Tracking Bodhidharma (38 page)

THE YANG-TSE RIVER, clear of fog and smog, spreads wide beneath the Nanjing Bridge. The white rocks of the Mufu Mountains along the southern bank of the river stand out in the bright noon sun. The 606 bus line is tightly crowded with people, pressing on me from all sides.

I'm on my way to the remains of Changlu Temple in the Six Harmonies district. It's the place on the far side of the Yang-tse River from the Mufu Mountains where I visited Bodhidharma's Nanjing cave. It lies in an ancient (first records date to 559 BCE) fishing and farming area, but is not too heavily populated now. It was by Changlu Temple that, according to legend, Bodhidharma came ashore after crossing the Yang-tse river on a “single blade of grass,” escaping from Emperor Wu's agents. According to the book
Temples of Nanjing
, there's only one building left from the old temple, and the site now houses a middle school.

Six Harmonies is named after a mountain in the area, which in turn is named after an old Taoist cosmological idea that divided the universe into six directions (up, down, and the four compass points of west, south, east, and north). So
Six Harmonies
means, in effect, “everything” in harmony.

And everything would be in harmony today, except the bus seems to be belching exhaust fumes up past the trap door that covers the front-mounted engine. I suppose that the U.S. antismoking laws have made me more than normally sensitive to any kind of air pollution, for I seem to be the only person gagging on the smell. Luckily I'm squeezed close to an open window at the right front of the bus and can hang my head outside to catch a few gulps of fresher Yang-tse River air.

We travel the wide, four-lane divided road for about twenty minutes. When I boarded the bus, I asked the ticket seller to tell me when my stop appears, and now she waves at me to let me know that the upcoming intersection is my goal. There's no real pull-over spot on the four-lane road, so I hustle off the bus quickly, afraid to let it stop for long in the fast traffic while the traffic light is green. There's a taxi sitting near the intersection waiting for a fare, so I hop in and tell the driver to take me to Changlu Middle School. He turns the car around and heads south across flat land toward the Yang-tse River, the Mufu Mountains now a distant crest on the horizon. The countryside is open, and there are some large industrial plants dotting the area. I judge them to be petrochemical processing plants with a lot of large white tanks and pipes, topped by flare stack towers that flame brightly even at midday.

“There's a lot of industrial plants out here,” I say to the driver.

He nods. “This place is all becoming an industrial-production area,” he says. “There's more plants here all the time.” He's surprised I speak
Chinese and wants to learn what I'm up to. “Why do you want to go to the school?” he asks.

“I want to see what remains of the old temple that was at that place,” I tell him. “It's supposed to be a famous place where Bodhidharma crossed the Yang-tse on a single blade of grass. Have you heard of that legend?”

The driver smiles broadly. Then I notice the little Kwan Yin statue on his dashboard.

“I know,” he says. “I grew up near here. Are you a professor?”

“No. Just someone interested in history. I like traveling around and visiting places like this.”

We enter a small town. There's a sign on a modern looking building that says LONG REED VILLAGE MEDICAL CENTER. I notice a slight chemical smell in the air. A few moments later the driver turns east and almost immediately we roll up to a gate next to a sign that says LONG REED MIDDLE SCHOOL. Since it's Sunday, both the school and the gate are closed. However, there's a guard shack at the side of the gate. I tell the driver he should wait, and then I get out to talk to the guard. When I explain what I've come to do, the guard seems unimpressed. He says there's no way I can go into the premises on a Sunday. The taxi driver, who has gotten out of the taxi and is now listening to the conversation, chimes in and supports my story, saying that I'm a foreign guest and it shouldn't hurt for me to go in and take a look around.

