"The Moon Appears When the Water is Still"

Four days ago, I came back from a 10-day silent Vipassana course as taught by S.N. Goenka, feeling refreshed and empowered. But as “normal” sleeping schedule resumes, my old behavior pattern lurks near the surface, waiting to have a comeback any time. “Don’t go back to sleep.” It’s time to sit down and reflect with a quiet mind. 

Rocks Are Not Role Models for Enlightenment 

“Our job is not to eradicate thoughts

But to desist from reacting to them.

If the non-arising of thoughts is our goal

Then rocks are enlightened.” 

I sat on my assigned cushion along with over 100 other old and new students, male and female separate, in the dim meditation hall. I closed my eyes as Goenkaji’s chanting entered my ears. But once my eyes were shut, my mind transported me to a different world, longings and unsatisfied desires enticing me to get on a wild ride. The imaginary scenes played like a movie, on and on. Once in a while, if I was not wandering in my Lalaland, I caught myself dozing off. 

I also set my mind on cleaning out my stuff. Still too much stuff in my life after so many times of cleaning. What do I really need? Something to sleep on close to the floor (so that I feel more grounded), books, a desk and a chair, a lamp, clothes… So many clothes that I don’t wear but still keep, for what? A memory? An emotional attachment? A rare occasion? But the first thing I’ll do when I go back is to get rid of that queen size memory foam mattress. I began to re-arrange my room in my head, over and over. It became exhausting. Very exhausting. Out of a need to alleviate my mental exhaustion, I began to observe my breath, for real.

We practiced Anapana in the first three days, observing natural breath coming in and going out. It took me three days just to quiet my mind enough to observe the sensations in the area below the nostrils and above the upper lip. Am I still in Vipassana Pre-K? Was the first 10-day course I took two years ago mostly wasted on me? 

“Work diligently and ardently. Patiently and persistently. You are bound to be successful. You are bound to be successful.” Goenkaji repeated in the audio.

My Body Knows

”Sitting still gives us the opportunity

To witness the revealing of the truth.

The moon appears only when the water is still."

We practiced Vipassana meditation from the fourth day on. As I followed Goenkaji’s instruction to scan my entire body to observe sensations, I experienced how much truth my body holds! It is me who is oblivious to the truth, which is always there. Why can’t I feel any sensations on the back of my head? The blind areas on my body told me how ignorant I am in those areas and how dull my mind is. The severe unpleasant sensations revealed to me how much aversion I harbor towards my own life. How agitated I am sometimes, definitely more than I am willing to admit. 

“Just observe. Do not react to any sensations, no matter it’s pleasant or unpleasant. They all share the same characteristics, arising and passing away, arising and passing away. Don’t crave for any particular sensations. Just observe, with a quiet and equanimous mind.” 

Finally, I sat still. 

“Itching is not eternal.” I no longer bothered scratching any itch on my body while walking, eating, or lying down, if I caught myself before my hands reacted. Sensations on my body arose and passed away like everything else in the universe. 

“Anicca. Anicca. Anicca.” 

My body knows it, but my mind lags behind, unwilling or unable to accept it.  

The Seventh Day

“Do not throw away your suffering;

It is the fertile soil which grows the flowers of truth.

Pain is the teaching,

release is the graduation.”

It was the seventh day again, my emotional melt-down day during my first 10-day course two years ago. The tragic death of my Auntie Two, which had haunted me for more than 15 years, hit me the hardest than ever on the seventh day two years ago. This time, would it hit me again? In the early morning, as I walked towards the meditation hall under the stars, my heart felt a little heavy.

Before I turned six, Auntie Two, Mother’s younger sister, babysat me at my grandparents’. She didn’t learn to walk until she was twelve. Everyone called her “retarded Boyu” (Boyu was her name). My earliest memory of her was her squatting down to feed me, with a bowl of short noodles in one hand, a spoon in the other. I ran around the table, ignoring her. “If you don’t eat it, toads will come to eat it.” When I finally opened my mouth, she put the noodles in my mouth and smiled with her big yellow teeth. I had been her confidante since age four, maybe even before I could remember. “Your uncle hit me again with the cooking spade.” She showed me the bruises on her forearm. That uncle was her stuttered younger brother. 

When I turned six, my parents took me home and sent me to the best elementary school in town, and Auntie Two married a hunchbacked waste-picker, who was much older than her and scrambled for a living by scavenging through waste piles for things to sell. They lived in the single mud house on high ground half mile away from the other villagers, who all lived in similar farmhouses next to each other lining a small river. 

