his antique headgear. Here, at last, was a rider of griffins and unicorns.

 

After a brief stare of surprise, the Taoist pulled himself together and greeted me with the amazing antique courtesy of his kind, bowing almost to the earth without losing so much as a mite of his graceful dignity. In returning this salutation, I felt ridiculous, for it was necessary to bend my legs outward from the knees in order to bring my body low enough, and my trousered legs revealed this movement in all its ugliness. His first words took the form of a courteous invitation to enter his ‘humble grass-hut', which consisted of a single room with a low partition to one side which doubtless concealed his bed. The sparse furniture was all of unpainted bamboo, almost elegant in its perfect simplicity, except for a small pearwood altar facing the door and set before a large, colourful scroll. This scroll, the only object in the room to bear witness to the Southern Chinese taste for flamboyance, depicted a bearded sage in snowy robes astride a brilliantly plumaged crane with scarlet beak, yellow throat and eyes like ruby beads. In the sage's right hand was a horse-tail fly-switch, symbol of his magical accomplishments.

 

'Pray be seated, Hsiensheng. Do not trouble about ceremony.'

 

A further exchange of sweeping bows took place before I ventured to seat myself on a bamboo stool just inside the door; and there I remained, firmly resisting all entreaties to take a more honourable place, that is to say one further towards the back of the room. I insisted that he was so far senior to myself that the usual respective positions of host and guests must remain thus reversed. At this point, the little girl appeared from what was probably a kitchen-shed adjacent to the house; but instead of the usual tea-things, she brought a squat black wine-jar, two thimble-sized wine-cups of white porcelain and a saucer of pickled meat-slices, each with a toothpick-like skewer. When all these things had been placed on the table, the child slipped out without a word and my host signed to me to draw my stool up to the table. The inevitable interchange of questions concerning the biographical details of host and guest followed, during which we kept rising to our feet, raising the ridiculous little 'thimbles' on high with both hands and quaffing the powerful grain-spirit. Then, as we became more relaxed, formality dropped away and the drinking continued without the necessity of rising from our chairs.

 

'This wine,' said the recluse, 'is something of which I may reasonably be proud. It is a twelve-year-old rice-spirit in which powdered tiger-bones have been steeped for more than half that time. It is a good substitute for the rare elixir of immortality; it fortifies the nerves to an incredible extent, lends tiger's courage, renders the childless prolific, stimulates youth-like spirits in the old, and causes children to attain more rapidly to maturity.'

 

Though it was too fierce for my taste, of course I was loud in its praises. Besides, I noticed that the fiery stuff slipped down more and more smoothly with every thimbleful. Only when our faces had grown scarlet and our speech a trifle slurred did the Taoist venture to enquire the reason for this 'gratifying visit'. I told him frankly that I had come longing for a cup of tea and a place to rest but that, on perceiving my host to be a Taoist, I had ventured to hope for a glimpse of certain hidden arts. Before he could reply, the child returned with two bowls of chicken noodle soup which she set before us. I watched her deft fastidious movements with pleasure. In her, the normal loveliness of Chinese children came near to perfection. No hair could be blacker against the scarlet ribbons, no skin be paler or softer or so entirely without blemish. Jade ear-rings set in gold and a ruby finger ring made it easy to guess that this was his daughter or a close relative. I decided to venture a question, thinking that she was too young for this to be resented; though, usually it is better to wait for information about a Chinese friend's womenfolk to be volunteered. As it was, I waited till she had left the room lest the question should be taken as an instance of a foreigner's bad taste.

 

'I noticed,' said the Taoist, 'that you were taken with her. Everybody is - always. Alas for when she is a little older ! Yes, you are right; she is my worthless daughter, conceived in folly during my return to the world which lasted for the space of two years. After her mother's death, I had to allow her to share my rustic seclusion. At least she is useful, and I teach her what I can.'

 

He added that she was twelve years old and that her name was True Pearl. Though he had not dismissed the subject with a curt 'She is my worthless daughter,' it was clear he wished to say no more. As we sipped some excellent tea which the girl brought after the noodles in cups with ancient silver filigree lids and saucers, we spoke of other things. The wine had destroyed the last vestiges of formality and suddenly I heard myself shouting:

 

'And now, Immortality, how about your arts ? Some magic, alchemy or what have you ? Conjure for me a lovely maid of seventeen, willow-browed, hibiscus-scented, moon-cheeked, jade-fleshed, almond- faced, peach-breasted; and able to sing and dance the Dance of the Rainbow-Coloured Sleeves, to play languorously on the flute and to toss off goblets of wine as gracefully as Poet Li Po's cupbearer. Or hand me a phial of immortality-elixir that I may share your immortality, or a crock of fresh transmuted gold !' I stopped, panting for breath and wondering whether to be ashamed, but the recluse burst out laughing.

 

'Alchemy I have never practised,' he shouted back. 'Gold ? Where would we spend it on this mountain ? No elixir takes effect in but a single dose, and I have twice fled the world to avoid jade-fleshed women.'

 

'Aha,' I cried. 'You do not deny having the elixir. Pray give me a taste and at least a bottle to add a score of years to my youth !'

 

He was now laughing so much that the bamboo chair creaked protestingly. 'Ha-ha-ha-ha! I'll tell you a secret. The elixir is not something to drink.'

 

‘Then what ?’The powdered tiger-bones were working powerfully within me and I half believed that he really possessed the secret of immortality. For answer, he asked me to guess his age. I stared at him intently, trying to bring the laughing face better into focus. The smooth, well-rounded cheeks might belong to a man in his early prime. On the other hand, the dark eyes were old with wisdom and experience, and there was a faint network of wrinkles at their corners. Indeed, his eyes would have suited a white-haired old man, except that they were so brilliant and needed no glasses.

 

‘Fifty of so,’ I explained, remembering that the Chinese prefer one to err on the side of extra years.

 

'Wrong,' he laughed. 'Guess again.’

 

‘Forty-five ? No ? Well, sixty, then.’ I laughed at the absurdity of the last figure, but suddenly he grew serious and, staring hard at me, answered:

 

'I shall be seventy this coming New Year Festival.’

 

‘Ha-ha-ha !’ I yelled. 'And I shall be a hundred by the next Moon Festival. But please be serious. I really wish to know, for I am convinced you breakfast off the elixir.'

 

He smiled resignedly. 'You do not believe me ? No matter. You are not the first. Just now you spoke of a flute.' Without waiting for comment, he shouted something through the window in the Chung-shan dialect and, in a little while, True Pearl responded by hastening into the room with an immensely long flute. It was of bamboo, lacquered in shining black and with a vertical inscription in flowing, green characters. Without further ado, the recluse put it to his lips.

 

First there came a gay, lilting tune which was all semi- and demi-semi-quavers. True Pearl, eyes alight with pleasure, seated herself modestly on a stool in the far corner of the room, even condescending to return my little smile of appreciation. It was clear that she adored her father and loved this ancient music as unrestrainedly as she loved him. For the music was exceedingly ancient, or at least I had never before heard anything remotely like it. The mood changed from gay to sad and then to a more solemn kind of joy. I listened entranced, remaining there for so long that the sunlight began to slant in at the door, reminding me that I must hasten back to the monastery or be out on the lonely mountain long after dark.

 

I tore myself away with regret. Just as I was leaving, I suddenly remembered that I had asked him nothing of his Taoist beliefs and, rather inadequately, blurted out:

 

'Before I go, Immortality, do please give me something to remember; something which, however short, will convey the spirit of your belief. . . . I mean, well . . . explain why you are here.'

 

He stared at me in undisguised surprise, just sufficiently affected by the wine to forget his antique decorum. Then, recovering himself, he answered:

 

'If you want a sermon, go to the Buddhist monks. They'll give you sermons enough. As for me, I never have anything to say. I'll give you, instead, Li Po's answer to the Emperor's messenger who had vainly tried to persuade him to return from rustic exile to enjoy renewed favour at court:

 

Oh why do I dwell among these jade mountains ?

A laugh is my answer. My heart is serene.

See the peach-petals float on the face of the waters !

Ah, here is a world where no mortals are seen !

 

True there are no peach-trees here, yet are not the hills and the sky and sea enough ?'

 

The poem was lovely, but what struck me even more powerfully was his 'As for me, I never have anything to say'. From the mouth of a wine-bibbing Taoist I had received a splendid lesson in Zen. Bodhidharma struck silent by the glorious vision of Reality, Li Po silently regarding the floating peach-petals, my Taoist friend in speechless enjoyment of sky and sea - was there any difference between them ? It seemed that everywhere I went I stumbled upon hints of the existence of that shining Reality of which it has been said: 'Those who know, do not speak; those who speak do not know !' Yet there was room in my music-sobered mind for a little doubt to creep in.

 

'Can wine and the spirit mate ?' I asked, hoping my new friend would not take it for impertinence.

 

'Immortals have been known to ride to Heaven on rivers of wine,' came the laughing reply. 'Wine, guests and scenery go together. With a full moon for company, it is better still. But, when wine becomes the master, inspiration flees the mind.' I felt well answered.

 

Our hurried farewells were full of warmth and I was pressed to return often. I reached the monastery long after dark and found the monks in some distress, fearing that something had happened to me, but some instinct warned me to say nothing of the Taoist. The others might have been interested enough, but the Receiver of Guests, upon whom much of my comfort depended, would have resented my failure to follow his advice by leaving Taoists well alone.

 

After that first meeting, I used to go over to see the Taoist almost every second or third day. I tried in vain to get him to discuss Taoist philosophy, in which he declared himself scarcely interested, for he was one of those men, I think, who feel rather than think discursively or discuss. If so, he was probably more of a Zen adept (though without being conscious of it) than any of the Buddhist monks with whom I stayed. Nor could I persuade him to perform any 'magic' for me, except on just one occasion. The Chinese have discovered that children of either sex who have never as yet been consciously troubled by sexual desire are often very good as 'mediums' for a particular kind of fortune-telling. One day, when we had spent an hour or two discussing such things, he delighted me by offering to persuade True Pearl to examine my hand - not to read the lines in the usual way, but to 'see pictures' in it. She was not too willing, having been on the whole rather cold towards me from the first, as if aware that even at her age she easily aroused over-sentimental feelings in the opposite-sex; but she adored her father far too much to refuse anything on which he had set his heart.

 

So it came about that, towards midday, we burnt incense to the sage bestriding the crane in the painting above the pearwood altar, bowed thrice and sat down on bamboo stools which had been drawn up close to the altar. True Pearl placed a cushion on the floor and, having prostrated herself to the picture with exquisitely graceful movements, knelt close to me peering into my palm. Her father was staring at her expectantly and I noticed that her face gradually lost its lively expression until she came to resemble somebody in a light trance. The silence continued so long that I grew impatient and over-excited, until at last the father seemed satisfied and called:

 

'Speak now.'

