I Love a Broad Margin to My Life - Maxine Hong Kingston [28]
lifting day into being chanting
Heart Sutra. No eye, no
ear, no nose, no tongue,
no body or mind, no form,
no sound, no smell, no taste,
no touch, no object of mind,
nor feelings, nor perceptions, nor
mental formations, nor consciousness.
All things are empty. Nothing
is born, nothing dies. No ill-
being, no cause of ill-being,
no end of ill-being. No
old age and death, no end
to old age and death. Wu wei.
Wu wei. Wu wei. No,
not heart Sutra. Older than Heart.
Tao. Wu wei. Wu wei.
No way. No thought. No
doing. No willing. Dwell no-
where. Rest in nothing. How did no
bang the universe to life? No answer.
Dok dok. Dok dok dok.
Next, go outdoors to play / work /
fight / dance / move chi kung fu.
Begin, stand, root into earth,
root like tree. Knees bent, seat
heavy, feel chi, imagine chi
rise up through the soles of your feet.
Lift arms, pull the chi from the earth
up to the sky. Circle the Sky. Stir
the Universe. The police in Tiananmen Square
watch for lift-arms—first move
of Falun Gong. They’re Falun Gong. Arrest them.
Commies haven’t lost belief in the old ways,
that chi kung can turn heaven and earth.
Revolution. Forest moves, leaves and insects,
weather, dirt, and water blow and flow.
The kung fu movers enter and emerge
in and out of the camouflage of trees.
A person stands out, tall against
the sky, like a shining angel, then shrinks
into a human bug flickering in the landscape.
The martial artists make animal moves, get
animal powers. Cup hands downward,
like paws, up on hind legs—rabbit,
bear, monkey. Arms and legs fly—
white crane, invented by woman.
Make 108 moves
108 times, keep
existence going, cause life and the good
to come into being. The 360
meridians of the world stream with the 12
meridians of my body. I swirl,
galaxies swirl. Rocks alive, mountains
alive. Soul through and through rocks,
mountains, ranges and ranges of mountains.
Bright Smile of Spontaneous Joy. Lift
the sides of your obstinate mouth, and start joy.
Joy courses through the body, all
the happy bodies. “Come come come,”
beckons a monk. “Lai, la. Lai, la.
Come see a monk in ecstasy.
We have a monk in ecstasy.”
The cell has no windows and no lights
but you can still see. A tall man
is standing tilted, curving to one side.
Round. His body seems to make a round.
Head back and uplifted. You can’t
see if his eyes are open or shut. So,
this is the way it looks from the outside.
A perfection. The witnesses make silent applause,
alleluia hands, jubilation hands.
“Lai, la. Lai, la.”
Now to the hillside with a willow stream
that’s a graveyard. This stone like a door
marks the grave of Fa Mook Lan,
Woman Warrior. Over Wittman’s shoulder,
I can read each word of her name.
“She killed herself,” says the monk.
“She hung herself.” No. No.
Why? I can’t believe it. Why?
“The emperor heard: The mighty general was a woman
in disguise, a brave and beautiful woman who’d gone
to war as a man. He sent for her to be a wife.
She refused, and he placed her under house arrest.
She killed herself at home.” No. No.
She can’t be the Fa Mook Lan who’s
the woman warrior I told about, we all
tell about. Many women named for her.
And the monk’s speech, a rare dialect issuing
from the habit of silence, hard to understand.
She couldn’t have killed herself. She couldn’t
have found life after war, life
as a woman, useless to live. How to go on
without her? Wittman has to find a way.
And I have to find my own way.
VIET NAM VILLAGE
Go on, alone. I have no
sense of direction. Left, right, east,
west arbitrary to my instincts. Mother
taught me, Memorize: Face the black rocking
chair, place your arms on its arms;
the scissors, the pencil you hold in this hand
this side of the rocking chair. I’ve been
lost, taking a walk with our toddling son
into nature. Sun upon and between the shaking
leaves forms images of rivers and houses and people
coming to the rescue. I shouted and screamed for rescue.
Our boy said, “We can eat the flies.”
I’ve been