Mona-story (I can never say no to a bad pun)

“The  best  remedy  for  those  who  are  afraid,  lonely  or  unhappy  is  to  go  outside,  somewhere  where  they  can  be  quiet,  alone  with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one  feel  that  all  is  as  it  should  be  and  that  God  wishes  to  see  people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature.”

- Anne Frank

I figure that’s as good a way as any to begin, as I’ve been meaning to write all this down as soon as I came back to Nanjing on Wednesday. It’s taken a few days of contemplation to figure out how to say everything I want to say without sounding hyperbolic or borderline evangelical (ignoring what a contradiction an evangelical Buddhist would be).

Actually, scratch that. This is how I’d like to start off:That’s Guan Yin, the bodhisattva of compassion (her name means “Hearer of the Cries of the World”), in the center, flanked by her disciples Lung Nu on the left and Shan Tsai on the right, and easily over a hundred figures of people in the mountain behind them. She’s one of the most loved figures in Chinese Buddhism (and all over Asia, really) but only one of the interesting characters I came across at my stay at Guang Jue Monastery in Zaoxi. The rest, though, are a bit easier to interface with.

I arrived last Saturday afternoon, just a bit after lunch. My plans coincided with a 2-day mindfulness retreat. There were about 10 total visitors there for the weekend, representing the USA (all from California aside from myself), Australia, Italy and China. A Norweigan came along the day before I left. The majority left on Sunday, while a few stayed on for extra days, and one guy was almost one month into his 3-month long stay there; I am a bit envious, as the five days were nowhere near long enough.

The conditions were simple, as it is a poorer, rural monastery; “simple” is probably the best word to encompass everything about daily life on the monastery but the satisfaction derived from the austerity is inspiring. There is a pervasive feeling of peace there that I have never felt anywhere else.

The bucolic setting helps, I’m sure. Waking up every morning (around 5:00 AM, after going to sleep around 9– I know, a shock indeed from night-owl me) to breathe in the fresh air and see the mountains and trees all around was one of my favorite things. The nun in the center is 85 years old. Eighty-five! And still incredibly active with a cheeky grin that most women drop after their 20s.

There was one other woman there who really kept everything running. They called her Popo, and I’ve really got no idea how old she is; I’d guess in her 70s. She cooked every meal and in between I would see her walking around wearing rain boots and carrying some big shovel/knife thing, as all the food she cooked was also grown on the grounds. (The food was amazing; I ate bamboo! It was delicious, especially when it was spicy) She speaks only the local dialect so even the Mandarin speakers had trouble understanding her. That didn’t stop her from talking to all of us, though the only thing I ever understood was when she would berate us for only eating one bowl of rice each.

And the last of the incredible females who live at the Guang Jue Monastery, the second three-legged cat that I have encountered in my life. Like the others, she would talk to us constantly despite the language barrier, and the same color scheme as the monastery and the clothing of those who live there. She was like a perfect detail that I couldn’t have imagined before but was the perfect addition to the whole experience. Seeing her eating noodles in the early morning was adorable and she loved to be held (which is more than I can say for the tripod kitty I left in Philadelphia).Quite the model, too. I took so many, but this one’s my favorite.

Most of the monks were away while I was there, except for the Master and the Novice. They were both the most smiley, wonderful people, so kind and so considerate. I suppose that’s to be expected but after being around cynical cityfolk and jaded suburbanites my whole life it was a refreshing change. The Master has a beatific energy about him that no words could do justice; the kind of person whose presence is felt and brings sunshine into every room. A prolific talker, seeing him pull his cell phone out of his golden robes never failed to amuse me.

The Novice was incredible as well; he would sit and smoke cigarettes and laugh with us for hours on end, playing games of charades to figure out each other’s life stories. He was a farmer and at the age of 50 has joined the monastery; a local country boy, he is not terribly literate– admittedly I believe literacy must be harder to achieve with the tens of thousands of Chinese characters. His dedication, nay eagerness, in spite of the hindrances was beautiful. Every morning the first thing I heard was him walking across the balcony chanting “Namo Amitofo” (“Honor to the Amitabha Buddha”), before I would step out of bed myself to breath in the fresh mountain air, and let me tell you that if there is a more peaceful way to be woken up I haven’t heard of it.

I left on Wednesday, after seeing the first true-blue sky my whole time in China (it was rainy and cloudy all weekend). The car ride back was immensely sad, but I’d rather be sad to leave than to have never been. I know it sounds cliche, maybe because it is, but in my five days there I laughed, danced, cried, meditated and discovered so much. I hope to keep everything I learned with me for the rest of my life, and I know I will keep everyone I met there in my heart.