Life Half Over: Beside the Medicine Furnace and Sutra Scrolls, Dragging My Tail in the Mud

1

I remember back then, I loved the Qinhuai River and chanced to leave my hometown. Beyond Meigen and Ye, I roared and roamed several times; in the Village of Apricot Blossoms, I wandered to and fro. Wind died on the tall parasol trees, insects chirped in the small pavilion, and I even measured myself against the men of the day. Now it is all over! I have sloughed off my robes and cap like a cicada, and washed my feet in the Canglang waters.

Bored, I pour a cup of rosy wine and call a few new friends to get drunk with me. The shared hundred years pass so easily; why worry? The affairs of a thousand autumns are weighty, and hard to settle. The mists and hues of Jiangzuo, the elders of Huainan—writing them into my worn sheets always breaks my heart! From now on, beside the medicine furnace and the sutra scrolls, I shall myself bow to the King of Emptiness!

—Wu Jingzi, closing ci of The Scholars (Rulin Waishi)

The mists of Mount Lu, the tides of Zhe River—until seen, a thousand longings will not cease.

But when I came and saw, there was nothing at all: the mists of Mount Lu, the tides of Zhe River.

—Su Shi, "The Mists of Mount Lu, the Tides of Zhe River"

Thirty years ago, before I had investigated Chan, I saw mountains as mountains and waters as waters. Later, after I personally met teachers and gained an entry point, I saw mountains as not mountains and waters as not waters. Now that I have found a place of rest, I again see mountains as mountains and waters as waters. Great assembly—are these three views the same, or are they different? If any monk or layman can speak this out, I will let you personally meet this old monk.

—Wudeng Huiyuan, vol. 17, recorded sayings of Chan Master Qingyuan Weixin

Life is simple; once "thinking" enters, it becomes complicated. One must go through all the tossing and turning before returning to one's original mind. What Wu Jingzi, Su Shi, and Chan Master Qingyuan Weixin describe is the same state of mind.

Now I too have come to this state of mind.

I have a great-uncle who is a mad gambler, and not a wealthy man. Usually, after dinner, he would first go to the village gambling den, win a small pot, and come home overjoyed. But back home he would toss and turn unable to sleep, feeling he could win another hand at the table; so he would climb out from under the covers and go back to the gambling den, and only when the money was all lost would he come home and sleep soundly, no longer restless.

He never gambled big in his life, because the little he scraped from the fields could not support big gambling. Over a month ago I went back to my hometown and saw him in the village; he was still robust, an old man of nearly eighty with no trace of senility at all. Small gambling for amusement—the saying is no empty boast.

Gains and losses at the gambling table are, in truth, a condensed version of gains and losses in life. What you win, you must eventually lose back; what you get, you inevitably lose again. My great-uncle, long tempered by this, grew steadily calmer of mind, and so enjoys long life and little illness.

As a child, I saw adults tell my great-uncle's behavior as a joke, and I laughed along with them. Now I reflect: what essential difference is there between my own experiences of half a lifetime and my great-uncle's?

It is just losing and winning, winning and losing; after enough losing and winning, one realizes that all one's various thoughts are nothing but pile upon pile of vain imaginings. Because these imaginings were there, "I saw mountains as not mountains, waters as not waters." Now the imaginings are gone; mountains are still mountains, waters still waters.

2

Youth slips away quickly, and learning is hard to complete; not an inch of time should be taken lightly.

Before I felt the spring dream by the pond had faded, the parasol leaves on the steps already rang with autumn.

—Zhu Xi, "Admonition to Learning"

During the summer holiday I went back to my hometown and, passing my aunt and uncle's house, stopped to visit them. My uncle, over eighty, has Alzheimer's disease and no longer remembers anything, and cannot take care of himself.

Today is my birthday; after today I shall be forty. Eighty divided by two is forty. If I live to the age of my uncle, my life is already half over.

If life is like playing a match on the field, my life has entered the second half. The first half was played in a muddle; you could call it a wild scramble. After the halftime break I thought it over: the first half was played wretchedly; the second half must not be as chaotic as the first.