After some give-and-take the guard turns and picks up a telephone through the window of the guard shack. He dials a number and then talks for a minute to someone on the other end. Then he hands me the phone and tells me that the principal of the school is on the line. I say hello, and a woman asks me who I am and what I'm doing. I explain that I'd like to see any remains from the old temple that used to be on the premises. I tell her I do research about old temples and this one is particularly interesting. We talk for a minute more and her initial hesitancy seems to dissolve. Finally she says that since I've come to see their place, they should be flattered that I'm interested. She tells me to hand the phone back to the guard. A minute later he puts down the phone to tell me that he'll give me a tour of the premises himself.

The taxi driver joins us, and the three of us walk through the gate into the school grounds. Although this old temple site is supposed to
be where Bodhidharma came ashore after crossing the river from Nanjing, the river is too far away across the flatland to be seen. The guard explains that the course of the river has changed, and now it's a few miles away, off toward the Mufu Mountains that sit in the distance. Anyway, he says, he thinks the original location of the temple may have been abandoned after a flood washed it away.

We walk into a garden area in front of the school buildings where a gazebo sits among some potted chrysanthemums. The guard points at a few objects on the ground and says, “That's from the old temple.”

It's obvious that there's almost nothing left of the temple that was on the site previously. Next to the gazebo there are some pieces of granite, broken temple colonnades and odd pieces of stone decor all scattered next to some chrysanthemum beds. There are also some stones that mark where the temple's old well was located. On two sides of the garden alcove are a covered walkway and wall that displays some engraved works of calligraphy inside picture frames.

“Those are all poems written centuries ago about the temple that was here,” says the guard. He points at one on the end of the row and says, “Look, there's one written by Li Bai.”

Li Bai was the famous poet who wrote the “Night Thoughts” poem I quoted before. He lived during the middle of the eighth century. I look closer and see that not only did Li Bai write a poem about this place, but several other famous poets did as well.

“I read that there is one hall remaining from the old temple,” I say. “Is it still here?”

The guard leads us through the center of the school grounds past an enormous gingko tree. As we pass it, the guard says, “This tree is hundreds of years old. It was a big feature in the middle of the temple.”

The enormous old tree is really gorgeous, its fall leaves shimmering like gold in the light wind. A sign in front of the tree declares it to be the “symbol of Long Reed Middle School's special spirit.” We walk on toward the rear of the school, and the guard points out a brick building. “That's the only building still regarded as part of the old temple,” says the guard.

There's not much to see. The brick building was clearly recently rebuilt and looks more like a storehouse than a temple hall. The double
front door is closed and locked. I peek in through a crack in the middle of the door and see that the hall is empty.

Old records of the Six Harmonies area describe how Changlu Temple was once one of the largest temples in Southern China. It contained an assortment of special halls with names related to Bodhidharma, such as the Single Reed (blade of grass) Hall, the Directly Pointing Hall, and the Standing in the Snow Hall (a reference to a story about his main disciple that I'll tell later). During the Song dynasty (960—1278), more than a thousand monks lived here. The place had imperial support and was widely famous, as evidenced by the wall of poems written over a twelve-hundred-year period.

“What happened to the old temple?” I ask the guard.

He pauses for a moment, then says, “It burned down.”

It was common for temples in old China to catch fire and be destroyed. Incense and lamps would periodically cause accidental fires. Hardly any temple in China hasn't been rebuilt numerous times.

“Was it an accident?” I ask.

The guard only shrugs. “I'm not sure,” he says. He doesn't seem to want to say anymore.

We walk back toward the taxi, and I take a last look out across the wide valley toward the river. Of course, the story of Bodhidharma crossing the river on a “single reed of grass” is just a myth, part of the pious orthodoxy invented well after he lived. But I'm feeling pretty melancholy as I take my last look at the place. The destruction of the temple that commemorates Bodhidharma's river crossing seems incredibly sad, portending that something important is slipping out of our grasp, out of the collective memory of China and Zen culture. The sight of the petrochemical plants surrounding Six Harmonies Village is also depressing. They seem to say that not only is Changlu Temple unimportant, but also there's no chance that it will ever be remembered and rebuilt. Any remnants of the place will soon yield to the need for making more polyvinyl chloride for New China.