Whenever I visited my grandparents, my favorite thing to do was to go see Auntie Two. I would run on the narrow footpaths between green rice paddy fields all the way to her house, my heart filled with joy. In her small thatched home, she pressed her lower left belly. “He beats me every day. It hurts here,” she said. My mind froze. Then I thought to myself, when I grew up, I would protect Auntie Two. I would take her out of that place. I would wash her, clothe her, and make her delicious fried rice. I even thought about possible transportation. Would she be afraid to sit on the back of my bike? For many years, I was so obsessed with that thought that I couldn’t stop imagining the day when I took her away with me, until when I got the news. 

Auntie Two died of eating poisonous wild mushrooms, which she thought were delicacies for her malnourished body. The hunchback said he didn’t feel well that day, so he didn’t eat much. When Auntie Two died, I was in the last week of preparing for the National College Entrance Exam in the best boarding high school in town. When I heard the news, she had already been buried under the dirt, a no-name earth lump. I went to her house. The blood she threw up was still there, on her bed and on the floor. She cried “pain” for three days before she died, the hunchback said, wiping off his tears.

“From darkness to darkness.” That was Auntie Two’s life. Was her suffering really caused by what she did in her past life? How could I accept that such a gentle soul could have intentionally harmed anyone?  

On the seventh day two years ago, with my closed eyes, I saw myself sitting on Auntie Two’s bed, legs crossed, holding her right hand with my left hand, breathing in, breathing out. From the top of my head to the tip of her toes; from the tip of her toes to the top of my head. Auntie Two, please let me feel your pain! Please let me share your pain! Unbearable sadness gripped me. I mourned with silent tears for three days on the cushion. On the tenth day, after the silence was lifted, I didn't want to talk. I walked to my regular walking path in the woods, standing on a rock, facing the sun with eyes closed. I didn't want to lose my deep connection with Auntie Two and that purity in my heart.  

"I walked back to my grandparents' between the rice fields. As I was walking, I wondered if Auntie Two was still there watching me. I looked back. There she was, standing in front of her thatched home! I walked again and then turned again. She was still there, but looked smaller. I kept on walking and turning until she looked so tiny. I must look tiny to her too. I stopped. Auntie Two and I were standing there, tiny face to tiny face, as if we were the only two people living on that land, bathed in soft spring breeze and warm sunlight."

This time, it surprised me that sadness didn’t come. Instead I saw the hunchback and the big wrinkles on his forehead. How much suffering had he borne in this life? It was the first time I thought of him without anger. “More compassion for the aggressor. So ignorant, harming oneself and harming others,” Goenkaji said in one of the taped evening discourses. 

Keep opening my heart. It’s the only way out.

Three -Hour Sit Challenge

“By meditating

We are like the candle

Which says to the darkness

‘I beg to differ’”

To honor Auntie Two, I decided to sit three hours straight twice a day on the eighth and ninth day. Auntie Two endured three days of unbearable pain after having lived such a harsh life; she showed me the suffering of life in such a visceral way. Compared to what Auntie Two had gone through, sitting for three hours without moving should be much easier.  

I sat through the group sitting, the break, and then another sitting. In the beginning, I sat with ease. But then severe pain arose and persisted in my hips, thighs, knees, and lower back. This pain is unbearable! Why is it not going away! Does it forget to follow law of nature? Waves of agitation heated my body, making me more agitated. I felt the urge to move, but changing posture could only cause more mental pain—disappointment. I wanted to cry, but no tears came out to indulge me. How much pain did Auntie Two have to endure in her last three days? I would sit, no matter what. Pain, over which I have no control; my reaction, over which I do have control. Then slowly, peace came to my aid.  

I admit that I did change my posture a couple of times during those four long sits. I didn't experience a full-body freeflow, and didn't crave for it either.

On the tenth day after the noble silence was lifted, to my surprise, a fellow meditator said to me, “You were totally in a different land in the last two days. You sat like a Buddha!”  

The Ant Tribes

Many ant tribes reside in the Vipassana center. I often saw ants carry things twice or more of their sizes and march along or across the road as I walked to the dining-hall, to my room, to the meditation hall, or to my walking path. Their aliveness attracted me, or, maybe I should say, distracted me (during my 10-day course). 