 

She obeyed without hesitation, her voice monotonous, expressionless. Her eyes stared unblinkingly into my hand, which I tried in vain to hold steady for her, as she had shown aversion to holding it in her own. Even before she began to speak, my arm had grown tired enough to make it impossible to keep my hand quite steady. Fortunately, this did not seem to disconcert her.

 

'I see a hilly place. On every hill a temple or Pagoda or a great statue. There is only one man. He is alone. He is running up a slope. No, now he is walking slowly. More slowly. He has stopped. Oh, now he walks down again. Head forward. Sad, I think. Another man. Or the same one, but on another slope. Running. Now walking. He turns. Oh, silly man ! Just like the first, walking down again, slow and sad. And now another. Papa, it is the same man. I don't want to see any more. I know that man will come down before he gets up. Always the same. Yes, he is turning already. Enough. Always the same. Nothing is done.'

 

The Taoist motioned to me to withdraw my hand. For a little while, the girl continued staring at where it had been, then abruptly she turned to look at her father. He nodded significantly and she quietly left the room.

 

''What does it mean ?' I asked eagerly.

 

For the first time in our brief acquaintance he was looking almost disconcerted, but he answered with a show of casualness: 'Nothing much, I think. Perhaps she was not in the mood today. Sometimes she sees marvelous things. I am afraid we have wasted your time. Let us go out and look at my new fish pond, which you haven't seen yet.' There was something in his expression and tone of voice which told me that further questions would be unwelcome, so I let the affair slip to the back of my mind while I went with him to look at a little rockery in the centre of a pond as yet unstocked with fish. On the crests of the rocks were miniature pagodas, hermitages and so on, made of earthenware and none of them more than an inch or two high. If there had been a few more of these tiny buildings, I might have supposed that True Pearl's 'vision' had been based on this rockery instead of something she had seen in my hand. I even had a suspicion that this was exactly what my friend wished me to conclude.

 

Shortly afterwards I bade him goodbye, without going back into the house. During the whole of the walk back to the monastery, I thought round and about this curious little experience. Had the child really seen the things she described, like a moving picture projected on to my hand ? Or had something she read there provided her with a shadowy suggestion of such a picture, which she could only make clear by clothing it in a concrete description ? Had she really been in a trance and would she have forgotten what she saw as soon as she withdrew from it ? I was very disappointed that the Taoist had, by his manner, indicated a refusal to discuss the experience. Why had he offered me such a demonstration if he was not prepared to follow it up with a proper explanation ? As to how to interpret what she had sensed or seen, if it was genuine, there was scarcely any doubt at all. It amounted to an unflattering description of my mode of life, in which the longing for spiritual advance was balanced by the slothfulness that constantly hindered my progress. If her 'vision' applied also to the future, then the old witch at 'The Garden of Mysterious Causes' had been right in warning me to go slowly, for it was obvious that by rushing forward at the beginning I was depriving myself of the energy to carry through to the end.

 

By the time I reached the monastery, I was determined to go back to the Taoist on the following day and beg him to give me a frank interpretation of the child's words. So, the next morning, I set off immediately after breakfast. I could not foresee that the opportunity to ask the questions trembling on my lips was already past, or that my coming meeting with the Taoist would be my last. For a very horrible experience awaited me.

 

P'an Tao-shih was walking in his garden when I rounded the shoulder of rock near his house, so he caught sight of me while I was still some distance off and stood waiting to receive me on the ledge above the path. But I had no sooner climbed the steep ascent and reached the ledge than an appalling thing happened. True Pearl, who must have been chasing a butterfly or some other insect, came running towards the edge of that rocky platform and, before either her father or I realized her danger, she had vanished from our sight. I heard myself gasp as, carried forward by the momentum of her own small body and twinkling legs, she disappeared with a thin shriek of terror. For a moment, the horror of if paralysed me, bringing with it a vivid memory of the sheer wall of rock some twenty or thirty feet high. A second shock followed almost at once. Without giving himself time for a moment's thought as to the consequences, P'an Tao-shih had leapt towards the edge and plunged after her. A swirl of sky-blue cloth, a pair of enormous sleeves outspread like wings, and he was gone. But no cry from him echoed the child's shriek.

 

Sweating and almost vomiting with apprehension, I raced forward and peered down upon a confused vision of motionless apple-green surmounted by wind-blown sky-blue. I ran along to the scalable projection and scrambled down in such haste that my jacket was ripped by thorns and even my face cut open by some sharp object or other. At last I reached the path and struck out through the undergrowth towards my friends. I was too frightened just then to think it odd that the Taoist was standing up unharmed, holding the little crumpled body in his arms. True Pearl's small face was drained of colour and the eyes tight closed. She seemed not to be breathing. Only the expression on her father's face showed that the worst was not yet certain.

 

'Her spirit sleeps,' he said quietly, 'but she will recover.'

 

'Thank God,' I cried, speaking instinctively in English and then, remembering to speak Chinese, added: 'Are no bones broken ?'

 

'I think not, but we must get her to the hospital if she can travel in a chair. Will you--'

 

'Of course. I shall run straight back to the monastery and ask them to send for a chair at once. With any luck there may be one up there, as several visitors arrived last night.'

 

While I was speaking, a lovely feeling of relief swept over me. It was then that I noticed something very odd indeed. The child had fallen on to a large patch of soggy ground moistened by the recent rains, so her clothes were soiled with a thick coating of mud; yet her father's gown showed no trace of mud, except for a few splashes near the hem and a ring of dirt where he had clasped the child to him.

 

'Incredible !' I whispered to myself. 'Why, he can't have landed on his feet !' Gazing at the rock-face before me, I reflected that a youthful athlete in full training could scarcely have made that flying descent and, by flexing his knees, landed on his feet. And yet here was a man who, however preposterous his claim to be sixty-nine, was at least well into middle age, and there was no doubt whatever that he had landed on his feet, and remained upright ! How was it possible ? Even at such a time, I could not refrain from asking him.

 

The Taoist neither dismissed my question as frivolous for so grave a moment, nor immediately understood its significance. In fact, he seemed astonished.

 

'But of course I landed upright. It had to be a single jump, as there is no foothold higher up. But why do you seem so surprised ?' Suddenly he smiled through his anxiety for the child and added: 'No, no. I forgot. You do not know much about Taoists. Briefly, then, practice in running and jumping and Balanced Harmony of movement form one of the main "ingredients" in what the vulgar suppose to be the famous elixir of youth. I told you it wasn't anything to drink.'

 

While still speaking, he began to carry the child gently towards the slope. Of course, I offered to help him, but he urged me to return quickly to the monastery for a chair. So, with a shouted 'Goodbye', I turned and ran along the path at a steady lope which brought me to the Abbot's quarters within less than an hour and a half, panting and blinded with sweat, but able to talk coherently about the need for a chair.

 

That evening I dined in the refectory with some new arrivals, to whom I related the story of the child's fall. My description of the Taoist's leap brought murmurs of admiration from the visitors, but none of the three or four monks present seemed much astonished. 'By the way,' I said, laying down my chopsticks and turning towards the monks,' 'how old is P'an Tao-shih ?' The question produced some discussion, but there was general agreement that he must be in the neighbourhood of seventy.

 

'B-but that's preposterous . . . excuse me. I mean that he looks so young with his black hair and ruddy cheeks. But for the wrinkles round his eyes, he might be well under fifty.'

 

Several of them smiled at this, too polite to contradict, but obviously of the same opinion as before. Presently, one of the younger monks went off to the bell-tower and returned with an elderly man whom they persuaded to relate the following details.

 

'P'an, or Milky Way as we call him, comes from the same village as myself in the Chungshan District. When I was about ten, I used to support my widowed mother by working for a Taoist from Yunnan called the Sage of the Jade Gourd. Milky Way and another villager, who took the Taoist name of Iron Staff, both became his disciples about that time. They were already full-grown youths, almost ten years my senior. Indeed, Iron Staff, whom I knew much better, was born in the Year of the Pig, which makes him eight years my senior; and I remember that he addressed Milky Way as Elder Brother. So there is no doubt that Milky Way is well on the way to seventy, if not more; but it is some time since we met. He avoids people from his own district, and with good reason.'

 

'Oh, why ? He seems to me a delightful person.'

 

'Perhaps he is so, but he has committed one great sin for which the villagers will not easily forgive him. As to his youthful appearance, that is not so strange. Taoists are mostly cheats, you know. The Sage of the Jade Stream, however, was a great wonder-worker and there is no doubt he taught Milky Way some of his secrets before he died, for Milky was always his favourite. Even among us monks there are cases of people arresting the onset of age. The Venerable Hsu Yun, for example, is over a hundred years old; yet he often walks ninety li [thirty miles] in a day with less fatigue than most of the young men who follow him.'

 

'That is wonderful, Reverence, but you were talking of Milky Way's great sin.'

 

'Yes, yes. You shall hear how it came about. In our village there was a girl who was famous throughout Chungshan for her beauty. She was engaged to the son of a wealthy landowner, the marriage having been arranged by their parents while she was yet in the womb. However, just a few days before their wedding-day, her father died. Milky Way, who was among the Taoists called in to perform the obsequies, exchanged but one glance with her and the two of them were lost. Regardless of the impiety, they eloped on the very day that the Seventh Day Rite was to be performed. Aiyah, it was shameless ! They say Milky Way became a layman and went to work in his uncle's medicine shop in Canton. Anyway, they disappeared under this cloud of unthinkable evil.'

 

'You mean, Reverence, that people were horrified at tire idea of a recluse going back to lay life ?'

 

'That ? Certainly not. That was nothing, especially for a Taoist, for no vow of celibacy is involved. No, have you forgotten that the miserable woman, only child as she was, had deserted her honoured father's coffin for the 'joys of clouds and rain' ? Aiyah, what a sin ! If Milky Way were to show his face in the district, they would crack his skull open, as he well knows.'

 

'I see. And then ?'

 

'And then she died.'

 

'Milky Way’s wife ? But why ? How ?'

 

'She died,' said the monk sternly, 'for having outraged Heaven and Earth by her impiety, but not at once. On the contrary, she enjoyed the best of health until after the birth of her daughter, whom you have seen - poor child. I have heard that the little girl is a real beauty like her mother. It was just after her birth that the screaming fits began.'

 

'Screaming fits ?'

 

'Just so, just so. They say her screams could be heard from end to end of the street, even frightening the nuns in the Convent of Harmonious Seasons, which was a good way off, I assure you. Of course, it was her father's ghost who caused these screams. 'What, I ask you, could the doctors do for that ? As she grew weaker, thinner, paler, fevers fed upon her body and madness consumed her mind. The doctor, some upstart from the University, spoke of consumption, as if everybody didn't know the truth a lot better than he did. And so did she ! Any number of people heard her babbling to the ghost, imploring mercy, screaming her useless repentance. To what end ?'

