Take 100,000 yuan from Jing’an Temple’s 220,000 yuan and donate it to the religious training center. Director Gong may use these funds to support the singing of religious songs.
This is what Jueyu shifu wrote to Yahui, and now this sheet of paper was in Yahui’s pocket. She didn’t know how many years it had taken the temple to raise 220,000 yuan, or how much incense the temple had needed to burn in the process. The funds had originally been raised to help repair the temple, but now Jueyu shifu had decided to donate a hundred thousand of it.
At six that evening, Yahui had left her shifu and emerged from the hospital. She was still holding the sheet of paper with her shifu’s messy writing on it, but she yearned to crumple it up and toss it into a roadside trash can. When she reached a trash can, however, she merely glanced at it and kept walking.
Usually, if Yahui wanted to eat something tasty, her shifu would ask her, “Have you forgotten that controlling one’s appetite is Buddhism’s most fundamental religious precept?” In Xining there was a restaurant that could prepare vegetarian fare that was indistinguishable from meat, but every time Yahui told her shifu she wanted to go there, her shifu would pull a long face, make a Buddhist mudra in front of her chest and, as though either cursing or praying, mutter, “Amitābha … Pure heart! Pure heart!” It was as if Yahui had committed a great sin, or as though her heart were full of refuse.
The sun set in the west, and twilight slowly fell. In an alley off Yonghe Street, there was a lively area full of the smell of food. For some reason, while gripping that sheet of paper filled with horizontal lines, Yahui suddenly developed a strong urge to eat and drink something. She wanted to spend lots and lots of money, so that she could quickly spend down the vast sum that was written on the sheet of paper. Furthermore, as she thought about eating, her stomach began to rumble. She scanned the shops on either side of the alley, and although initially she only saw one or two small eateries, as she proceeded farther down the alley it seemed as though both sides of the road were filled with fragrant restaurants. The smell of food was as strong as in Kumbum Monastery during tourist season. As Yahui’s pace slowed and her gaze remained fixed on the sides of the alley, she noticed a Lanzhou noodle restaurant, next to which there was a stall selling Xining meat buns. Seeing that there were also northwestern restaurants here, Yahui reflected for a moment, then stuffed the sheet of paper into the pocket of her robe and headed over to the stall. In a soft voice, this Buddhist nun asked, “Do you have any pork?”
“Well, we certainly don’t sell human meat!”
“Pork is quite tasty, but actually this isn’t for me. I’m getting it for someone else. Could you add some extra pork to the meat bun?”
“Do you want lean or fatty pork?”
“Please add some extra lean red pork to one of the buns, and some extra fatty white pork to the other. I’ll pay for the extra meat.”
The chopping of the knife sounded like the cheerful rhythm of Sanskrit music, and in the blink of an eye the block of lean meat had been diced into small cubes, while the slab of fatty meat had been reduced to paste. The fragrance was so thick Yahui could see it swirling around in front of her as it tickled her nose. However, even her nose didn’t care how appealing the dish was—she simply wanted to gulp it down. There were some other customers at the stall, and as they ate their food they stared in surprise at her nun’s robe and close-cropped hair. Yahui, in turn, repeatedly nodded to them and explained, “I’m getting this for someone else, I’m getting this for someone else,” whereupon the other customers would apologize with embarrassment and look away. Yahui packed up the two meat buns, which were still hot to the touch, into a couple of plastic bags. Then she handed over twenty yuan, put the buns in her pocket, and left the stall.
Next, she entered the Lanzhou noodle shop next door, where there were fewer customers than there had been at the meat bun stall. Inside, the counter functioned as the cook’s workspace, and the tables on the other side were the customers’ eating area. Although the restaurant was rather simply decorated, everything appeared new and clean, and the yellow tables and chairs still smelled of fresh paint. Of the shop’s eight tables, six were already occupied, but in the corner, where the light was dim, there was an empty two-person table. More than ten pairs of eyes were observing Yahui—curiously taking in her close-cropped hair, her nun’s habit, and her baby face. Yahui gazed back at them and smiled, then she made a Buddhist mudra and bowed. She wasn’t sure whether or not she uttered a Buddhist chant, but she certainly felt as though she had. Then she turned to the woman at the counter, who had been staring at her, and said, “Sister, could you give me a bowl of noodles, without meat? I only take vegetarian broth. I’ll give you the money for the meat, and then you could give me some extra vegetables. OK?” The woman at the counter nodded, and the other customers seemed to relax as they resumed their meals. The customers looked away from Yahui as though pulling shut a row of curtains.