One day, the crowded entrance to one of their communal homes caught my attention. Ants hurried in and out as if they were organizing an important community event. The route that the ant hunter-gatherers set out stretched long and far. I was curious to know how far they went, so I followed their path and walked off the dirt road a little and still couldn’t see where it ended. The route went under the dry leaves and twigs. Then one ant came on the scene, carrying a large white shell of some grain, crawling up and down over twigs and leaves. I looked up. Not only the destination was far from where I stood, given the size of an ant, but also it was a bumpy journey home without a flat and solid ground. Under the hot sun, that ant just kept on going without resting for a second. Up and down. Up and down. I was so rooting for that ant! I followed along and finally home was close! But there were no ants waiting by both sides of the entrance applauding for such admirable endeavor. It was just a common task carried out by an ordinary ant on a normal day. As that ant entered, I looked back. Other ants were carrying large shells or grains, approaching home one after another. 

Just like that. They do their best to contribute to the good of the whole without expecting congratulatory applause. They need nobody to cheer them on.      

   

I stood there for a long time. Slowly, I came to terms with this statement: I am worthy; yet, I am not special. 

How Ungrateful

In the morning of the last day, after the mettā meditation, the 10-day course was coming to an end. As the chanting of Goenkaji and Mataji was gradually diminishing, my tears finally came. But this time, it wasn’t sadness. It was the realization of how ungrateful I have been in my life.  

Born a peasant’s daughter in China, I grew up ashamed of my mother, who raised me and supported my education with every penny hard-earned. How ungrateful!

With everything I am gifted, I need nothing else to be happy. But I don’t respect my own gift, merits and power, feeling ashamed and inadequate. How ungrateful!

Each and every day, I am provided with a roof over my head, clothes on my body, meals nurturing my body, books broadening my mind, friendships nourishing my soul, and more. But I still want more. How ungrateful!

All fellow beings, I have been so disconnected, my heart not yet open wide to you. How ungrateful!

The Earth. The wind. The rivers. The mountains... I take you all for granted. How ungrateful! 

…

Tears continued to roll down my cheeks as others were putting away cushions.

Out of the meditation hall, I felt humbled in the early morning of a new day. 

Going Forward

“Mindfulness is easy on the cushion, difficult on the street.”

I don’t want to go back to sleep again. Areas I want to explore deeper are:
- Self-compassion without attachment to I, me, and mine.
- Compassion for other beings without guilt, shame, or stress.
- Facing today's wounded world without anger, frustration, and self-righteousness, but with gratitude, good intention and right effort.

From the top of my head to the tip of my toes; from the tip of my toes to the top of my head. From the top of your head to the tip of my toes; from the tip of my toes to the top of your head. From the top of Mount Everest to the tip of my toes; from the tip of my toes to the top of Mount Everest…

“Remain perfect equanimity. Perfect equanimity.”   

(All the dhamma poem quotes are from The Moon Appears When the Water is Still by Ian McCrorie, purchased at the Vipassana book store in North Fork CA)

More about the writer

Little Flame

"Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things." 

---Wild Geese by Mary Oliver  

Following my gege, older brother, and climbing over the tall berm that separated the busy road and the brown ocean of winter grass, I was ready for any mischievous acts. Partially shielded from the big wind by the berm, I hovered over to add another layer of protection as Gege struck a match. "Ssshhhkkk!" A little orange flame was born. It trembled vehemently before the big wind swept it away. My heart sank. Gege struck another match. Another little flame was born and swept away. Then another one. It was a game between the little flame and the big wind. Finally, a little flame took hold, with which Gege gleefully set fire to the grass. Instantly, the little flame came alive dancing with the wind, spreading its orange joy-- just for a moment, but long enough for seven-year-old me to jump and clap.

***

Life went unnoticeably fast while I was riding high with accepted achievements and low with missed goals, and feeling a perpetual shame of inadequacy. I ignored my heart that longed to dance, yet held deep in the ribcage. 
Across the Pacific Ocean from China, I landed my expected dream job at a firm that had offices in 114 countries. After three months, each morning, it became harder and harder to drag myself out of bed and put on a proper outfit, in which I could hardly stretch my arms to embrace life fully. In front of the mirror in my San Francisco apartment, I said to myself, "Cherish what I have." But heaviness hooked around my heart. "Disperse, you heaviness!" I cried, lying on the couch every evening after a long day work, lonely and powerless.