 

'And yet,' I asked curiously, 'you say, Reverence, that the ghost allowed her a whole year of excellent health. Why ?'

 

'I told you,' he answered in considerable astonishment, 'that she was expecting a baby, conceived perhaps even before the two of them fled together. Her father had been a good sort of man. Why should he wish to hurt his own grandchild ? Once the child was out of her belly, he could punish her unfilial conduct with a clear conscience.'

 

'Yet had she been so very wicked ? After all, she did not abandon her father until after his death.'

 

The elderly monk looked as if he were beginning to have serious doubts as to my sanity. 'After his death ? But that is just why the ghost and all her relatives could not forgive her. A man in his coffin has greater need of his children than a man in his bed, for the latter may still hope to procreate more. But a dead man! Did I not say he had no sons ? 'Well, it had been arranged that her husband should take her surname and enter her family, so that their children might continue the sacrifices to her ancestors. The husband had many brothers, so his father agreed to the adoption, especially as it was one of the conditions of the marriage contract. So now do you see that Milky Way and this girl, by their unspeakable conduct, robbed the spirits of her father and her male ancestors of all hope of nourishment in the spirit world ? What crime could be worse than that ?'

 

'Reverence, is that a Buddhist tenet ?'

 

'Why, no. Strictly speaking not. But they were not Buddhists and they believed in the necessity of maintaining the sacrifices. I sometimes wonder about such things myself and fear that they were right. That is why I have adopted the young novice you met with me in the bell-tower. He is to be my spiritual descendant and will sacrifice before my spirit tablet. It may be un-Buddhist, but is it not wiser to make sure of our welfare in the next world by adopting every means to prepare for it ?'

 

'I suppose, yes. But tell me what happened next.'

 

'When the woman was dead, Milky Way wept bitterly, they say. Then he cursed himself for foolishly returning to the world, carried off his child one night and disappeared into the mountains. The next time he was seen, he had become a Taoist again, but he still takes care to avoid Chungshan, I can tell you.'

 

The visitors to the monastery who had been listening eagerly to the story now got up to go to their rooms. This reminded the old monk that he had neglected his bell long enough, so he bade me good night and hastened back to his tower.

 

In a few days, news came from Hong Kong that P'an and his daughter had gone to the Tunghua Hospital, that she was suffering from severe concussion and that he had spread his sleeping mat next to her bed in the public ward - a common enough practice in Chinese hospitals. As far as I remember, the girl made a complete recovery after hovering between life and death for several weeks or months. I never saw them again, for I feared to intrude upon them in the hospital and I had left Hong Kong for other cities long before they came out again.

 

My preoccupation with the Taoist lasted some time. It was no doubt largely due to reflections on the calamity suffered by a small creature so undeserving of pain that I began to take life more seriously again. The beauty and tranquility of my surroundings could no longer hide the fact that pleasure is often but a painted screen concealing horrors which may at any time spring out and claim a victim. So my last week on the mountain was spent in meditation, during which I tried to spur myself forward to a more energetic search for the source of spiritual delights by recalling that the Wheel of Life often bears a striking resemblance to a mediaeval torture-wheel, but draped in gay hangings with the spikes and chains well hidden.

 

*

Edited May 4, 2014 by ThisLife

[cheya]

Wow, TL!

What a great piece!

Thank you!

[ThisLife]

*

Because it’s so easy to fall into comfortable and predictable habits, I thought I would post extracts from two stories that are completely unlike anything I’ve added here before. On one level, the stimulus to venture out into this new territory came from recently being engrossed for about two weeks in my third re-reading of one of these books. On a different level, it’s my suspicion that this appearance that most of us share,… that ‘spiritual’ and ‘secular’, our ‘religious’ life and our ‘mundane’ life, are somehow quite different entities,… is perhaps like our similarly shared appearance that the sun rises in the east, travels across the sky, and sets in the west. Who can deny the 'truth' of that appearance ? Yet, is it what is 'actually' happening ? Is me sitting here at my computer in my dressing gown somehow different a radically different action than me doing prostrations to the Buddha while chanting sacred, centuries-old mantras ?

 

At this point I feel I should say that I find putting this thread together has turned out to be quite a learning experience for me. It makes me examine the choices of the stories I put here, and what it is about them that makes me feel that they stand out, in some way, from the endless sea of printed word accessible to us all.

 

“But why these two books,… and why lump them together ?”, were questions that rattled around in my brain for several weeks before a satisfactory answer began to sift itself out.

 

In the end the tentative answer came that they were both written by authors who were themselves products of dysfunctional families. And so too, am I, (without going into unnecessary detail.)

 

I think there’s always an invisible strand of understanding between people who have been shaped during their formative years by some common experience. And from talking to many friends throughout my lifetime, it now no longer seems extraordinary to me just how many people grew up in what society has come to coin the newish term, ‘a dysfunctional family.’

 

But to cut too long a preamble short,…. The first two extracts are taken from “Swimming With my Father”, (by Tim Jeal) and the third one from an absolutely wonderful book called, “The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry”, (by Rachel Joyce).

 

Perhaps a bit of a warning for those who might well find them 'just too boring’. As praise-worthy as I found these two books, (and “Harold Fry” I would heartily recommend to almost anyone),… I should add the proviso that I think they would only really appeal to readers who are at the very least in their forties. My own life experiences tell me that until one has lived through a wider band of life’s spectrum of experiences, (in particular, marital relationships losing their sparkle, and the gradual aging and dying of our parents),… then, these two stories will probably find very little echo of understanding.

 

But for those who have touched on these experiences, the honesty and clear-sighted observation of these two authors, and the life-enhancing way they’ve gone through, then re-emerged with a much richer understanding of their own life,… I think makes these books priceless gems of literature.

 

As a final step into the unfamiliar, I’ll add two reviews of these books from Amazon’s readers that I’ve copied and pasted. They give an excellent general idea of the plots, plus, reviewers are simply authors of a different type of literature. The two I chose were, I thought, equally praise-worthy craftsmen of the written word.

 

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(1) Amazon Review of “Swimming With...”

 

“What an extraordinary memoir of the author's father and family life. Whilst it is apparent from the unusual life views held by the author's father that he was an undoubted eccentric, the book is generously laced with poignant/painful observations of life within a dysfunctional family unit which ultimately I found movingly life affirming. The book relates the pain, embarrassment, guilt, love and confusion of growing up with an unusual father through initially the eyes of a boy and finally from the perspective of a married family man. The writing is nostalgic rather than sentimental and moves between humour and despair without bearing judgement on the subject of the book.

Having read this book two years ago and being profoundly moved by it, I find that from time to time my mind reflects on events recorded in the book to this day. In the end, this finally prompted me to write an Amazon review in the hope that it might encourage a few more prospective readers to satisfy their curiosity and hopefully feel as rewarded as I was when I'd read this brilliant book.”

 

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(2) Amazon Review of “The Unlikely Pilgrimage…”

 

 

"One of the sweetest, most delicately-written stories I've read in a long time. Ostensibly it is about a man, just retired, who sets out to walk from Devon to Berwick on Tweed after receiving a letter from an old work colleague who is dying of cancer. Harold pens a quick reply and sets off to post it, but somehow the posting of this letter seems inadequate. He decides instead to walk the 500 odd miles to Berwick, taking us with him.

It is clear very early on that Harold's life has been a disappointment. An inability to connect with his son, (stemming from his own neglectful childhood) has driven a stake between him and his wife, Maureen. As a result what had once been a good marriage has deteriorated into a hopeless desert of non communication.

It is during his long walk that we discover all about Harold, and Maureen, and their son David, and all about the long held grievances and misunderstandings that have culminated in their isolation and loneliness. Sometimes these memories are extremely painful and I found myself moved beyond belief at this fictional tale.

One of the 2 star reviews on this page unbelievably states "nothing much happens". Nothing could be further from the truth. Everything happens as this endearing man struggles to make sense of his life and struggles to find hope and optimism after a lifetime of doors having been closed resolutely in his face. This is a story about all those things we leave unsaid, of all those regrets we fight daily to forget. Wonderful writing, clear recognizable characters, a story that won't leave you, and an in-depth-examination of all those weird and wonderful contradictions that make us what we are.

 

*

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(1) “Swimming With My Father “

 

Like most children, I once had immense faith in the protective powers of my parents. But while I never doubted that they would be around forever, I knew from the age of six that my father was fallible. On one of our many walks to Kensington Gardens via De Vere Gardens - where we would often drop in at the headquarters of the Order of the Cross - I saw in the window of a toyshop at the end of Launceston Place a little tin steamship with a red funnel. For a week or two my father held out against my pleas to be bought this beautiful ship.

 

'Some boy with a richer daddy will buy it soon,' I said

pressing my forehead against the glass.

 

But no richer daddy ever did pass by and wreck my dream, and in the end my histrionics paid off and my father allowed himself to be bullied into buying the red-funnelled steamer. I sang to myself and danced along, clutching a thrilling oblong box, bound for the Broad Walk and the Round Pond. In the past I had quite enjoyed watching other children's boats, but never had I known such happiness as I felt today approaching the water's edge.

 

My steamship had a metal rudder, which if set to one side at the correct angle would bring her back to land again just before the clockwork mechanism wound down completely.

At least a dozen successful trips had been made by the time my father announced that we would be late for supper unless we left Kensington Gardens at once.

 

'That's all for now, Tim.’

 

'Just one more trip,’ I begged, shoving the boat into the water anyway. In my haste, I failed to set the rudder at the proper angle and my little vessel headed straight out towards the centre of the pond.

 

'Get a stick!' cried my father, knowing the boat must be plucked from the water immediately. But there were only a few miserable twigs to be seen. And there was my father, still sitting on a bench taking off his shoes, while my ship was almost beyond the point where she could be grabbed by anyone paddling.

 

'Please get in the water now !’

 

Unfortunately for me, his Herbert Barker shoes were worth vastly more than the boat, and he did not intend to get them wet. It was agony for me to see him losing yet more time struggling to undo the laces of his second shoe.

 

'Hurry, daddy!'

 

But even as I spoke, I knew it was too late to wade in. I let out a wail which sent my poor father dashing to the edge, where he stood balancing awkwardly on his one shod foot, while his naked one waved about in the air - a picture of dithering indecision.

 

'Maybe the wind will blow it in again,’ he said, hopping back to the bench to put on his discarded shoe.

 

Somewhere out there, roughly in the middle of that vast pond, my steamer's propeller ceased to rotate.

 

There were always a number of ‘boy men’ at the pond, owners of magnificent yachts so large that they had to be wheeled to the water on trolleys. Because most of these boyish grown-ups stepped into the water to stop their boats hitting the pond's edge, they wore thigh-length boots. Although my father did his best to persuade them to take pity on us, all refused, saying the water in the middle would come over the top of their waders. But there was a rowing boat in a shed near the Orangery, and they said that for a fee of £2 a boatman would wheel this boat to the pond and rescue my helpless steamer.

