The Four Noble Truths

The truth of suffering

I can’t feel my right foot and my legs aren’t even in the lotus position. Cici, my husband’s former grad student, and Shifu, as we call the Buddhist master, have folded their lower bodies into tight packets — knees down, soles and palms turned heavenward. Shifu’s posture mirrors the row of buddhas and bodhisattvas, radiating stillness on the shelf behind her close-cropped head.

I am on a weeklong meditation retreat in Lijiang, China because I’m one year into my new expat life in Hong Kong, and I feel uprooted and uncentered. I could use some spiritual guidance. I wriggle my middle-aged, American toes, but they have defected. Hoping that Shifu and Cici are too deep in meditation to notice that I am not, I slowly extend my insensate leg. This shift makes my cupped palms uneven. If blessings come, they will be unbalanced.

Cici is half my age. To her, I am “teacher mother,” the wife of her professor and someone to be treated with respect. In China, our roles are inverted. I am dependent on her for translations and explanations. I am impatient with her deference, her uncertainties in English.

Clear my mind. Deep breath in. Begin again.

Shifu starts to chant. “Ommmm.” A deep and descending note. Then a series of words, a rhythmic pulse with a raised single note before the end, extended every third round. Chinese? Sanskrit? Cici chimes in on the second round. I concentrate on shaping the sounds before adding my voice. My syllables don’t match theirs, but our voices fuse and swell. My chest hums like a beehive. As we fall silent, I inch my right leg back against my left.

Shifu gazes at me, and I try not to fidget. I’m certain she can see my slumping spine, my erratic heart. When she speaks at last, Cici listens and nods.

My inability to progress beyond simple phrases and swear words is a constant embarrassment here at the retreat. I catch occasional words I can’t string together. I recognize Guan Yin. I hear Meiguoren and bu yong. Something about what Americans can’t do or understand.

My sixth chakra emits a puff of resentment before I can stopper the top of my head.

Over our vegetarian lunch, I badger Cici with questions about what Shifu said until she explains, “She says you have a connection to Guan Yin. You know that Buddhists believe in many levels of heaven, right?” I nod. From my self-study, I know about the cycles of rebirth and existence—at the top are gods and demi-gods, lower down are humans, then animals, hungry ghosts, and hells designed by sadists. I know Shifu has visions. Cici continues, “Shifu says that before this life you were on the ninth level. You told Guan Yin you wanted to move up, so she sent you back to earth one more time.”

Guan Yin, goddess of compassion, pouring mercy from her vessel.

I ask more questions on the way back to our rooms. “What else did Shifu say? What is the ninth level? How many levels are there?”

Cici’s answers are vague. Finally she says, “You can’t understand everything by thinking.” Her answer wags its finger at my eagerness. Sit, it says. Stay.

My husband sends me a note outlining the thirty-two Buddhist realms. The ninth is the realm of contented demi-gods, or devas. I envision languorous beings sipping elixirs and lounging in heaven while they wait for their final roll call on earth. I try to imagine myself among them, but contentedness brims in a cup beyond my reach.

The next day, over cups of smoky pu’er tea, Cici translates my questions. Why are the devas in limbo? Why do they want to come back? When Shifu answers, I hear Meiguoren and bu zhidao — Americans and don’t know. Shifu speaks for several minutes.

Cici says. “These things are hard for westerners to understand. You have to learn to listen with your heart and not your head.” My very un-Buddhist frustration puddles and streams between us. I want to learn about Chinese Buddhism, yet it seems I can only be American and wrong. I envy Kong Kong, Shifu’s Tibetan husky, who sprawls under the tearoom table. Every day he sleeps and eats and soaks. Zen dog, effortless.

Each evening Shifu, Cici, and I meditate for an hour. One night, Shifu says she smells a strong odor of medicine coming from me. Ducking my head in embarrassment, I admit I took painkillers for the altitude headache I’ve had since we arrived. Shifu nods and says that Meiguoren have too much dampness in their systems. Through Cici, she tells me not to drink cold water or eat ice cream. I smile to hide my disappointment. Instead of spiritual advice, I get diet precautions. Instead of a contented deva, I’m a smelly, damp American.