***

I stood on the busy road facing where the tall berm used to be in my hometown. It had been made flat by bulldozers for building more factories and the long gone winter grass had forever lost its chance for another spring. But I remembered the little flame that strived to dance with the wind, again and again. My heart called out from the deep cage, "Keep dancing, until you dance me out!"

More about the writer at: http://www.xiaojuanshu.net/
     

Little Green (Fiction)

Locust Tree Hutong had been a serene neighborhood in Beijing. Every morning, the residents woke up to birds chirping on the locust trees. Chess lovers played Chinese chess in the hutong--the narrow alley between the courtyard houses--with several bystanders observing. Five years ago, the neighborhood changed when a new business complex was erected one block outside Locust Tree Hutong. More suits and ties appeared in the neighborhood. Some families rented out rooms to the young professionals; some turned their courtyard houses into hotels; some set up food stands in the hutong to sell soy milk and buns in the morning. You would rarely see onlookers surrounding two chess players now. Everyone here was talking about one thing: Locust Tree Hutong would be demolished soon for the developing of new Beijing.

It was a summer morning. The red door of a courtyard house was pushed opened from the inside. Out walked an old man, carrying an empty birdcage. The neighbors called him Old Lin. He wore a straw hat, his back slightly hunched and his gray hair combed to the back. Age had carved two deep lines on his forehead. His white short sleeve shirt hung loose over his navy blue polyester pants. No wind. Cicadas shouted “too hot” up in the locust trees. Lin looked between the courtyard houses, behind the food stands, and up in the locust trees. Once in a while, he called loudly, “Little Green! Come home!” 

Little Green was a parrot, who had been Lin’s best companion after his wife, Yue, died ten years ago. When Lin first saw Little Green at the bird market, he was instantly stunned by her beauty. Her body was covered with bright green feathers. Her curved red beak matched the red circle around her eyes. In a high-pitched sweet voice, Little Green greeted Lin “Ni hao!” (Hello!). Right then right there, Lin made the biggest purchase decision in his life. He left and soon came back with 6,000 yuan, his three-month stipend, and took Little Green home. 

Little Green didn’t like cold weather, so Lin stayed home with her by the stove in winter. He taught Little Green many new words, such as: “hao” (good),” “bu hao” (not good), “leng” (cold), “e le” (hungry), and “zao shang hao” (good morning). 

In summer, for the past ten years, Lin carried Little Green in a birdcage to the bird market to meet his bird-loving friends every morning. On the way to the market, Little Green greeted every passerby “Zao shang hao!” The market was swamped with bird lovers. Some of them were first timers; some were experienced and willing to give a lecture to the newcomers at any minute. A variety of birds were chirping from birdcages hung on both sides of the alley. With his friends surrounding him, Lin let Little Green stand on his straw hat. Little Green greeted the crowd, “Dajia Hao!” (“Hello everyone!”) One time, Little Green suddenly shouted, “Da bizi! Da bizi!” (“Big nose! Big nose!”) Everyone turned and saw a European-looking man nearby. Everyone laughed, including that foreigner, who understood Chinese. A man in the crowd offered Lin 20,000 yuan for Little Green. Lin said, “Little Green is not for sale.”  

“Little Green! Come home!” Old Lin’s desperate voice echoed in the hutong. He couldn’t believe that Little Green was gone. Yesterday, Lin’s seven year old granddaughter, Xiao Yu, took Little Green to the courtyard to let her fly. She had read a story about a caged bird who longed to fly freely in the sky. Little Green had been let out before and had never flown away. But yesterday, the sudden loud noise from the construction site nearby scared her. She flew to the roof, and then after another loud noise, Little Green was nowhere to be seen. They all thought Little Green would return home before it was dark--but she didn’t. 
“Little Green! Come home!” Lin stopped where the hutong ended. The world outside the hutong made him dizzy. A wide bustling street was filled with cars, buses, electric scooters, tricycles, a few bicycles, and people. People were everywhere. The new subway station was on the left and the business complex was on the right. Two blocks down, a new shopping mall was under construction. Several cranes were busy transporting building materials to the scaffoldings. As the contemporary saying goes, the crane is China’s new “national bird.” Lin had an urge to cry.

In the past fifty years, nobody had ever seen Lin cry, not even when his parents died, nor when his wife died, nor when he received a notice informing him that he had to move to give room for new Beijing. He had a high tolerance towards life because he had survived the Japanese invasion, the Great Famine, and the Cultural Revolution. In the past two decades, the economic miracle in China had made him proud. It was the beginning of the new millennium, China could finally have a say in the world again, but then the world moved too fast for him to grasp and nobody cared what he thought or how he felt. 