 

My father raised a hand to his brow. £2 was a huge sum - far more than he had paid for my steamer.

 

'Do you think it's been blown in any closer ?' he asked, gazing hopefully into the distance.

 

'I think we should fetch that man.'

 

My father looked at his watch and, because we were already late for supper, reckoned he had little to lose by waiting till the breeze blew in my boat. That way he would not have to pay £2 or buy a replacement vessel. But, as the light began to fade, the wind dropped, and my boat became motionless on the glassy surface of the pond. By the time we went in search of the boatman, he had gone home.

 

So my father had achieved the worst possible outcome, for me at any rate. I returned home in tears, without my steamship, to be told that our supper was inedible, though I seem to remember eating it.

 

Lying in bed, I imagined how the fathers of several school friends would have behaved in the same crisis. All would either have got their shoes wet, or paid the £2. If only my father could turn himself into a bustling, young, car-owning, thick-haired, decisive father.

 

The following morning when I woke up and looked around, I wondered if I was still asleep. My steamship was propped at the end of my bed. I reached out and touched it. In the dining room my mother told me quite matter-of-factly that after I had gone to bed, my father had returned to the pond with a torch. By now he would have left for work, so I wouldn't be able thank him till the evening.

 

'What on earth's the matter with you ?' asked my mother, noticing how stricken I looked. 'You've got your boat back, haven't you ?'

 

*

 

 

(2) “Swimming With My Father”

 

 

Until the last two or three months of her life, my mother's mood had always brightened when I reminded her of some comical or bizarre story from the past. One that had always made her laugh immoderately concerned one of the rare occasions on which my father had felt impelled to take a taxi somewhere. On the afternoon in question, he had returned home from work to find himself so hopelessly late for a 'meet the teachers' session at Westminster that no alternative form of transport was open to him. My mother had set out for the school half-an-hour earlier and had left an angry note urging him to hurry, so he ran out into the Cromwell Road and in pouring rain managed to catch a cab - a remarkable achievement during a wet rush-hour.

 

At the very moment of his success, a middle-aged black man splashed towards him through the puddles and rapped on the glass, before passionately pleading to be allowed to take the taxi since he was late for a concert.

 

'Maybe we could share it?' suggested my father, very loath to surrender the cab, but already wavering as he sensed a need greater than his own. ''Where are you going?'

 

'The Royal Festival Hall,’ replied the man.

 

'Hop in,' said my father, thankfully. ''We're going in the same direction.'

 

They had barely reached Gloucester Road when my father’s fellow passenger opened the small leather case he had been clutching, and lifted from its velvet nest a glistening silver harmonica.

 

'I'm Sonny Boy Williamson,’ he declared, and because you saved my life back there, I’m gonna give you your own concert.'

 

So, all the way to Westminster, while the rain beat down on the roof of the cab, my father was treated to his own command performance by the world’s most famous blues harmonica player.

 

Given their many misunderstandings over the years, the fact that my father's death made such a profound impact on my mother is greatly to her credit and to his. Being of a completely different cast of mind, my mother never took much pleasure in his 'Great Thoughts Calendar’, when he tore off and read out the day's quotation at breakfast. But one morning I remember him declaiming: ‘Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, it is virtue itself,' and my mother surprised me by saying, 'That’s really rather good.’

 

Only once can I remember her being amused by a religious comment made by my father, but this one instance made her laugh many times, although the joke was on her too. In those dismal days when the number of her cats was ballooning into the mid-teens, my mother sometimes lost count of exactly how many animals she had. One afternoon, I was at home in north London, when the telephone rang.

 

'I'm really sorry to trouble you, but can you come over fairly soon? You know my little back and white cat, Smudge?'

 

'I don't remember him.'

 

'He's a her, actually. Well, she's been run over.'

 

'Where is she?'

 

'On the road over the bridge. Her body’s in the gutter. You know I hate asking favours, but will you please come now and bury poor Smudge in the garden. Joe can't manage, and I simply can't face it.'

 

Since my mother had sounded so wretched, I came and collected the cat, which was still in the gutter, and to my relief had not been squashed. Rigor mortis had set in and the cat's legs were stuck out straight, as if she was made of wood under her fur. I took her back to the house, dug a grave in the garden near the bay tree, and covered her. My mother watched tearfully as I patted down the earth. She seemed so distressed that I offered to stay on for a while, but she wouldn't let me. So with parental plaudits ringing in my ears, I drove home again, knowing the blessedness of virtue - or some transitory approximation.

 

Later that same afternoon, my father telephoned me. He had just looked out of the sitting room window and seen Smudge sitting in the flowerbed on top of her own grave.

 

'It's like the Resurrection,' he told me, joyfully, before ringing off.

 

Minutes later, my phone went again. My mother could hardly speak for laughter. Smudge had just walked into the kitchen and demanded her supper.

 

'All the time, she was somewhere down the road,’ gasped my mother. 'I'm afraid you've just buried . . .' more helpless laughter, 'a complete stranger.'

 

*

*

 

 

(3) “The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry”

 

 

Harold passed office workers, dog walkers, shoppers, children going to school, mothers and buggies, and hikers like himself, as well as several tourist parties. He met a tax inspector who was a Druid and had not worn a pair of shoes for ten years. He talked with a young woman on the trail of her real father, with a priest who confessed to tweeting during mass, as well as several people in training for a marathon, and an Italian man with a singing parrot. He spent an afternoon with a white witch from Glastonbury, and a homeless man who had drunk away his house, as well as four bikers looking for the M5, and a mother of six who confided she had no idea life could be so solitary. Harold walked with these strangers and listened. He judged no one, although as the days wore on, and time and places began to melt, he couldn’t remember if the tax inspector wore no shoes or had a parrot on his shoulder. It no longer mattered. He had learned that it was the smallness of people that filled him with wonder and tenderness, and the loneliness of that too. The world was made up of people putting one foot in front of the other; and a life might appear ordinary simply because the person living it had done so for a long time. Harold could no longer pass a stranger without acknowledging the truth that everyone was the same; and also unique; and that this was the dilemma of being human.

 

He walked so surely it was as if all his life he had been waiting to get up from his chair.

 

*

Edited May 13, 2014 by ThisLife

[ThisLife]

*

This age of skyrocketing technological advances has probably left most users like myself, feeling that everything just happens with the merest click of a button. These stories below, however, are done in a rather time-consuming way, (largely because my computer skills and savvy are very limited indeed). They are all taken directly from my own collection of books, and individual pages of each story are then put through the OCR, (Optical Character Reader) on our home scanner. Perhaps because ours is a pretty basic model the process of correcting the scanner’s inaccuracies then takes me many days to complete. So, I think quite carefully about what I add here.

 

This one I have chosen below is again from John Blofeld’s magical stories of his years spent in China in the 1930’s, before Communism changed that country forever and virtually eradicated its past.

 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, (since this is a Taoist Forum after all), the most seemingly appreciated stories here have been either accounts of spiritual seeking in Asia during the last century, or of daily living as experienced by Tibetan people during that same century, (again, before the tidal wave of Chinese Communism engulfed their country.) So, since giving the reader whatever he or she enjoys the most should be the major decider,… today I’ll bring out for you another of John Blofeld’s accounts of his extraordinary encounters with Taoist recluses in ‘Old China.’

 

I don’t know if this information will add anything worthwhile to anyone’s approach and subsequent experience reading of this story, but it certainly has not been a mere five-minute ‘copy and paste’ job involved in bringing it here. For me, the time and effort involved is a kind of ‘paying homage’ to a most extraordinary man whom I deeply respect. John Blofeld was consumed by an inner for spiritual truth and for experiencing the last living remnants of ancient Chinese culture. All of his books are now out of print, and some quite hard to come by. The extracted chapter below was taken from his book : “The Secret and Sublime : Taoist Mysteries and Magic”

 

 

*

 

*

 

 

Stumbling Upon Taoism:

 

(Some Taoist Recluses)

 

 

In my early twenties, I was fortunate enough to spend some years in Peking. In those days, arriving there from the West was like travelling back to another century. Everything was different - streets, houses, gardens, people, costumes and household objects, as well as language, food, and manners. Within the battlemented walls of that ancient city a large measure of China's traditional culture still survived; the old ways had not yet been shattered by modern innovations; the devastating Japanese occupation was still to come; as for communists, they scarcely, if ever, entered people’s thoughts. Innumerable rays of the past splendours of the imperial capital continued to shed their light.

 

With so much beauty lying about me, I was seldom tempted to venture beyond Peking's outer gateways, but now and then I would visit a lovely range of hills rising to the north-west of the city; and once I happened to pass a night there in a small Taoist temple that lay securely in a sheltered fold. It was autumn. The trees cascading down the hillside presented a gorgeous display of scarlet, crimson, copper, bronze and gold, interspersed with the dark-green foliage of ancient cedars noted for their silvery- white bark. The aged temple showed signs of neglect, but its mossy tiles and weathered grey-brick walls still resisted inclement weather after five whole centuries of existence. It was inhabited by a solitary recluse, a dignified figure clad in Taoist garb who looked about eighty. His lace was a network of wrinkles, his grey beard was flecked with white, but his movements had the grace and alertness one comes to expect of elderly Taoists, whose extraordinary exercises preserve health and youthful vigour for many decades. I admired his antique clothes - a long robe of bronze-coloured cloth with enormous flapping sleeves resembling the wings of butterflies, and a curious stiff hat from the centre of which protruded a topknot of grey hair secured by an elaborately carved peg, A pretty ten-year-old child, long-haired and wearing a sky-blue robe, appeared; it was impossible to determine whether it was a boy or a girl. This child served us with pale-green tea in thick earthenware bowls, and some saucers of pine kernels, melon seeds, and sweetmeats made of rice flour. My host, whose name was Ch'ing-t'an Hsien-jen, (the Immortal of the Limpid Pool) soon called for heated wine, which the child brought in a narrow porcelain jar placed in a bowl of warm water to maintain its temperature at a higher level than is common for Western-style wines. Yellowish-green in colour, the mild wine tasted delicately of herbs. At first our conversation followed the usual stilted lines, host and guest courteously requesting details about each other; but when he perceived I was eager to learn something of Taoism, the recluse became less formal. Between the first and second jars, he persuaded me to don a padded Taoist gown as a protection against the evening chill, and led me into the main courtyard where he showed me several curious objects, including a rockery composed of fantastically shaped stones brought by some long-departed emperor from close to the frontier of Burma. This cunningly fashioned landscape, complete with mountains, grottoes, pools and winding river, produced the illusion of a distant scene. Half-closing my eyes, I could imagine a great range of mountains with contours pleasingly grotesque.

 

'And this !' he said, pointing to a plinth on which stood an oblong basin of dull-coloured earthenware containing a landscape created on a truly minute scale ; clearly the work of a gifted artist, it was perfect in every detail. Idly I asked why the plinth was so tall and his answer plunged me into a world of fantasy.