As I ride back to the bus stop, I ask the taxi driver if he knows anything more about how the temple was destroyed. He's only about twenty years old. He says he doesn't know what happened to it.

As the bus goes back over the Yang-tse River into Nanjing, I'm really
feeling let down. I decide to get off the bus and walk through the northern part of the city, near the old Bell Tower, an area not far from Nanjing University. For a couple of hours I walk along some alleyways and explore a few old bookshops. Finally I notice it's starting to get late and I should have something to eat. There's a Ramada Hotel nearby. I notice through the window that they have a nice-looking salad bar, and to lift my spirits I decide to have my first fresh green salad in several weeks. Once inside I tell the waiter that I want a salad buffet but will skip the meat-heavy dinner buffet and order an entrée from the menu. They have one vegetarian dish available, a vegetable curry. I get my salad and start eating.

My curry arrives, and a couple of minutes later a young man in a chef's hat appears at the table. He smiles at me and asks, “Are you a vegetarian?”

I confirm that I am and ask him if he is a cook here in the hotel.

He says yes. Then he says, “I'm a vegetarian also.”

It's a strange conversation but I play along.

The young Chinese man then takes off his chef's hat and says, “I'm also a Buddhist. ”I notice that his head is closely shaven. He says, “I'm going to take my vows soon and become a monk.”

I feel a little surprised at how this conversation is proceeding. “Congratulations,” I say. “Did you know I'm a vegetarian because of what I ordered from the menu?”

He then admits that one of the waiters said there's a vegetarian foreigner in the dining room. He decided to come say hello.

“What are you doing here in Nanjing?” he asks.

I explain to him that I'm here visiting places related to Buddhist history. I'm especially interested in places related to Emperor Wu and Bodhidharma.

He says, “Have you been to Long Reed [Changlu] Temple?”

“I was just there today! Do you know that place?” I speak without disguising my surprise. The temple and its tiny village are far out of town and certainly unknown to nearly all of Nanjing's general population.

“That's where I went to school,” says the cook. “I was a student at Long Reed Middle School.”

It takes a moment for his words to sink in. “You went to Long Reed Middle School?”

“Yes,” says the cook. My family comes from Long Reed Village. Greater Nanjing has a population of about seven million people. From the looks of Long Reed Village, where the medical clinic I passed earlier in the day is located, it has at most a few hundred people.

The cook tells me his name is Shao, and we exchange cards. I tell him I'm highly pleased to meet him. I'm curious to ask him why he's about to become a home-leaver, but then I remember the unwritten rule of Chinese religious etiquette that you shouldn't ask a monk why he decided to leave the world. Instead I ask him to sit down and talk with me for a few minutes. “What happened to the temple?” I ask him. “The place was important to Zen history. Why did they build a school on the site? Do you know what happened there?”

Shao smiles and starts to explain. “Have you heard of the Nanjing massacre?”

“Of course,” I tell him. “Everyone knows about it.”

“Well, when the Japanese came and occupied Long Reed Village, they burned down the temple. Some monks who were living in the temple tried to save it, but they were driven away and some were killed.”

“How do you know this?” I ask him.

“My grandmother worshipped at that temple and she saw what happened. She told me about it.”

“Why did they burn down the temple and kill monks?” I ask. “That doesn't make any sense.”

“That happened a lot. When the Japanese came, they wanted to get rid of the Chinese Buddhist clergy in the temples and put their own monks in charge. They installed their own Japanese monks to be in charge of the temples and told the population they had to follow
them
now.”

I sit silent for a few moments, trying to grasp the import of what Shao was saying. Finally I say, “You mean the Japanese army killed the Chinese Buddhists and put Japanese monks in charge of the temples? Why would they do that? How could Buddhists do such a thing? Isn't Buddhism about peace?”

Shao shrugs his shoulders. “They just wanted everyone to follow them now. This was true for everything. Even religion.”