Across the street, a group of young people were gathering in the new park with their expensive bicycles. They wore helmets and tight cycling outfits. When did riding bikes become fashionable? He remembered when he was a math teacher in a local middle school,  he rode his old black bicycle to school alongside Yue, who was an English teacher, every day. In the narrow street outside Locust Tree Hutong, they joined hundreds of other bike riders. The “ding-ling-ling” sound of the bike bells was a collective composition of the morning symphony. Lin looked at Yue; her face looked beautiful in the golden sunlight, and her short black hair danced with the breeze. They first met in the street when everyone in Beijing was out celebrating the surrender of the Japanese army in August 1945. He was 20. She was 19. That day, she wore a green Qipao that fit her elegantly. 

“Little Green! Come home!” Lin turned back and walked home. It was almost noon. In front of his house, he sighed and pushed the red door open. It was a typical Siheyuan--a traditional courtyard house--in Beijing. Three families shared this courtyard. Lin’s house faced the red door--the south, and the other two families faced each other. A tall locust tree stood by Lin’s living room window. 

Lin’s family had lived in Locust Tree Hutong since the Qing Dynasty when his grandfather arrived with his starving family escaping from the famine in the North. Lin himself was now a grandfather with six grandchildren. When the grandchildren visited him, they were always busy texting or playing video games, except Xiao Yu, who loved to read books.  

Lin put the birdcage on the black wood table and sat down. The image of him with his head down reflected on the sunglasses by the birdcage. Lin stared at the empty birdcage for a long time. It was a redwood-colored bamboo birdcage. The handle on the top was real redwood carved with a dragon on one side and a phoenix on the other. A week ago, in that birdcage, Little Green said “Happy birthday!” to Lin at his 75th birthday in front of his relatives and friends. Xiao Yu had taught her those words.  
Lin took off his straw hat. As his fingertips touched the claw marks that Little Green had left on the edge of the hat, tears rolled down his thin cheeks. He might never see Little Green again! The whole neighborhood would be demolished within a week. How could Little Green find her way home? He felt a pang in his heart as if it were being pinched from the inside.
Lin looked around and his eyes landed on Yue’s framed photo, which stood on the shrine table against the north wall. She was smiling. Lin walked towards her and began to sob like a child. All the tears he had held inside for the past fifty years were pouring out like water rushing through a broken dike.

The sun was gone now. The empty birdcage was waiting in the dark.

(First published in The Looking Glass Quarterly, p. 16, College of Marin, July 2014; republished in sPARKLE & bLINK, issue 64: april 2015). Reading @ Quiet Lightning in San Francisco.

Going Forward in Year 2015

I started writing my own life while working full-time in the financial district in San Francisco in 2009. It wasn't because I considered my life interesting enough to share. On the contrary, my life was too dull to endure because of the emptiness inside myself. I desperately struggled for a meaning, any meaning, even an obsession, in my life. I wanted to get to know me.

In 2009, I took my first solo performance class with David Ford at The Marsh San Francisco. When David asked me to describe with sensory details about my experience, I was flooded with strong emotions in front of the class. At that moment, I knew that something needed to come out of my chest, but I couldn't put my finger on it with my empty heart, stagnant mind, and numb senses. I began to take more classes and workshops in performing, storytelling, writing, acting, singing, dancing, improv, poetry, and meditating, just to open myself up, one layer at a time, like an onion. Tears accompanied me, as if I were peeling a real onion. Yet, this painfully slow process is rewarding.

I've spent my past five years trying to reconnect with that original life force in me. In 2015, I want to think big and start small; I want to stop bouncing awkwardly between arrogance and low self-esteem; I want to be a better person, loving more without disrespecting my own struggling ego. Besides learning to live my life one day at a time, I am determined to complete my one-person show, "Don't You Have Dignity, Mama?" (title until I change it). And year 2015 will be the year when I will be able to say, "Yes, I did it!"--the first milestone in my life.

More about the writer at: http://www.xiaojuanshu.net/

The Most Important Step Is To Start

Why do I write? I write to reveal my own truth,  to learn to trust myself, and to trust life, unconditionally. And to love, of course! But tears! As tears trickle down my cheeks, a pure sense of sweet sorrow arises. Life becomes validating again.

The most important step is to start, and then start again, and again.

More about the writer at: http://www.xiaojuanshu.net/