 

'You see, it is not just an ornament, but the present dwelling of the Great Master Po Yun who was abbot here three hundred years ago. It would be disrespectful to place it closer to the ground.'

 

'You mean his spirit lives here ?'

 

'Certainly. His body, too. It is his whim to be tiny and he is generally invisible; but, as you see, the Immortal eats and drinks like humans, though very little and not often. He chose to assume the stature of a very small dragon-fly, so they say.’

 

I gazed at some of the tiny dishes and at three empty goblets no bigger than daisies, noting that one of the dishes contained finely chopped minced vegetables and mushrooms. Naturally I could not make myself believe in the existence of that minute, invisible being; but out of courtesy, bowed low before his ‘dwelling', thus winning from my host an approving smile. This fantasy was the one irrational feature of his otherwise admirably sane and lucid conversation. With Taoists one had rather to expect such anomalies - a sure taste for beauty and a capacity for profound mystical or philosophical thought mingled with the most puzzling ingredients. I was sure that the old gentleman was not joking but I have never known what he really meant. Shyness prevented me from pursuing the matter further. Leading me back indoors, he broached a second little jar of heated wine; its contents gave me the courage to ask him why he, too, bore the title, ‘Immortal’.

 

'My disciples are foolish,, he smiled. ‘They choose to think I shall live forever in this body. Such simple-minded people ! When the ancients spoke of the possible transmogrification of the human body, they were hinting in guarded terms at a much more subtle reality.'

 

'And yet, Your Immortality, I have heard that certain learned Taoists do believe they can transmogrify their mortal flesh into spirit able to fly through the air and endure for aeons.’

 

'No doubt, no doubt !’ he answered, by no means disconcerted. 'It would not do to contradict them. I spoke thoughtlessly.’

 

He fell silent and presently we turned to other matters.

 

'Tell me,’ I said, when for the tenth or eleventh time we had completed the antique ceremony of rising from our seats, carrying the tiny wine-cups to our lips with the fingertips of both hands, quaffing them solemnly, bowing low to low to each other and resuming our seats, 'what exactly do Taoist recluses do ?’

 

'Such a question !’ he roared in mock indignation. ‘Be very sure we do not.'

 

'Do not what ?’ For a moment I thought my understanding of his Chinese was at fault, but suddenly he laughed and said:

 

‘Wu-wei (non-action) is our cardinal principle. You must know that asking a Taoist what he does is like asking a Confucian how he sins !'

 

'I beg Your Immortality's pardon,’ I replied, joining in his laughter. 'Perhaps I should have asked what exactly it is that you do not ?'

 

'Much better my young friend. I like you. Chinese youths these days mostly treat us as if we were innkeepers with nothing better to occupy us than looking after travellers. I shall tell you a secret. We do as well as don't, but then, you see, it is a special Taoist kind of doing. Not to do at all would make a recluse as useless as a dead pine-tree. Do you know the meaning of the Sublime Tao ?'

 

I nodded. 'The Sublime Tao is what we Westerners call Ultimate Reality. At least I think so. Is it not the totality of being, the beginning and end of all existence? From the Tao we come; to the Tao we go - something like that?

 

 

‘Something like that,’ he repeated. ‘You may be - forgive me – a barbarian, but you do apprehend a fragment of the meaning, which is more than can be said for those -noisy undergraduates from Tsinghua who visit these hills at weekends. Permit me to expound wu-wei. It only appears to mean “action rooted in not-ness”. What it really means is “action rooted in non-being”. And what is non-being ? It is the Great Non-Being, a name for the Sublime Tao which is the formless matrix of a myriad forms. As I interpret it, wu-wei simply means “action rooted in the Tao”. What we shun is calculated activity, which can never be spontaneous, harmonious, free !'

 

His voice had taken on a liturgical solemnity and this lapse into a priestly role seemed to amuse him, for he smiled deprecatingly and went on more softly :

 

‘Activity in itself is not harmful, but it must be just an instinctive response to immediate needs. Calculation or self-interested forethought leads to demon-action. Only activity proceeding from a mind that resembles a calm, deep pool of stillness can be free from undesirable results. Therefore I rise two hours before dawn and sit in meditation until noon, cultivating perfect inner stillness. When no thought moves, I feel the pulsing of the Tao. Then I am one with the plants whose sap pulses through their leaves, one with the stars pulsing with the glowing energy of fire. Because my thoughts are stilled, the Tao flows through me, its movement unimpeded. My words and actions are a natural, uncalculated response to present circumstances. A tree growing in the shadow of a wall does not think “in order to live, I must bend my leaves towards the sunshine and drink the water with my roots". It does those things spontaneously. Its spontaneous activity proceeding from stillness fulfils its needs.'

 

'Does the Tao resemble Shang-Ti, the Supreme God of the Christians ?'

 

'Certainly not. The Tao does not declare : "Let this or that be so" or "I shall do thus and thus". Nor is it separate from spirits, people, animals, rocks or plants. It is not just the source of being, but the being of all beings, the fullness and the nothingness of all things. Acting spontaneously, exerting no will, it acts gloriously. By according with its action, I, who am eighty-three years old, may hope to live perhaps for another thirty years - another fifty even; but not many people attain that great age in their fleshly bodies. Flesh must die, for the Tao, though changeless, is ever changing and none of its myriad creations endures long.'

 

'Why then do Taoists think so much in terms of immortality?'

 

'By personal immortality is sometimes meant relative immortality, the ability to endure a few aeons in some bodily or spiritual form. What arc aeons in comparison with the everlasting Tao ? Only the Tao as Being-Non-Being is truly immortal; the entities it forms never cease to change. Their constituents must ultimately dissolve.'

 

'Could a Taoist achieve even relative immortality if he were living in Peking or some other great city ?'

 

'It would be more difficult. What is needed to prolong life even by a few decades is perfect serenity, the result of freedom from restriction. How is that possible in a city where man-made laws and man-made custom compel us to behave like demons ?'

 

It had grown late. Before leading me to my bedroom, he offered to give me some yogic teaching in the morning, breaking his meditation to explain its principles. Such an opportunity was too rare to be missed, even though it entailed rising hours before dawn and though autumn nights in those hills were, by my standards, bitterly cold.

 

When he came to call me, I was asleep on the hard wooden bed, wrapped in a cocoon of wadded quilts. Teeth chattering, I donned the robe he had lent me, throwing a quilt over it like a cloak. As for the Immortal, he seemed scarcely to notice the cold. Wearing nothing over his robe, which was but lightly padded, he led me to his own room, where the image of a youthful deity enthroned behind a simple altar gazed down on us. The painted eyes seemed fixed on mine with a disconcerting expression of faint surprise. Lighting incense and candles, my host signalled to me to join him in making three full prostrations. Then he stood chanting melodiously the words of a sacred text lying open on the altar. To mark the rhythm he tapped a mallet against a hollow block of wood identical with the wooden-fish drums used in Buddhist temples. When this short rite was finished, he ordered me to sit on his bed with a second quilt about my shoulders and made sure that I was comfortable. Taking up a position cross-legged on a cushion placed on the ground, he embarked on some curious breathing-exercises so that the ch'i (universal psychic vitality) would circulate freely through his body. At the beginning he made violent motions of the arms, his sleeves flapping like wings. The next stage consisted of a rotating movement made by the muscles of his abdomen; despite the cold, he lifted up his robe to reveal his stomach, which looked as if it might contain a writhing python. Presently he grew still and his breathing subsided until no sound was audible. Simultaneously all movements of his body ceased. To all appearances, I was alone with a corpse sitting upright on the floor. How long this endured, I do not know. Barely able to keep awake, I saw the room grow light, and presently noticed that his eyes, long shut, were open and fixed on me.

 

'So you see, my young friend, how it is done. The preliminary exercises were designed to induce circulation of the ch'i. Later, I grew calm and my breathing became imperceptible even to myself. Meanwhile, my consciousness was directed to my nostrils, to promote awareness of the rhythm of my breathing. Next I concentrated on the Mysterious Gate of the Square Inch, which lies midway between the eyes; there it normally stays unwaveringly until noon.'

 

'What do you feel at such times?'

 

'I have no feeling. Though bliss arises, it is not my bliss, but an attribute of the Tao shining through that ghost, my body.'

 

'And then?'

 

'What else ? Go now to have your breakfast. I shall re-enter absorption in the Tao and so remain until midday. If you are obliged to leave earlier, pray excuse my not seeing you off, for, when you come to think of it, I shall not be here.’

 

Dismissing me with a wave, he resumed his meditation' When the child came in to serve my breakfast of millet-porridge and pickled bean-curd, I was still doubtful whether it was a boy or a girl. In answer to my question, came a high-pitched giggle.

 

'A boy, of course. Can't you see ? Grandfather will laugh when I tell him.'

 

'So you are grandson to the Immortal of the Limpid Pool ! You must be proud.'

 

'Yes, yes. I'm the lucky one of the family. All my brothers and sisters go to school to learn nonsense, but Grandfather keeps me beside him to learn real things. I'm going to be an Immortal with a body of pure white weightless jade. I shall be able to fly like a bird - no, an airplane, all over the world.'

 

'Did your grandfather tell you that ?'

 

'Oh, no. Everyone says so, though. Grandfather just smiles when I ask him. He knows it's true, but he's afraid of my being proud, you know. Still, I'm a Taoist, so I'll never be proud. Pride's just silly. I shall love being able to fly, but then anyone could do the same if he had Grandfather to teach him - even a girl, I should think.'

 

'What do you know about the Tao ?' I asked with deep interest.

 

'The Tao ? Oh, the Tao is big, big, big.' He spread out his arms to show me. 'Everything you see or hear or touch has the Tao. It's everywhere - in me, in you. No, that's wrong. Grandfather says it is me and you. I can fly from here to the Dipper Star, but not get away from the Tao. Do you know what Grandfather said yesterday ?'

 

'What was that ?'

 

'Someone rode up here, you see, and his horse left its yellow droppings outside our gate. Grandfather was pleased when I asked if those droppings were the Tao. He called them beautiful. I said, "Grandfather, they stink," and he said, "Yes, Little Five, they stink of Tao." I was shocked, you know, but Grandfather says if I keep my nose clean, everything will smell as sweetly as flowers.'

 

I grinned.'Why do you laugh at me ?' he asked indignantly. 'If Grandfather says so, it must be true. Perhaps your nose needs cleaning, too.'

 

'I’m sure it does, Little Five. If your grandfather became my teacher, I'd learn how to make it clean once and for all.'

 

I left soon after breakfast, climbing further into the hills so as to reach a large Buddhist temple which was the real object of my journey. The sun-dappled ground was carpeted with leaves and the birds were chorusing Taoistic approval. Following the narrow pathway, I reflected on what I had learnt, already wondering whether certain aspects of Taoism could be woven into a non-Taoist's way of living, and very curious about the whole subject.