Yahui sat down at the table in the corner, and gave no more thought to the Buddhist scriptures, strictures, or the Bodhisattva, nor to the people behind her or the black flies on the wall in front of her. To avoid inviting company, Yahui discreetly pushed her table against the wall, making it appear too cramped for anyone else to sit there. When her bowl of noodles arrived, she saw that it was in fact a bowl of silk noodles with clear broth and extra vegetables, with green onions and vegetable leaves floating in the soup. The hot room was foggy and chaotic, as though the world were still in a period of confusion before the arrival of the deities. The sound of people behind Yahui sipping and slurping their noodles flowed like a spring. Sometimes the buzzing of the air conditioner drowned out those slurping sounds, and at other times the air conditioner was drowned out by the slurping. A man and woman behind Yahui were leaving the shop hand in hand, and as they passed they seemed to glance in her direction and say something. What they said was not important, but what was important was that now there was no longer anyone sitting directly behind Yahui. Given that now no one was watching her, no one would notice that, while eating her vegetarian noodles, this young nun was secretly removing a meat bun from her pocket.
The bun’s fragrance was exquisite, and the steam had left a thick layer of condensation on the surface of the plastic bag—such that people outside wouldn’t notice that this was actually a meat bun and instead they would only see a couple of baked rolls. To prevent other customers from smelling her meat buns, Yahui first ate the lean one. It was less fragrant, though the odor still escaped as soon as she opened the bag, so she hurriedly clasped it shut again, to trap the fragrance inside. She instinctively glanced behind her, but saw that all the other customers were either eating or chatting and minding their own business. She was reminded that the good thing about Beijingers is that almost nothing ever surprises them—which is why Beijing is the perfect place for a religious disciple wearing secular clothes. Yahui slowly reopened the bag and leaned over, but rather than bring the bun up to her mouth, she instead extended her lips into the bag until they touched the bun and the meat inside.
Yahui took a bite, then quickly closed her mouth and returned the bun to her pocket. The fragrance knocked against her teeth and leapt into her mouth, making her upper jaw tremble to the point that she had no choice but to place her tongue on the roof of her mouth to blunt the sensation. However, the fragrance ran along her gums like air flowing out of a deep valley and over the mountains. The fragrance was as dark red as the lean meat itself, like overflowing pink clouds filling her palate and throat. She couldn’t bring herself to immediately swallow the bite she had taken, and instead wanted to let the flavor linger in her mouth until it permeated all the way to her scalp, like qi circulating through her body. She had bitten off a crescent-shaped piece and now her tongue pressed it to the roof of her mouth, like a screw and its corresponding nut or like a sacred text and its corresponding disciple. Everything was just right—sacred and solemn. After savoring the intense taste, Yahui began to chew, and the tips of her teeth began to tremble and her stomach began to rumble, as though several cracked wooden doors were opening up for her. Afraid that the other customers would hear, Yahui began devouring the bun as though she hadn’t eaten anything in days. Without even waiting for her teeth and the bun to exchange a few polite words of greeting, she gulped down the first bite so that it would block the sound of her stomach rumbling.
Then she took a second bite.
And a third.
She leaned over and took another sip of the noodle broth, then turned and glanced behind her. Only then did she feel the world was safe and at peace. Although that evening the streets were full of people, everyone was busy doing their own thing and no one was particularly interested in what anyone else was doing. Yahui took one bite after another of her noodles and her meat bun. She repeatedly stirred her bowl with her chopsticks, then inserted her mouth into the bag in her pocket. Over and over, a gentle elegance, like the footsteps of students in a morning class outside the temple, slowly returned to her body. She would sip some soup, eat some noodles, and chew some of her meat bun, as though reciting each word of a sacred sutra. She paused when she had to pause, and resumed when she could resume. Only after she had finished half of the lean meat bun did she slowly close the first bag and open the second one.
Yahui devoured the large bowl of noodles and the two meat buns. By the time she finished she was stuffed, but felt that if she were to buy another meat bun, she probably could have eaten that as well. At this point, she suddenly remembered she was a jade nun—a Buddhist nun who had first entered the order as an infant eighteen years earlier. Controlling one’s appetite is Buddhism’s most important precept, and therefore, after Yahui emerged from the restaurant and took a taxi back to the university, she first walked around campus for a while, and only after her stomach had relaxed did she slowly return to the religion building.