Tracking Bodhidharma (17 page)

But today the sun is out, the weather is clear, and the road seems to be quite civilized. Happily, I don't need to travel it at night, and my route today leaves this road and turns onto a safer two-lane highway for the leg of the journey that goes to Fengxin after only a half hour or so.

The scenery is interesting if you're not paralyzed in fear by dangerous traffic. I particularly like the water buffaloes that are common here. Their calm, enduring demeanor, whether while tethered to the plow or grazing in the shade of a bamboo grove, captures some ancient grace about China's countryside. Watching them lumber along the road, dutifully following the tethered lead of a nine-year-old child who weighs less than a tenth what the animal weighs, still amazes me.

Other country scenes of rural China sweep past—a closed and crumbling bamboo-products factory; people playing cards in front of a whitewashed cement house; a young couple on parked motorbikes under the shade of a tree, a worried look on her face as if she's breaking the news of pregnancy; a truck loaded with cages of live chickens broken down in the road; and other scenes of joy, pain, and pathos reveal themselves every few seconds. A sign next to a service station says IF YOU'RE SICK, DON'T GET IN THE CAR. IF THE CAR'S SICK, DON'T GET ON THE ROAD! Frequently, on the roadside, farmers dry unhusked rice on bamboo mats under the autumn sun. Soon they will purposefully put the rice on the road itself where passing vehicles will roll over it and husk the grain.

Before long we reach Fengxin. I remember the first time I passed through this small city about eleven years ago, when it was a small, run-down country town. Now there are rows and rows of new and attractive apartment buildings surrounding a town that has exploded in size. We arrive at the bus station and I go inside. A ticket taker tells me that a connecting bus that goes all the way to Baizhang Temple has already left, and another won't be leaving until after two hours from now. It's already one thirty, and such a wait would get me to Baizhang late in the day. I opt to take a bus for Shangfu Village, an intermediate stop, which leaves in a few minutes. I should be able to get a bus or other transport from there to the temple. I buy a ticket and am directed to the Shangfu bus.
Soon I'm traveling down the highway again, at the back of a crowded coach, next to a gentleman who's taking his grandchildren home from school. It turns out he's an off-duty bus driver who actually drives the route we're taking. We chat about how the roads have improved and make other light conversation until the bus arrives in Shangfu an hour later. At one point he tells me that it will be cold up on the mountain by Baizhang Temple. This is something I hadn't considered, and I realize I'm not carrying any heavy clothing.

Finally we roll into Shangfu, a small town that is the closest I ever got to Baizhang's place on my previous attempts to visit there. When I get off the bus, the off-duty bus driver also tells me that it's too late in the day to catch another bus west, so I should take a taxi. He guides me down the street to an intersection next to a river where a group of taxis and their drivers sit languidly waiting for fares. I negotiate the hour-or-so ride to Baizhang Temple for a hundred yuan, about $12. It's a twenty-five-mile ride to the top of Great Hero Mountain, where the temple is located. I turn to the off-duty bus driver and thank him for his help, asking “What's your name?”

“It's Xie” (pronounced
See-eh
), he says.

This is both a surname and the Chinese word for
thanks,
so I say, “Many thanks! Many thanks!” Back when people in China wanted big families, this play on words would have had more meaning.

It's obvious now that I will need to spend the night at or near Baizhang Temple. What I hadn't considered was that the night would be quite cold there, nestled as it is on the top of a mountain. I hadn't brought a jacket so, before leaving Shangfu with the taxi driver, I check out the nearby stores to see if any sold something that would protect me from the cold. I dash back and forth along the street for several minutes, but amazingly there's not a single adult's coat or sweater for sale in any of the stores I can see. I decide to chance it.

I jump in the taxi and again strike out to the west. The taxi driver turns out to be very personable, and soon we're chatting and laughing as we wind along the new road next to a stream that goes into the mountains. We talk about how much pressure young people have to endure these days in China. Everything is super competitive, and times are hard for everyone. Young men trying to support families are under particular stress. China is still a little traditional in this way. While there
is a surprising amount of equality between the sexes here compared to, say, Japan, the traditional role of men as breadwinners and women as child bearers still dominates the roles of young Chinese couples. Still a little more conservative than in the United States, I guess. We both agree that the drive to amass wealth is a common factor everywhere. He says, “No matter how much people make, they always want to make more.” He also poses a slightly strange question, asking me, “What about public security in the United States?”

I don't know exactly what he's driving at. Is he implying that there are problems with the public security apparatus in China and wondering if the United States is different or better? Or is he just asking about whether we feel secure going about our daily lives? I sort of let the question pass without addressing it head on.