 

*

 

Visits to other Taoists followed; the more I came into contact with Taoist recluses, the more I found their beliefs to be an extraordinary mixture of lofty wisdom and what struck me then as laughable or even puerile fantasies. This is well illustrated by my meeting on Mount Nan Yeo with a certain Pien Tao-shih, and so I shall relate the story in some detail. Nan Yeo, most southerly of Taoism's Five Sacred Peaks, is in Hunan province. Monasteries and the cells of anchorites cling to its precipitous slopes in profusion; buildings on the upper slopes are, as often as not, veiled by mist and clouds or, as some would say, by the breath of dragons. While making for a celebrated temple about halfway to the summit, I lost my way; a thick white mist descended, causing me to take a wrong turn and follow an undulating path curving round to the cold north face of the mountain where habitations were sparse. Unlike the route I had diverged from, it led past no shrines or buildings, but was solitary and wild. Presently the mist deepened and I wondered uneasily whether I should find shelter for the night. Stories of bandits, wild beasts and demons came flooding into my mind, so that I was overjoyed to find that the path stopped short before a low grey wall. There was a moon-gate with panels of faded scarlet lacquer beneath an oblong board bearing in gold calligraphy the legend: ‘Yun Hai Tung (Grotto of the Sea of Clouds)'. I was just in time. One of the gate's two leaves stood slightly ajar, but already a Taoist greybeard was preparing to bolt it for the night.

 

'Ho there, Distinguished Immortal,' I panted. I was hoping to find shelter.'

 

He pushed open the gate, and, peering at me curiously through the wisps of cloud, hurried forward to make me welcome with elaborate courtesy. Raising and lowering his clasped hands effusively, he addressed me in archaic manner.

 

'Welcome, sir. Welcome to such poor comforts as our humble dwelling can offer. Night is upon us. If you will deign to accept frugal meals of coarse vegetables and cold spring water, we shall endeavour to make your visit bearable for as long as you care to honour us with your illustrious company.'

 

'No, no, this humble person dare not put you to such trouble,' I answered politely, but a chilly rain was falling and I hurried towards the ancient wooden gates. Stepping over a high sill, I entered a courtyard with rows of one-storey dwellings to left and right and a medium-sized shrine-hall opposite the gate. The greybeard shouted to make my presence known and an elderly man hurried out of a doorway to receive me. Dressed in a simple robe of blue cloth, he wore a most peculiar hat, tall and rectangular, which hid his topknot completely. Despite his years, he possessed a certain youthful grace of movement and eyes of extraordinary brilliance. To my relief, he did not keep me standing in the icy rain exchanging compliments, but seized my hand and pulled me under the broad eaves, calling for someone to attend to the 'distinguished guest'. Later I discovered he was the Abbot. Meanwhile a couple of young boys, also in Taoist garb, came running out to lead me to a guest room.

 

The hospitality of that hermitage, though less than luxurious, was heart-warming. My room, which adjoined the shrine-hall, was small, but it was furnished with heavy old wooden pieces, including a great bed boxed in on three sides and curtained on the fourth. I noticed a couple of wall-scrolls, one displaying fine calligraphy in the ancient seal-style, the other depicting an elderly sage apparently feeling quite at home, though seated on a cloud-girt rock.

 

On the table near my bed stood a porcelain vase containing a few branches of some sort of fruit-blossom. One of the boys brought me a copper hand-basin of pleasantly hot water. Bowing low, he urged me to wash quickly, hinting that delay would mean keeping everybody from their dinner.

 

As soon as I entered the refectory, eight or nine recluses converged upon the round table, insisting that I take the seat of honour facing the doorway; however, in view of my youth, etiquette required that I accept it only after making a great fuss, and so at last the Abbot seized my arm and literally forced me to sit where bidden. The food consisted of some five or six dishes; as they had certainly had no time to prepare anything special for an unexpected guest, it was clear that these recluses did themselves fairly well. Rice was not brought in until the close of the meal, as the serving lads kept refilling our wine cups from heated pewter containers, and it was a rule not to serve rice until all had finished drinking.

 

From what I remember, there was little difference in the appearance of my hosts, except as regards age. All wore the traditional Taoist habit, but there was a pleasing variety of colour, and the Abbot, who had changed his strange hat for another with a hole at the crown) now displayed a hair-peg of heavy white jade. We drank a fair amount of the darkly yellow wine, but it was so mild that I felt no effect beyond a comforting mellowness. The food consisted largely of vegetables, but there were slivers of meat which could not have been the case in a Buddhist monastery, and the pumpkin soup, served in the vegetable's thick green rind, contained the flesh and bones of a whole chicken. Following the usual custom, my hosts kept apologizing for what they described as the execrable food and each time it was up to me to find new ways of declaring that it was a veritable banquet.

 

It would have been bad manners to ask erudite questions at table; even so, the level of conversation revealed that these were not innkeeper-type recluses of a kind sometimes found in more accessible monasteries, but men well-versed in Taoist literary works. Indeed, my coming upon that little hermitage proved a great piece of luck. By the end of the meal I had decided to stay on for several days so as to learn more about the Tao – the Mysterious Womb of the Myriad Objects.

 

It turned out that the Abbot was a serene but rather taciturn man; however, when I sought him out the following morning, he kindly sent for a relatively young colleague called Pien Tao-shih, whom he ordered to remain entirely at my disposal for the duration of my stay. My new mentor's cell was furnished with little more than the barest necessities, but I shall never forget it. To relieve the room's austerity, he had laid out a few treasures on the top of the bookcase, including a piece of stone shaped like one of those fantastic mountains in Chinese landscape paintings; this rested on a finely carved blackwood stand. There was also a small bronze ox fashioned of creamy jade, but what held my eye was the strangest kind of picture I had ever seen. Mounted elaborately on a strip of fine grey silk and brocaded rollers, it consisted of a vertical panel of off-white paper, completely blank. Watching my expression, Pien Tao-shih said smiling :

 

'No, it is complete. The best of paintings hanging from one’s wall becomes so familiar that one doesn't notice it for days on end and its beauty seems to wane. On this picture, I imagine whatever scene I choose. Today it happens to be a pine-shrouded waterfall; tomorrow I think I shall decide on a tortoise or a crane. On your last day here, there will be a portrait of you riding away on - what is it to be, a horse or a camel ?'

 

'An elephant !' I cried.

 

'Magnificent ! A snow-white elephant with pink eyes and a pale-grey tail. You will be wearing a purple robe with an exceedingly wide black hat and carrying a paper parasol.'

 

‘Thank you. I am eager to receive some teaching about the Tao. Before we get down to it, I wonder if you would care to show me the sights of your distinguished hermitage ?'

 

He led me through the shrine-hall, an oblong building running the whole width of the courtyard. Grasses were sprouting from cracks between the .green tiles on its heavy upward-curving roof, which was supported on faded red pillars of wood. Three of the walls were of dark-grey brick: the fourth, which faced the courtyard, was composed of a long row of wooden doors, their upper halves latticed with translucent rice-paper. As only one of the doors stood open, the interior was gloomy. The three statues and their altars had a shabby look. In the centre was an effigy of Hsi Wang Mu (Royal Mother Residing in the Western Heaven), her gilded flesh shrouded in robes bedecked with seed-pearls. To her right was an effigy of Lu Tung-pin, a Taoist Immortal regarded as the hermitage's patron deity. His painted face, lightly bearded, looked calm and benign, unlike the fierce red face of Kwan-Ti, the deified warrior, enthroned on the left. Pien Tao-shih bowed perfunctorily to the effigy of Lu Tung-pin and we walked through a small back-door that led straight into the grotto.

 

Here, too, it was gloomy. The water in a pool at our feet looked almost black. On the farther side were some rock-formations with niches containing demonic figures of mud-filled plaster in various stages of decay. Altogether the effect was dreary; yet, for a reason that escaped me, the grotto's atmosphere inspired a notable feeling of serenity.

 

'Is that surprising ?' inquired Pien Tao-shih. 'This is our meditation cave and has been so for centuries. Who knows how many gifted sages - Immortals even - have given it something of their peace ?’

 

Feeling chilly, we soon returned to his cell and one of the boys brought in a brazier of glowing charcoal complete with tripod and kettle. Pien served tea from a very plain but quite attractive old teapot which was never washed, so that its porous interior, encrusted with the deposits of many thousand brewings, gave even quite ordinary tea-leaves an exquisite flavour. When we were settled comfortably with our tea-cups, he talked and talked with a kind of gentle enthusiasm. Of the many things we discussed on that occasion and during the rest of my stay, I particularly remember the story of his life, which had already embraced many aspects of Taoism. His father, though deeply immersed in Taoist learning, had been strictly a Tao-chia, an upholder of Lao-tzu’s philosophy, who avoided all commerce with invisible beings, since to approach gods would be presumptuous and to approach demons, dangerous. Young Pien, however, had become intoxicated by the contents of the library in his ancestral home, which contained hundreds of treatises on magic, alchemy, exorcism and similar pursuits. At the age of fourteen, he had run away from home and implored the first man he met wearing Taoist robes to accept him as a pupil-servant. Unfortunately his new master had turned out to be a married man living at home with two wives and a brood of children, whom he supported in luxury by operating a shrine dedicated to an Ever-Rewarding Sky Dragon situated in the heart of the city. There he practised magic, divination and the concoction of medicinal potions for his clientele.

 

'The man was a charlatan?'

 

Pien Tao-shih reflected. 'That could be so. In some ways undoubtedly, yet not altogether. He had made himself truly invulnerable to steel and poison. A charlatan could not do that. Also his charms and predictions worked when he really took pains with them for his wealthier clients. I disliked him only because he was unprincipled in perverting sacred knowledge for commercial gain.'

 

Saving up his wages, young Pien had one day slipped away and travelled up the Yangtze River to one of the great temples built close to its banks. For a while he had been content there, living in a community of over a hundred recluses, some of whom were monks whereas others were married and went home to their families for a few months each year. The monastery had departments where esoteric studies were conducted - a system of medicine combining herbal remedies with magic charms, alchemy, the evocation and casting out of demons; various kinds of divination including the use of spirit-possessed human oracles and a very small department of chess where a game with three hundred and sixty pieces was taught. Some of his colleagues specialized in attaining psychic powers, but Pien was not very informative about this.

 

'It sounds a wonderful place,' I remarked. 'What persuaded you to leave it ?’

 

'He looked surprised. 'You can see such things in most big monasteries, I suppose ; though, for an outsider, it might be different. Sincere followers of the Way are not fond of display and false ones soon cease to be impressive. I left because none of those things is important. Most of my colleagues were frittering away their time on the pursuit of trifles, don't you think ?'