Now I have treated too many young patients with fatal disease, and I know full well that I too could suddenly, one day, contract an incurable illness. Then this second half could stop midway at any time. So I value the time of this second half more than the first.

I have only so many days left to live; in the days remaining I no longer want to squander my time. I choose things I can do and am willing to do, turning inward in heart, yet pressing my work forward.

I am not a nihilist. What I empty is distracting thoughts; what I cannot empty is this solid, real life.

3

Master Jianren studied Buddhism with Elder Monk Changming. One day, wanting to attend a Buddhist academy, Master Jianren asked Elder Monk Changming for instructions. The elder was holding a steamed bun and eating. So he chewed a few bites of a bun, handed the half-eaten bun to Master Jianren, and told him to eat it.

Master Jianren forced himself to eat it. Elder Monk Changming asked him: "Is it tasty?"

It took Master Jianren several months to finally understand what Elder Monk Changming had meant.

The meaning was no more than this: learning from others amounts to nothing more than picking up the surface. If you want to learn something real on your own, it is best not to parrot other people's words. A bun left over from someone else's chopsticks, drool and all, is of course not as tasty as a fresh, hot bun you steam yourself.

In the past I read all sorts of books. Once, in college, a teacher asked me: "Zhiyuan, you read so many books, and so much in them conflicts and contradicts itself; in the end, what have you got out of it?"

At the time I did not know how to answer. Now I roughly understand: the greatest gain of this indiscriminate reading is that it made me a person who loves to think, has few prejudices, and does not take books blindly on faith.

In The Consolations of Philosophy, Alain de Botton says that philosophers hold differing views; he also says that if philosophers of all ages were gathered together to discuss philosophical problems, it would surely be a scene of fierce dispute, and fisticuffs might even break out on the spot.

Not only philosophy; the same is true of medicine. Leaving aside the dispute between Chinese and Western medicine, even within Chinese medicine alone, or within Western medicine alone, there is endless argument.

The sectarian disputes within Chinese medicine have raged for over two thousand years and only grown fiercer; even today there are many dogmatic students of Chinese medicine who, clutching some school prejudice, ceaselessly attack TCM colleagues of other schools.

Western medicine is the same. I have recently been reading the book Missing Microbes, and found it fascinating. Let alone within Western medicine as a whole—even within the tiny field of microbiology in Western medicine, even within the small circle of research on the little Helicobacter pylori within microbiology, there is endless dispute and no settled view.

Lu You wrote: "The ancients spared no effort in learning; the vigor of youth only bears fruit in old age. What one gets from books is after all shallow; to truly know a thing, one must practice it oneself." To practice oneself is to put it into personal practice. Deng Xiaoping also said that practice is the sole criterion for testing truth.

Does personal practice reveal the truth? Can practice really test truth? Over these years of treating illness, I feel my medical skill is just like Duan Yu's Six Meridians Divine Sword in Jin Yong's Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils: sometimes it works, sometimes it does not.

Of course, we medical folks call this "the uncertainty of medicine." Which of my colleagues is not using "the uncertainty of medicine" to comfort his own repeatedly bruised heart?

Yet the fundamental purpose of medicine is to have sure, unfailing means to relieve the patient's suffering; this is also medicine's ultimate pursuit. One can only say that there is as yet no perfect medicine; extending this, probably no field of learning can yet be called perfect.

So even practice does not necessarily yield true knowledge.

Even so, practice remains important. It is just that even when practice verifies the partial correctness of some theory we hold, it seems wise to reserve some doubt about it. One must not blindly trust theory, nor blindly trust practice.

4

Over these years I have one after another negated many things: ideals, outlook on life, the meaning of life—all have been negated by my own self. After all that negating, little remains in my ideology.

But a little more or less does remain, such as one's attitude toward life and toward one's work; these have stayed quite concretely.

Around thirty I was more or less at a loss, not knowing where I should go in life. My older brother said to me: "Little brother, think about it—what is the one thing you would be willing to do for more than ten years? Find that thing, and then, whether or not it makes money, stick with it."

