Nightfall in a Mountain Village

Living in the mountains, I woke in the small hours. Opening the window, the night outside was cool as water, the sky filled with stars, and milky moonlight spread across the ground. In the mountains all was silent save for the chirping of autumn insects. It had been a long time since I had been so close to nature; my heart was full of delight.

Had I not seemed to hear a wolf's howl in the mountains during the day yesterday, I think at this moment I would gladly have put on my clothes, gone outside, climbed the mountain path to the summit, and waited for the sunrise.

This is a small mountain village with a history of only three generations. In the 1930s, when the Japanese army invaded China and burned, killed, and looted outside the mountains, nearby residents fled into these deep mountains to take refuge, building thatched huts and settling here; thus the natural village came into being.

It is said this place was originally uninhabited, and those who first settled here lived an extremely hard life. The ruins of an ancient temple were once found on the summit; when the old people arrived, the temple had already left only some remnant foundations and a few monks' graves, with no other trace of human habitation.

I do not know why people link this area with Bodhidharma; several villages here are named after him: Xidamo, Shangdamo, and Damo Village. But even the local elderly know nothing of why they are so named; only people today invent forced legends.

The village has also erected a statue of Bodhidharma, painted many murals related to him, and is even building a Bodhidharma meditation hall, all to develop tourism. After the government stopped coal mining, there was no other way out here, so they had to find some way to develop tourism.

A friend of mine who has become a monk, after a storm in the Buddhist community, also chose to go and cultivate quietly in just such a small mountain village. Perhaps he has already begun there to prepare to 'build a temple, settle monks, and guide beings to the Way.'

Years later, he too may become a local legend, like the monks who once cultivated quietly in these mountains. The life of ordinary people is just so unremarkable; after three or four generations, no one will know who we were.

I once felt sorry for that monk friend, but now I envy him the courage to 'leave family and cut off love, renounce desire and become a monk.' Although it is said that a TCM physician is half a monk, the other half must still, in real life, 'tremble with fear, as though treading on thin ice,' anxious over the safety of patients—not as free and unfettered as a monk.

I do not know where that monk friend is at this moment. He is conspicuously avoiding the pursuit of the world and has always refused to reveal his exact whereabouts. Perhaps the Buddhist storm he has just been through taught him that the Buddhist community is not the pure land he wanted either; 'one bowl for a thousand households' rice, a lone body wandering ten thousand li' is the most thorough way of leaving the world.

But tonight, at this dawn hour, I can at least feel the ease and peace in his heart as he opens his window and faces this cool, 'night-cool-as-water' world.