 

One day luck had come his way. A visiting recluse from his present hermitage had described his community as a congenial little band dedicated to the uninterrupted practice of Taoist yoga and meditation aimed at achieving healthy and serene longevity that would culminate in nothing less than immortality. Living on an unfrequented part of the mountain, they were visited by enough travellers and pilgrims to contribute to their support without constituting a continual distraction.

 

'And so I followed him here,' Pien concluded. 'It is a perfect life, you see. Living without women is difficult at my age; living with them is even worse. So some of us have reached a compromise, going off to Hengyang city for two or three months a year, but otherwise living as recluses and pursuing worth-while goals.'

 

'Isn't it expensive? You say you don't have many visitors.'

 

'Oh, you are wrong. On the Festival of Hsi Wang Mu, pilgrims come in their hundreds. It is true their donations are small, but then most of us have private incomes. At first I did some clerical work for the Abbot in return for my board and lodging, but presently my father died and I inherited a portion of his property with which I bought a permanent place in the community that leaves me free of such duties.'

 

'Can you summarize the beliefs, the philosophy of this community ? I mean, what is the theoretical basis of your yogic practice ?'

 

'Naturally we revere the teachings of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, ordering our lives accordingly. As you know, Lao-tzu’s Tao Ti Ching is the foundation of all. It teaches us to submit ourselves to nature's promptings, once we have learnt to distinguish them instinctively from self-will. And from Chuang-tzu I have learnt how to deal with needs as they arise and leave all else alone, quietly according with the Tao, whose spotless, undifferentiated unity suffuses all. The key to inner serenity lies in three words: x"Make no distinctions."'

 

Pien Tao-shih tried his best to instruct me in the essentials of the higher Taoist philosophy, hoping to make it clear that the Tao, besides being the matrix, the plenum of the myriad phenomena, is also the Way in the sense of a path. Whether because my knowledge of Chinese was inadequate or my powers of perception too poor, I could scarcely follow him. While dealing with such subjects, he struck me as an unusually erudite scholar; yet when the conversation turned to his conception of immortality he seemed to descend to an altogether different plane. There were moments when I could barely hold back from affronting him with laughter !

 

'Immortality', he announced forthrightly, ‘has nothing in common with Buddhist notions of reincarnation, although many Taoists do confuse them. It means exactly what it says - no death, at least not for many aeons. I myself fully intend to transmogrify my flesh into a shining adamantine substance, weightless yet hard as jade. That is the only sure way; for, suppose we were - like so many recluses - to aim at creating a spirit-body to inhabit after death, imagine the frantic scurryings of the ghosts of those who died in the mistaken belief of having completed that difficult task in time ! How they would rush about, seeking in vain some vehicle to save their hun and p'o (higher and lower souls) from gradual dissolution into nothingness ! How pitiful ! Whereas, by" transmogrifying my present body, I shall leave no room for error.’

 

Literal belief in transmogrification? In the twentieth century? I could scarcely credit my ears. To doubt the loftiness of Pien Tao-shih's intelligence was no more possible than to impugn his sincerity and dedication; but surely a ten-year-old school-boy would have sense enough to ridicule the notion of transmuting flesh and blood into a physical substance able to exist for aeons ! Was it possible that poor Pien had such unswerving faith in some tattered old books and deluded teachers as to accept at its face- value this incredible interpretation of whatever the sages had really meant by immortality ? At any rate he continued :

 

'Our Abbot, the Immortal of the Onyx Cleft, and most of the recluses here seek spiritual immortality. They practise the inner alchemy in order to fashion spirit-bodies that will be perfected before they die; whereas my own dear teacher, the Dawn Cloud Immortal, is instructing two or three of us in the secret of secrets.' Eyes shining, voice betraying reverential awe, he bent forward and whispered: 'Within another three years or so, the transmutation of our flesh will be complete !'

 

Hastily I dropped my eyes; yet, though sensing my scorn, he met it not with anger but with pity.

 

'Oh, why can you not believe, you and the rest of them ? Why, why ? On what grounds ? We have sacred texts that set forth clearly the alchemy of fleshly transmutation, and everyone knows that Lu Tung-pin, the patron of this hermitage, achieved it. Then why not me - or you ?'

 

Fortunately Pien, like all true Taoists, was incapable of being disgruntled. Gazing at me fondly, he hurried on: 'Dear friend, stay longer on this mountain and free yourself from those worldly obscurations that have, if I may say so, dulled your mind. Mount Nan Yeo is a strange and holy place. The air is impregnated with the effulgence of legions of accomplished sages who have lived among its peaks and grottoes since time began. There are times when you can sense a palpable effulgence emanating from them. By rare good fortune, you may even meet one, for they occasionally appear to travellers in the guise of mortals. Surely you have noticed something of the mountain's atmosphere ? No streams in the world are so limpid as ours, no rocks so evocative of mystery. Standing alone of an evening on these sacred pathways, you can feel the pulsing of the Tao. From our teacher, we learn secrets once known to every living being, until man by his rude busying and bustling disturbed the natural harmony. Stay here and clear your perceptions of the ugly nonsense taught in schools and cities ! Learn to see things in perspective . You will admit that a tiny seed you can barely see when held in the palm of your hand has the potentiality of becoming a great tree; is transmutation of the flesh a greater marvel ? Free your mind of useless calculated thought and I shall petition our patron, the Immortal Lu Tung-pin, to instruct you in a dream.'

 

'Pien Tao-shih,' I answered gravely, 'I doubt if the Immortal will bother with a barbarian from the West, but if he does deign to visit me in a dream I shall of course be highly honoured.'

 

At this point, a serving-boy came in to call us to the midday meal. Afterwards, as we were strolling across the courtyard, I remarked: 'This morning, while speaking of many things, you mentioned alchemy. Do Taoist sages really practise the transmutation of base metal into gold ? Some say the true alchemy is something more subtle.'

 

His smile broadened. 'So even you strangers from the West know the gold-cinnabar pill is not a drug. Wonderful !'

 

Full of enthusiasm, he hurried me back to his cell, where he produced from among some piles of books kept in ivory-hasped boxes a ragged volume finely printed on flimsy paper. It bore the title Ts'an T'ung Ch'i, which I took to mean something like The Ts'an Agreement or perhaps The Agreement of Three. Below it, was printed the subscription True Original Text of the Taoist Immortal Wei Po-yang of the Han Dynasty, from which I calculated that the text had been in existence for close on two thousand years. Leafing through its pages, I found I could not make head or tail of its contents.

 

'What is it ?' I asked.

 

'It is written in a cryptic language. Call it a book of philosophy or of ideal polity and you will not be wrong. Call it a detailed manual of alchemy and you will not be wrong; everything is there for the mixing of the elements that produce the gold and cinnabar pill. But look at it another way and you will see that it is a case of White Tiger and Green Dragon.'

 

My blank look seemed to disappoint him, for he said: 'Perhaps I should not tell you. After all, you know less than I thought.'

 

Falling silent for a while, he presently announced repentantly: 'White Tiger is lead, but also semen. Green Dragon is cinnabar, but also the woman's sexual fluid.'

 

My comical astonishment restored his good humour. Metaphorically my hair was standing on end. Nothing I had read or heard so far had prepared me for such a disclosure. In Buddhist monasteries, though none of the monks would be likely to share the attitude of those Christian clergy who see sexual joy as positively sinful and allow it only grudgingly, even to married couples, it was always taken for granted that chastity is essential for those dedicated to rapid spiritual progress.

 

'The lead and the cinnabar', Pien continued, 'must be properly blended. Their product is not literally a pill, as you seem to know, but a kind of tiny foetus that grows within the male (or female) recluse's body. Rightly compounded, it has miraculous properties. How old would you say I am ?'

 

'Rising thirty ?'

 

'I am forty-five, and no one knows the age of my teacher whom you have seen and probably took for a man still in his early sixties.'

 

Pien Tao-shih did not seem capable of lying; so I was impressed.

 

'You see ? I have been on the Way a mere twenty years, and already -- ! The gold-cinnabar pill is the great preserver and rejuvenator of youth. Doubling man's life-span is the least of its properties. One who can find devout ladies to help him, especially if he embarks upon the task while young, can quite easily achieve transmogrification. You must know the old legend of the Royal Western Mother, how she attained the stature of a goddess at the cost of a thousand young men's lives ? Unwittingly she deprived them of their entire stock of vital energy. That, if true, was monstrous. But male recluses need not be deterred by compassion for their female partners, since a woman's supply of vital essence is inexhaustible.'

 

All I could gather from Pien's explanation was that the sexual yoga involved conducting sexual intercourse as often as possible within the limits of special times and seasons of the year, using a technique based on carefully numbered thrusting movements and rigid abstinence from orgasms. Without permitting his own yang-fluid to leave his body, the adept must cause orgasm after orgasm in his partner, so as to absorb her yin-fluid and, by uniting the yin and yang, create a sort of cell or embryo within himself ; and there was something which had to be drawn up to the top of the head.

 

It would have been wrong to think of Pien Tao-shih as a laughable character. He had mistaken the nature of the final goal, confusing mystical union or spiritual immortality with literal transmogrification; but I did not suppose his devout practice would necessarily prove fruitless. Of those Taoist recluses who, at a very advanced age, possessed extraordinary strength and vigour, there was no means of knowing what proportion of them, if any, had achieved this result by sexual alchemy rather than by other means.

 

Nor can Pien Tao-shih be reasonably accused of licentiousness. Nothing, I am certain, could have been further from his mind than mere physical satisfaction. He was joyful because he believed he had found a yoga that would surely lead to the transmogrification for which he longed.

 

Before leaving the hermitage, I plucked up courage to ask on which part of the mountain the recluses housed their female partners. Pien's eyes shone with laughter.

 

'No, no, there's nothing like that. The local peasants would think us devils and have the authorities imprison us all, don't you think ? I am married, you see. The Abbot sends me back into the world during certain months every year to enable me to practise night and day. My wife co-operates to the best of her ability, realizing that pious girls, happy to devote their lives to donating energy to recluses, are rare these days.

 

I did not really understand much of this, nor did I pursue the matter until some years later. Towards the end of my visit, there occurred what seemed to me a mildly extraordinary incident. The Immortal Lu Tung-pin appeared to me in a dream as Pien Tao-shih had promised. Unfortunately, though the dream was both vivid and long, by the time I saw Pien, I could recall no more than one brief fragment. This was of a handsome lightly bearded youth, easily recognizable from the statue in the shrine- hall, greeting me with a burst of laughter. His gaiety had proved infectious. I, too, had burst out laughing. Though unable to recall what language we conversed in, I was left with a clear recollection of a few seemingly inconsequential words.

 

'You have come,' he said.

 

'Yes, yes, but how did I get here ?'

 

'It doesn't matter, does it? Especially as you ought not to be here at all.'

 

Again our laughter exploded and then he added: ‘It’s simple, isn’t it ? Everything seen from here is simple ! My advice is to take the longer route.’