On final reflection, it was still practicing medicine! This was the lifelong wish of my heart. As a child, watching my mother, every time her stomach illness flared up, sit on the stone doorstep at the door and painfully vomit acid water, deep inside I longed more than anything to grow up to become skilled in medicine, with hands that bring the dying back to life, and cure my own mother.

Later, though my mother passed away, there came a new batch of patients who survive on this "sometimes-works, sometimes-doesn't" skill of mine; I could not stop even if I wanted to.

My present understanding of medicine has both risen to a new level and been de-bubbled.

I say it has risen to a new level because I have realized that the body, mind, and spirit are one, and have gradually gained the ability to adjust the body, mind, and spirit together in some patients. I say it has been de-bubbled because I have recognized the limitations of this "sometimes-works" medicine, and no longer dare be arrogant or harbor unrealistic delusions about it.

As for my attitude toward life, it can be roughly described like this: I see through the emptiness of things but do not act on emptiness; I hold an attitude of non-action, yet accomplish something. I strive, but am also psychologically prepared that all striving may come to nothing like carrying water in a bamboo basket. I make my peace with circumstances, yet I do not drift along passively.

These look contradictory, but they are unified at a higher level that encompasses these contradictions.

5

Zhuangzi was fishing on the Pu River. The King of Chu sent two high officials to go ahead to him, saying: "We wish to burden you with the affairs of our state!" Holding his rod, Zhuangzi did not even turn his head. He said: "I have heard that in Chu there is a sacred tortoise, dead for three thousand years. The king keeps it wrapped in silk and boxed, stored in his ancestral temple. Now, would this tortoise prefer to die and leave its bones to be honored, or to live and drag its tail in the mud?" The two officials said: "It would prefer to live and drag its tail in the mud." Zhuangzi said: "Begone! I will drag my tail in the mud."

—Zhuangzi, "Autumn Floods"

The gist of this story in Zhuangzi is that the King of Chu sent two envoys to invite Zhuangzi to be his prime minister. Zhuangzi was fishing, rod in hand, too lazy even to turn his head.

Zhuangzi said: "I have heard that in Chu there is a sacred tortoise, dead for three thousand years, which the king keeps enshrined in his ancestral temple. Tell me, gentlemen: would this sacred tortoise prefer to die and be worshipped as a deity, or to live, dragging its tail through the mud?" The two envoys said: "Of course it would prefer to live, dragging its tail through the mud." Zhuangzi then said: "Go home, gentlemen! I will just drag my tail through the mud."

Lately, several more people I know have fallen from high places. Among them, the most sensational fall was that of a certain great monk whom I once took refuge with, then burned my refuge certificate and walked away from.

Through a sex scandal that shocked the whole world, he proved to people that the teachings he endlessly mouthed—the six realms of rebirth and the karma of the three times—he himself did not believe in. He merely used these things he himself did not believe in as a front to swindle money from believers and seize their souls.

I have never believed in those sophistries of reincarnation and the karma of the three times either. I only believe that people have neither a next life nor a past life, and that karmic retribution occurs entirely within this life.

Humankind is foolish and greedy, deceives itself and others, and harms others for its own gain; the rules of society and the laws of nature will punish us.

I have to thank this "great, virtued monk" teacher of mine; through his own experience he showed me that, whatever career one pursues, one must never overreach. So I am willing to be honest, keep my head down and work hard, keep my tail between my legs, and live comfortably dragging my tail in the mud.

If others want to court publicity and scramble for fame and gain, that is their business; I will never again do such a foolish thing. Transgress social justice and sooner or later there will be retribution. Some self-deceivers are still preening themselves on having won both fame and fortune, but the roots of disaster are already buried deep. Good and evil are rewarded; it is not that there is no retribution, only that the time has not yet come.

A person must learn to live in "not enough." Lacking something is better than having everything perfect. Those who pursue absolute perfection are either mentally disturbed or physically ill.

Not-enough is the norm, perfection is delusion, and life is the Middle Way between not-enough and perfection. I am willing to hold to this Middle Way, not going to either extreme—dragging my tail in the mud.