Before long we've entered a forested area where the road climbs into the mountains alongside a stream. It's getting colder, and as we climb, the landscape undergoes a clear change from semitropical rice paddy to the beginnings of a coniferous forest. In less than an hour, we have traversed the mountain switchbacks and emerge into a valley on Great Hero Mountain. The main road turns from pavement to gravel, but there is a side road that is paved, leading right into the valley. We follow it, and after a couple of fast corners we find ourselves next to a very large parking lot that is under construction. One of the workers at work placing and mortaring large cobblestones is a woman, and it appears her young son is playing near her while she works. When I get out of the taxi the boy has an astonished look on his face, so I Say in Chinese, “
Wa!
A big-nosed foreigner scaring people!” The taxi driver laughs loudly as the boy appears ready to cry from the fright of seeing me. I shake the driver's hand and turn to look at Baizhang Temple.

LOOKING UP THE VALLEY past a big
paifang
, I realize that the parking lot is not the only new thing happening here. In the distance, past the front gate and across a very large plaza, I see that a very grand, very new Baizhang Temple is being constructed. In front of it are bridges and water features being built even as I watch. Beautiful new sweeping roofs also adorn what look like dormitories and other buildings.

In ancient times, there would have been three gates to pass before I could enter Baizhang Temple. These gates were called the Gate of Emptiness (
) the Gate of Signlessness (
) , and the Gate of Nonaction (
). The Chinese word for
three
(
san
) sounds very much like the word for
mountain
(
shan
). In many Chinese dialects, the words sound the same. For this reason, the two words intermingled, and “three gates” became synonymous with the phrase “mountain gate” (there is no difference between the singular and plural form in such Chinese words). The term
Mountain Gate
then became synonymous with
Zen monastery,

The first Zen gate, called “Emptiness,” is named after one of the most misunderstood and confusing terms used in the Buddhist religion. I've already explained my view that emptiness is not as important as “signlessness” and won't go into it much further. Our grammar school teachers taught us that things are made from basic building blocks called atoms (which are in turn made of quarks). Atoms form elements and molecules. Thus we learned very early that everything in the world is made of these building blocks, and things do not have some “essential” nature. This is as good an explanation of the idea of things being “empty” as anyone needs. Anyway, if you look at the human body under a microscope at ever smaller scales, you'll never find any essential
“mind.” There is no “mind” in the human body. The brain is just the antenna for the field of mind (there's probably not a “field” either, but that's the topic of some other book to be written by modern physicists or neurobiologists).

I've already explained the meaning of
signless,
so I'll only mention that the last gate, called “Nonaction,” in part symbolized the ultimate ideal of leaving the world, not doing any more action that causes harm. A real Zen adept must pass through all three gates both physically and mentally to attain the Zen way.

I make my way through assorted work crews laying mortar and cobblestones and find my way to the front of the temple complex. I slip through a walkway leading past the Heavenly Kings Hall to find the inner temple area alive with even more activity. Construction crews are hard at work everywhere. A big mechanized scoop is moving dirt near a newly constructed Buddha Hall. I cross an area of construction and ask a man standing to one side if there is a guesthouse at the temple. He says yes and points me to the back and right of the line of new buildings. I pick my way along on construction planks, hopping over open ditches.

Soon I reach the general area where the man was pointing and run into another man who approaches me and asks if I've come to stay the night. I answer in the affirmative, and he leads me out the side of the new construction toward a group of buildings that constitute the old temple. Here we pass another Heavenly Kings Hall and enter the rectangular area of Baizhang's original temple. The temple buildings ascend a slope leading up the side of the valley, with various terraces created for the buildings. The man leads me to the guest reception hall of the old temple. Aside the wide-open door is a big poster with four pictures of Mickey Mouse, all waving “Welcome!”

Late afternoon services are under way in the old temple's Buddha Hall and there's no one in the guest reception room. The man who brought me there suggests I wait until after services have finished and someone can come to register my presence. I agree to wait. When he leaves, I walk up the hill a few yards to view the layout of the place. At the rear of the rectangular enclosure of the temple grounds there is no Dharma Hall behind the Buddha Hall. But from the look of things, it appears there was space for one there in ancient times.

Baizhang's contribution to Bodhidharma's Zen gave the tradition staying power in China. He adhered to important principals that defined Bodhidharma's practice and then made key contributions to Zen that helped set it apart from other Buddhist sects. He wrote the Pure Rules for monastic life that formalized the independent farming and laboring existence that Zen monks followed. This gave Zen a certain independence from the emperor and ruling circles. Baizhang also defined the manual labor involved with this agricultural life as part of a Zen monk's spiritual practice. This emphasis on work and ordinary life as one's practice went hand in hand with Baizhang's conscious avoidance of philosophical speculation. He forcefully argued against allowing metaphysical interpretations of Zen and would not engage in theological debate.