2. The truth of the cause of suffering

Shifu and Cici motion for me to make a tripod with my arms, then they lift my legs above my head until my feet rest against the plate glass wall of the rooftop studio. I imagine the glass breaking, my body stiff as a surfboard as I flip end over end above the tiled village roofs. Inverted, I picture the column of my neck as a stack of beads compressed under the weight of my body, in danger of crumbling into chalk dust. I imagine I hear cracks.

After Shifu and Cici lower the deadweight of my legs and torso to the mat, I repeat, “Osteoporosis.” They look at each other with their eyebrows raised. Neither of them knows this English word.

In the ensuing days, I hide in my room when it is time for yoga. Through the gap in the curtains, I peer across the courtyard where Kong Kong snoozes by the koi pond. Above him in the glassed-in studio, Shifu, Cici, and the young apprentice stand on their heads. They look like three sets of praying hands. I admire their youth and litheness. As a small child in America, I thought everyone in China was upside down. Now I am wrong way up, too fragile to reverse my view.

While we are walking, Cici tells me that during evening meditation two days ago, Shifu saw my skeleton climb out of my body and ask her for help. “You know the prayer beads Shifu made yesterday and was carrying when we went to the old town?” I remember her fingers slipping over speckled beads as we strolled through the village. “That was to heal your bones.” I envision a skeleton that can speak Chinese, my body clear as glass.

At breakfast, Shifu hands me a bracelet of bodhi seeds the color of bone. She calls them moon and stars and says they will change color the more I handle them. She instructs Cici to write out a chant for me to repeat while I run them through my fingers. I don’t understand the words, but the syllables roll on my tongue like beads.

3. The truth at the end of suffering

Cici and I are passing a guest house on our way to the open-air market when I spot a yellow puppy, its bent leg wrapped in dirty bandages. I cross the alley to stroke her velvet ears and whisper, “I’m so sorry. I wish I could help you, little one.” As always, the pain of animals sears my insides. If my desire to stop their suffering didn’t get so tangled with my own, I might have become a veterinarian like my father. Without his skills, I am consumed by wants: to free this puppy from its cardboard box on a ledge, to see her leg in a cast and not dirty bandages, to find someone to take her home and love her. I mouth the chant to Guan Yin, but I really want to summon my dead father. He would take an X-ray, mend the puppy’s leg, stop her suffering.

I’d been excited to see the array of wild mushrooms for which Yunnan is famous, but when we reach the market, I can’t stop crying. Cici leads me back to the retreat. On the way, we buy towels to line the puppy’s box.

When she sees us return, the puppy licks my hands, yips You’re Back! She can’t stand, but her tail beats Joy! Joy! Joy! Her water bowl is empty, so I urge Cici to inquire inside the corner guest house. The tall man who returns with her doesn’t speak English, but he carries water and Cici says he tells her the puppy dragged herself to their doorway two days ago. Spotting my tears, the man mimes that his wife has been crying, too. Cici tells me that they took the puppy to a vet, who provided antibiotics and bandages, but no hope. Who said she may have to be euthanized or lose her leg. He pats the puppy’s head as he talks. She thrums her tail against the box, and her eyes twin-beam delight at the little gathering she has convened.

I think, How could you leave her out here? What if she falls? She needs food and a bigger bowl. A bed and attention and medical care. I bite back my judgments and ask Cici to say only, “Thank you for taking care of her. You have a kind heart.” I hope this will appeal to the man’s better nature.

On the walk back to our retreat, I’m convinced I’ve been summoned to do something, yet Cici says we’re in a region without animal shelters or reliable veterinarians. I sob in my room all afternoon. I tell my dead father I’m willing to cash in any favors I might have coming in trade for the puppy’s recovery.

Later, Cici knocks on my door to say dinner is ready. She tells me she went back to the corner hotel and met the tall man’s wife. They’ve invited us to tea to thank us for our concern.

The next day, the man pours us tea in the lobby of the guest house. When his wife arrives, she introduces herself as Jessica. She is fortyish, from Hong Kong, and speaks halting English. Her expression is gentle and her eyes kind. When I point to the miniature Buddhist paintings beneath the glass of the front desk, she reveals that she is the artist and a student of a Tibetan monk who makes sacred art.

