A poem from my book The Man With No Eyelids (2021), which tells the story of Bodhidharma, the monk credited with founding Chan (Zen) Buddhism.
The story, as I’ve retold it, is about a foreigner who arrives in another country, hopeful and ready to spread his beliefs and bring enlightenment, only to find that the religion is flourishing there just fine without him. Thus begins Bodhidharma’s journey of self-doubt and reflection. All the preconceptions he has, all the assumptions about his purpose, are dashed, and he must find a new way of moving through the world. After many struggles and hardships that takes him across the Northern and Southern Dynasties, he retreats to a cave for nine years to meditate, and develops the doctrine of Chan, or Zen.
In this poem, “Arriving in Chienkang Again,” Bodhidharma has been living in China for 20 years now, traveling extensively within the Southern provinces, and returns to Chienkang (Jiankang) the capital of the Liang dynasty at the time. It’s only after 20 years that he’s started to feel comfortable within the culture, to see himself as a part of it and not just a tourist passing through. But doubts about his mission, his place as a proselytizer in a country already flooded with Buddhists, still trouble his mind.
Arriving in Chienkang Again
For two decades his red-robes bloomed
along the lakes of Southern Song
in pinks and whites, on green coracles.
His sleeves whipped mist between
limestone mountains. His hair waved
over flooded plains of Henan.
His thoughts cracked open over a bowl
of steaming Kunming noodles.
Until at last he knew the difference
between asking for boiled dumplings
and asking for a bed for the night.
And he knew the difference between
the rainy season in crowded Chengdu
and the season just over the mountainside.
And that beyond the rice farms of the Dai
was dangerous even with a proper guide,
but that if you ever do make your way there
you must see the Dragon Boat Race
on the Lancang. He learned that north of the Yangtze
barbarians were walking around with women
slung over their backs, and that nothing
was better than Spring Festival in Guilin,
by water, by mountains, most lovely Guilin.
All that he had become became him
in the present, this moment, plodding
under the gates of Chienkang, asking himself
Again? Was it not only last winter I was here?
Behold it again for the first time. Behold its
twice as many stupas. Easy to tell which
were built by the Bureau of the Clergy.
Same height. Same trim. The buddhas inside
all bear a striking resemblance to the emperor.
This way Buddhism grows. Everyone’s enlightened.
Everyone, that is, who wants to get out of taking
the Civil Service Exam. The parents don’t mind.
A gentleman and a monk aren’t all that different.
This way everyone’s saved. And if everyone’s
saved, what do they need you for? Why all
this moving around, this wandering?
It’s worse stopping after having traveled
so many li. The moment you stop the pain
comes shooting, stabbing up your legs.
I suppose the wandering comes from
my wanting to see if things were as I expected.
Always I think I’m fooling myself.
Always I think I can figure out how I’m doing it.
Always in the next village or by the next lake
I believe I’ll discover the truth at last, that
I’ve actually been a butterfly this whole time,
or that I finally believe in the salvation of all,
or that my gray hairs mean something else.
But music from down the street — a woman
with an erhu from her terrace is playing too
sweetly to miss, too soothing for the travel-worn.
I will go nearby and sit. Sometimes the strings
catch me in just the right mood and worry falls away.
I no longer have the sense I’m wandering at all.
The Man With No Eyelids is available in ebook and paperback from Amazon.