Before breakfast I ran to Pien Tao-shih in great excitement and asked for his interpretation, only to discover how little I remembered of the dream. Reproachfully, he strove to think out what the Immortal's advice had referred to, but in vain.

 

The most sensational moments of my visit resulted directly from that dream. Early in the morning on the day before I left, Pien, looking at once secretive and gay, suggested a walk. The rain and mist of the last few days had cleared and a watery sunshine pierced the white clouds surrounding the peak; but his choice of route quickly dispelled any lingering supposition that the weather had anything to do with our expedition. Instead of making for one of the interesting hermitages, shrines and temples on the other faces of the mountain, he kept to a steep path overgrown by weeds and nettles, that led straight upwards. Presently we emerged on a broad ledge sheltered by rocks which really did resemble what he described as living beings emerging from the uncreate, though personally I should have called those beings monsters. With some imagination, one could see the rocks slowly writhing in strange contortions from which the heads and limbs of these monsters were imperceptibly emerging. Turning a corner, we came upon a small hollow where stood a solitary pavilion, dilapidated yet seemingly inhabited, for smoke swirled from a lean-to adjoining the main structure.

 

'Dear friend,' announced Pien portentously, 'you are about to behold a youth already regarded as an Immortal – Hsuan-men Hsien-jen (Fairy of the Mysterious Portal).'

 

Among Taoists, the title rendered Fairy or Immortal may generally be taken to imply a degree of wishful thinking, and so I was quite unprepared to meet a truly extraordinary being. An elderly servant, running from the lean-to kitchen, ushered us into the pavilion which, though it comprised but one room, surprisingly contained no bed - just a heavy square table, a few chairs and many shelves of books. Facing the door was a shrine enthroning a benign deity whom I could not identify. As we entered, a youth rose gracefully from a meditation cushion before the shrine to bid us welcome with the antique courtesy to which I was growing accustomed. By the time I had finished returning his elaborate bows, half-ashamed of my untutored awkwardness. I was, as it were, caught up in a dream. The youth, whom I judged to be about eighteen, was perhaps the most beautiful human being I had ever encountered. To see him was to love him. I doubt if there was anything sensual in this strange attraction; I had no inclination to touch or embrace him, just a tangible joy in his presence and a longing to win his approbation. It was a feeling not far removed from worship. Smiling charmingly, he waved to us to be seated and, while the servant was preparing and serving a pot of very delicate green tea, we exchanged the inevitable Chinese preliminary courtesies - name, age, place of birth, profession, etc.; whereupon Pien Tao-shih, fearing that our host would be too modest to talk of his own achievements, intervened with a recital of some of the young man's austerities, which included never touching flesh or wine, never lying down but passing the nights seated upon his meditation cushion - during which he slept not more than two or three hours in an upright position - and undergoing rigorous physical yogas. Gradually the conversation drifted elsewhere, leaving me to enjoy the role of fascinated listener, and so I was able to study the youth at my leisure. His face was exceptionally pale and there were deep shadows under his eyes, but these marks of his austerities added to rather than detracted from his beauty. The more I gazed, the more I came under his spell and was dismayed by the prospect of having to part from him. Being in his company was more than a pleasure; it was a source of warmth and joy. Presently Pien observed :

 

'Here in the presence of the Fairy of the Mysterious Portal, does the goal of immortality seem so utterly unattainable ?'

 

The question was embarrassing because I did not grasp the connection and, in any case, had by no means changed my mind about the folly of seeking transmogrification. The youth sat regarding me with lively interest as though eager to hear my views. Though Pien had given him no explanation, I felt sure that this strange young man fully understood my state of mind.

 

'Frankly, yes, Pien Tao-shih. You cannot mean that the - the Fairy of the Mysterious Portal is very ancient or has already achieved fleshly transmutation !'

 

Pien looked disappointed, but the youth laughed delightedly. ‘No, no, dear friend from beyond the seas. I am exactly what I seem. Born in the Year of the Ox, I have still to reach my twentieth birthday. But I must not waste your time. You have come to consult the oracle.'

 

Completely at a loss, I stared at him blankly until Pien put in quickly: 'I have not told our visitor about your powers, but it happens he has need of them.' Glancing across at me he added; 'The Fairy of the Mysterious Portal is an infallible oracle. Unlike other oracles, his attainments are so high that our patron, Lu Tung-pin, communes with him directly. Since you were so remiss as to forget your dream, I decided to bring you here, although as a rule we avoid troubling the Fairy by allowing strangers to approach him. Were his powers generally known, he would be importuned by crowds night and day.'

 

'Please, please do not trouble,' I said anxiously. 'I would much rather not impose myself.'

 

The marvellously sweet smile expanded as the youth replied: 'You, a guest from a distant land, have been gracious in coming to this poor hut to afford me the pleasure of your company. Since I have no suitable gift to offer, I beg you to let me be of some service. What was the dream vouchsafed by the Immortal ?'

 

It was as though he had read Pien's mind. The recluse now related the remembered fragment of my dream. The youth's smile faded.

 

'Dear friend, we cannot presume to inform the Immortal that his message has been forgotten ! Such a thing could not happen once in a thousand years. It would be best for me to say you have come to express your gratitude for his condescension. It is possible his reply will enlighten us.'

 

So it was arranged. We took our leave immediately, promising to return after evening rice.

 

At the appointed time, Pien and I, donning thick robes, slipped out into the cold darkness, A gibbous moon riding high among the clouds gave but little light as we clambered up the rocky pathway; thorns tore at my legs and several times I slipped, sending a shower of earth and pebbles clattering down the slope. Coming to the place of monsters, I felt glad of Pien's company; in that faint light, the rocks seemed more than ever like fearsome creatures struggling to emerge from a cold grey mass. Instead of going to the pavilion, we climbed to the rim of a kind of rock-bowl situated some distance above it. In the centre lay a broad, flat stone surmounted by what I took to be an image of a deity depicted in an attitude of meditation; but it proved to be the Fairy of the Mysterious Portal himself, sitting motionless as the rock beneath him. Suddenly spots of fire appeared and something moved in the darkness beside me. Startled, I grasped Pien's arm, but it was only the old servant. Silently he pointed to a heavy bronze tripod placed in front of his master. Clearly we were expected to pay our respects. Respects to whom ? The Fairy of the Mysterious Portal ? Or the invisible being with whom he sought communion ? It was an eerie thought.

 

Following my friend up to the tripod, I watched him plant the incense-sticks in a mound of ash and bow to the earth three times; then he stood aside, motioning me to do the same. Thanks to my long robe, I imagined I would look reasonably dignified as I performed this ancient rite, but its skirts almost caused me to fall ignominiously on my face. Somehow I managed to do what was expected, struggling not to appear ridiculous. Afterwards, as I stood gazing at the motionless figure, a lovely serenity overwhelmed me. Not knowing what to expect, yet feeling it might well be moving, I did not regret having quitted the warmth and comparative comfort of the hermitage. When Pien took my hand and led me off behind some rocks, I felt bitterly disappointed and begged him to allow me watch whatever was going to happen; but, for some reason, my pleading inspired him to drag me still further away. Even so, we were still within earshot of the high, pure notes of a voice intoning an ancient hymn of impressive beauty. Never had I heard a voice or melody so sweet. Even the Fairy's servant) who must have been long accustomed to such lovely rites, shared our rapture. Peace and serenity shed their balm like moonlight flooding the landscape from a clear autumn sky. I had closed my eyes, the better to allow those exquisite sounds to float into my mind when, all of a sudden, I felt a pang of dread. A moment later the song was cut off amidst harsh, discordant laughter. A prolonged silence followed, during which my companions stood as though petrified. Presently a dialogue began, the youth's sweet voice alternating with the deep threatening tones of some intruder who seemed to be whipping himself into a fury. The marvellous peace had been swallowed up in an atmosphere murky with evil, and my being was invaded by an animal-like perception of danger.

 

'What is it ?' I whispered, wondering why we had not tried to run to the youth's assistance. Instead, Pien and the servant, shouting to me to keep close to them, began running and leaping down the mountain, away from the rock-bowl and straight towards the young man's lonely dwelling. Soon I was breathless and stumbling at every step, whereas my Taoist companions seemed able to pick their way effortlessly past even the most difficult obstacles. For one sickening moment, I thought some dangerous pursuer was close upon us; but it proved to be the youth himself, running swiftly and smoothly, as though his feet were but skimming the ground. Somehow I sensed that, though an interruption as dreadful as it was unexpected had most certainly occurred and had perhaps endangered the young man's life, he alone was untouched by panic; that, far from fleeing whatever evil threatened, he had joined us to give the feeling of comfort and protection which his presence immediately conferred.

 

On reaching his pavilion, I made to follow him inside, but Pien was still in a state of consternation and, scarcely, sparing time for some hurried farewells, he pulled me away. Once again, we were running and slithering downward as fast as he could make me go. It was not until we were safely through the hermitage gates that he regained reasonable composure and embarked on profuse apologies, begging me not to allow one dreadful incident to spoil the happy memories of my visit.

 

'You see, you - that is to say all of us - might have - but, forgive me, it is worse than imprudent to speak of such matters. Please, please put this evening out of mind before you leave tomorrow.'

 

Burning with curiosity, I begged in vain for an explanation; the harder I pressed him, the more his distress increased. Had I been able to prolong my stay, perhaps I should have received an answer in course of time. As it was, to this day I have no idea what caused our headlong flight. It would be easy to attribute it to the sudden appearance of a ruffian who posed a physical threat, but a conviction of our having been threatened by a much more terrible and impalpable evil remains vividly in my mind, though whole decades have passed since then. Besides, it is impossible to believe that fear of mere physical violence could have affected Pien as it did, to say nothing of the servant. Undoubtedly they would have rushed to aid the strange youth who inspired such love even in the hearts of newcomers. To my mind, the explanation is so fantastic as to invite ridicule; therefore I prefer to maintain a Taoistic silence.

 

The following morning, Pien Tao-shih kept a promise made on the day of my arrival. Taking me into his cell, he pointed to the blank wall-scroll and described in great detail the painting with which he had now mentally endowed it. My white elephant had its back to him, but its head was turned as though watching him out of the corner of its eye. Its tail hung down disconsolately. I, its rider, was enveloped in a purple robe that descended to my ankles. Only the back of my head was visible beneath the wide black hat he had decided I should wear. An open fan fluttered in my hand and on its leaves were inscribed the words: ‘Thousand-league distance, friendship illimitable.'

 

Pien Tao-shih looked sadly forlorn as, standing deferentially behind the senior recluses, he joined them in bidding me farewell. The rocky path leading down from the hermitage was now slippery and deeply puddled. Thinking fondly of the elephant, I wished it had been real.

 

*

Edited July 17, 2014 by ThisLife

[cheya]

This Life,

This was so beautiful!

 

Blessings on John Blofeld for leaving this for us,

and on you, for taking the time and trouble to bring it back before us now!