“In Lijiang?” I ask, “Can we meet him?” On our walk to his studio, I ask about the puppy.

Her eyes go soft, and she says, “This puppy teaches me so much already. She shows me how to be strong and overcome difficulties.” It occurs to me that the puppy is Jessica’s karma and not mine. That I, as usual, was too quick to judge the hearts of others. That I might be a witness or catalyst, but this is not my story.

When Cici and I visit the puppy the following day, she has a new water bowl and a new cushion. Her bandages are fresh. She wags her tail and doesn’t whimper when we leave. Cici and I have only a couple of days left in Lijiang, but in the weeks and months to come, Jessica will send us videos of the puppy’s remarkable recovery, her insertion into their hearts and life. I called the puppy Pearl, but Jessica will name her Angel.

4. The truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering

Ignoring the abandoned balls in the courtyard grass, Kong Kong naps or surveys the walkway from inside the retreat gates. Pale gold with long legs and dense fur, he is only three years old, yet he channels Shifu’s tranquility. His name, Cici tells me, means emptiness. When he sleeps, I imagine him in deep meditation, his breaths forming the sacred syllable—Ommmm—and floating up like doggy smoke rings.

Shifu says that animals can advance in the cycle of rebirth by being of service to a monk.

The apprentice takes Kong Kong for walks into the fields at the end of the cobbled road. Most days, Kong Kong flops on the kitchen floor when he returns, worn out until his next outing. One day he is followed home by a stray—a perfect straw-gold color match to Kong Kong, but his opposite in every other way. Slick, short hair to Kong Kong’s wooly coat, ears with rakish folds to his perfect points, a muscular little body that fits under his big friend’s belly with room to spare. He slurps from Kong Kong’s water bowl, then disappears through the barred gate. At mealtime, he reappears to dive under Kong Kong’s chin and wolf the food like the street dog that he is. I brace for a territorial growl or a fight, but Kong Kong steps back and lets the stray eat. Shifu smiles and prepares a second bowl. She calls the stray Xiao Huang, Little Yellow.

Xiao Huang pops through the gate the next day and the next. Each time he leaves, Kong Kong sits at the gate and waits. Just before dusk, Xiao Huang returns. Moving on springs, he dances under and around Kong Kong, leaping to play-bite Kong Kong’s lips and head until the big dog chases him or play-fights back. When Kong Kong has had enough, Xiao Huang amuses himself by digging dirty balls out of the grass and tearing around with them in his mouth. Shifu sets out an extra bowl of food each morning and evening.

Xiao Huang’s daily circus makes everyone laugh, but he also gets in trouble. He attends to his business wherever he is—he has no idea why depositing his piles and puddles in the kitchen or tearoom raises such a fuss. The apprentice yells, “Xiao Huang! No! No!,” but the little dog dances sideways, thinking it’s a game.

A week after Xiao Huang arrives, Shifu explains walking meditation in the courtyard before she heads to the market. She tells Cici and me to pace off an area fifteen steps in length. Shifu demonstrates how to set down each foot in slow motion, heel, then ball, then toes, before lifting the other foot in the same painstaking order, an incremental leg swing forward to step again.

“Slower,” she says. “Slower.” I become a snail, a tree root. I practice counting in Chinese—one to fifteen and turn. I concentrate on doing everything right until I hear her leave through the gate, and my steps and mind begin to meander.

Too much structure, I’m thinking. In American-style meditation I could disconnect and drift. Here I must focus, constrict. Yet I am drawn to Shifu’s serenity, Guan Yin’s compassion, the four noble truths about suffering, these glimmerings just below the surface that I desire to understand although desire, in Buddhist teaching, is the root of suffering.

I pull my mind back to counting steps — yi, er, san, si, wu, liu — until Kong Kong nudges my thigh with his head. When I don’t respond, he thrusts his nose into the back of my knee, and I lose my balance mid-swing. Still slow-walking, I stretch one hand down to ruffle his ears. If animals are at a lower level than humans, I wonder, why does the temple bell of my heart ring most true when I’m face to face with fur? Kong Kong leans on my leg until I falter and step sideways. Laughing, I crouch down to rub his head. His eyes are amber pools. He radiates devotion.