My Soul, Neither Clinging Nor Apart

Wandering for three thousand years, at last he leaves his cloud-shoes on the westernmost peak. The door is shut; the beast-ring knocker gives scattered sounds. Who returns on the front steps? Who returns begging, star by star? Then an ancient, masculine voice rises in the tinkle of the handbell.

Since the mountain gate is already returned to, go in a little later. Recite a few crossings, a few draughts, a few pecks. Turn back and contemplate again that world of six times seven (ah, bells and drums, the forty-two-syllable wonderful dharani). The evening service of the first day begins with incense; following the wooden fish, a lotus emerges from the tongue. My soul, neither clinging nor apart.

— Zheng Chouyu, "Buddhist Chant"

In rehabilitation medicine class last week, the teacher taught us gait analysis. Friday evening, returning from school to Beijing, I took the subway home from Beijing West Station and consciously observed the step rate, step speed, and gait the teacher had described.

Beijing is China's fastest-paced city. Years ago, American media reported that research by pedestrian-simulation software firm Legion showed Beijingers' walking speed led the whole of China, 10% faster than Hong Kong people's.

Beijing subway stations are the best place to watch Beijingers' walking speed; newcomers to Beijing may indeed find the hurried gait hard to adjust to. Live long enough in this fast-paced city, and without noticing you adapt to its pace.

I deliberately walked at my most natural pace while covertly comparing myself with those around me, and found that I was among the fastest in the Beijing subway. How fast? My pace was probably two or three times the subway average—one could fairly call it long strides, two steps as one, fleet-footed.

In a fast-paced city, walking speed is an external expression of a person's efficiency. Fast walkers give a bustling, dynamic impression; people assume such a person is crisp and never drags their feet. Beijing's crowded traffic and fast-paced life simply do not allow people to linger.

Whether a city's overly fast pace causes widespread health problems for its residents, I do not know, and I have not yet found medical statistics on it. But most people are by nature lazy and instinctively love a slower pace; that much should be beyond doubt.

Many beautiful things are hidden in a slow rhythm. A life that moves too fast truly lacks poetry and painting. Poetry and painting both require leisure to appreciate. The rhythm and artistic conception of poetry can hardly be reconciled with Beijingers' step rate and step frequency. However beautiful the murals in a subway station, if passengers rush by without a glance, how can they be appreciated? I feel lonely even on behalf of those gorgeous murals; without someone to take delight in them, what is the point of their existence?

When young I read Zheng Chouyu's "Buddhist Chant." In the second year of high school, my teacher gave me a copy of Three Poets of Taiwan, which included it. Then I pretended to be mature and thought I understood, but in fact it was just "writing new verses and forcing my sorrow."

"Buddhist Chant" is written specifically for middle-aged people who have seen the world. The Song-dynasty-like rhythm, and the ancient mood conjured by handbells, old temple bells, the mountain gate, beast-head door rings, and a wandering monk, can only be understood after one has weathered the world.

Even a monk wandering the four seas may not avoid hurrying, just as Beijingers cannot slow their steps. But the sights of three thousand years and the knocks of countless miles will teach a person much.

What is this thing? I cannot say; perhaps you cannot either. Xin Qiji described it as: "Wanting to speak, then wanting to speak, then saying instead: What a cool, fine autumn!" The monk in "Buddhist Chant" does not say it either; he chooses to "go in a little later," and outside the mountain gate, "turn back and contemplate again."

Mountains and rivers endure forever, plants and trees last a single autumn, a human life a hundred years; there are always moments when silence outdoes ten thousand words.

After a moment of "turning back and contemplating again" outside the mountain gate, I must move on. I am still a traveler, not one who has arrived. My three thousand years are not yet complete; I must keep wandering. I carry my soul now in my hand, now at my waist, now hung from a high peak, now hidden in the deep sea. I keep striding forward, ignoring the clouds above and the wind in my ears. Others' evening bell is my morning drum; my own evening drum has yet to sound in the distant future.