The temple grounds were huge. Now in daylight, Jax could see that it would be impossible to escape even if he wanted to – the whole place was surrounded by a high wall. There were two main buildings where the monks prayed, one behind the other, and the sleeping quarters and kitchen were off to the side. Each building had its own wide courtyard with a large tree in the corner. As Jax went past the open doorway of one of the prayer buildings, he looked inside. The interior of the building was intricately painted, with heavily carved pillars holding up the high ceiling. At the back of the monastery, a narrow staircase led up to a smaller building embedded in a rocky cliff.
‘What’s that place?’ Jax asked Yu Yu.
‘That’s where the Abbot lives. Come on. We had better go. He’ll be waiting for you.’
They crossed the Courtyard of Imaginings to where the Abbot was talking with some monks under a big tree with golden leaves. The blinking sunshine made dappled shadows dance on their faces.
Each monk had one leg propped up high on the roots of the tree and they were stretching. They all wore the same clothes as Yu Yu – pale yellow robes tied at the waist with a sash, baggy pants with leggings and straw sandals. On the far side of the courtyard, another group of monks stood with their legs spread wide and their toes pointed in. They were bending over touching their heads to their ankles. On a wide terrace other monks practised martial arts, moving softly but powerfully in unison.
‘That little monk is Lao Tan,’ said Yu Yu pointing to a tiny monk who was not much bigger than Jax’s little sister, Mai. ‘He’s so good at using the staff. Watch.’
The monk stood straight, holding a long staff at his side. Suddenly he brought it up and swung it over his head then spun it around his body. It was so fast it looked like a lasso. Whoosh, swoosh… the staff whizzed through the air. He then planted the tip in the ground and jumped up, kicking out with his legs. He held the position for at least a minute, balancing perfectly.
Jax stared in awe, his mouth open. ‘I wish I could do that. Do you think the Abbot would teach me how to do that, first?’
‘It takes years and years of practise,’ said Yu Yu. ‘First you have to learn to fight with your hands before you can learn weapons. The Abbot says, “You have to learn to walk before you can run”.’
Jax felt disheartened. It’s going to take me ages to learn, he thought. ‘Why do monks learn gongfu, anyway? I mean, temples and monks are about religion and praying, right? And gongfu is about fighting – it doesn’t make sense to me.’
Yu Yu laughed. ‘Only the weak have to fight so that they can pretend to be strong. Through training and discipline, you can become strong in spirit. That is what gongfu is: “gongfu” means “long-time training”… you know that.’
Jax reddened. He had forgotten the original meaning of the word.
Just then the Abbot walked over to them. ‘Now for your test, Mingzi,’ he said. ‘Are you ready?’
Jax began to feel nervous.
‘Don’t be worried. All I want you to do is focus your mind. Can you do that?’
That was the test? Jax had thought the Abbot was going to make him do a hundred push-ups or something. ‘Yes, I can focus my mind, easy.’
‘That’s good,’ smiled the Abbot. ‘Yu Yu, can I borrow your watch?’
Yu Yu fished around inside her robe and took off a small gold pendant-watch on a long chain that she wore around her neck. Jax hadn’t seen any of the monks with watches. Come to think of it, there wasn’t a clock in the whole place. He wondered how they knew what time it was.
The Abbot opened his palm. On it sat a smooth black stone. ‘Now, I want you to look at this stone for one minute without thinking of anything else. No thoughts. Can you do that?’
One minute? That’s so easy. An hour might be hard, Jax thought. He nodded.
‘All right then.’ The Abbot looked down at the watch. ‘You can start… now.’
Jax stared at the stone. After a few seconds he thought, this is easy. Then he thought, whoops, I’m not supposed to think of anything else. Then he thought, no wait, that’s another thought too! Just think of the stone! Okay… He focussed his eyes again. The Abbot’s hands are so smooth… oh no… another thought… okay… back to the stone…
After wrestling with these thoughts backwards and forwards, Jax finally managed to clear them out and settle his mind. His breathing deepened, coming from his belly, and he began to relax into the exercise.
‘Time!’ the Abbot said.
Jax blinked his eyes, wishing it wasn’t over yet. It was much harder than he had expected. But he thought he had done quite well in the end. ‘That was fun. What does that show, Abbot?’
‘Well, one thing it shows is that we prefer to look at moving things. If something doesn’t move, we can sometimes stop seeing it altogether. Even if it is right in front of your face all the time.’
Jax looked puzzled.
Yu Yu giggled. ‘He means your nose, silly.’
The Abbot laughed, too. ‘You have shown me that you have a surprising ability to quickly focus your mind. Most people take much longer to settle down their thoughts.’
‘It took me weeks!’ Yu Yu said, nodding her approval.
Jax felt proud of himself. Nobody had ever told him he was good at something before.
‘Now the next test is a little harder –’
The Abbot was interrupted by a big boy, dressed like a monk but with shaggy hair, swaggering around the corner. Yu Yu quickly stood up and put herself between him and Jax, but the boy pushed her out of the way and stepped up to Jax, a threatening look on his face.
‘So who are you, new boy?’ the bully asked, poking his finger in Jax’s chest. Jax looked at the Abbot for help but the Abbot didn’t seem to know what to do.
The big boy pushed Jax backwards. He tripped on a round stone, and fell on his bottom in the dust.
‘Ha ha ha!’ The bully laughed and went swaggering off, disappearing around the corner again.
Yu Yu helped Jax up, brushing the dust off him. Tears of humiliation and frustration smarted in his eyes, but he wouldn’t cry, not in front of Yu Yu and the Abbot.
‘Such a bad boy,’ said the Abbot, mildly. ‘He has much to learn. I can get a couple of the older monks to catch him, and we will punish him if you want.’
A strong feeling welled up inside of Jax, yelling for revenge, to have the boy caught, held and humiliated, as he had been. Then something older and wiser gently pushed aside this demand for revenge, and he heard his mother’s voice in his head saying, ‘Revenge is for people who haven’t grown up inside. It never fixes things, it just keeps going round and round.’
Jax sighed, wiping the dirt off his hands. ‘No, its all right. He wants to feel strong. That’s why he’s a bully. But I think people like him are really weak. Let’s forget it. I want to do the other test, Abbot. The one that’s supposed to be harder.’
The Abbot nodded his head and smiled, ‘Actually, Mingzi, you just passed that test. Now I know that I can teach you the fighting moves of gongfu, and you will not use them to bully others. You’ve done very well, today.’ He patted Jax on the back. ‘Go and rest a while. Yu Yu can get you some temple clothes to wear. We will resume later.’ The Abbot walked up the stairs and into one of the big buildings.
Yu Yu smiled at Jax. ‘Pretty good for a ghost boy,’ she said.
‘I didn’t know all those things had to do with gongfu. I thought it was all fighting and stuff.’ He watched as Yu Yu played with the chain on her pendant-watch. ‘Why are you the only one with a watch? Where did you get it from?’
‘The monks use the sun or the moon or the energy of the day to tell the time, so they don’t need one of these things. When I was found on the steps of the monastery, they also found this watch beside me. It must have belonged to my –’ Yu Yu looked away for a moment and Jax was sure she was about to cry.
He gently changed the subject. ‘Do you like it here in Whispering Cloud?’
She sniffed. ‘Of course I do. This is my home and the Abbot is like my father and the monks are my uncles. I have good food three times a day, I know how to fight, to grow vegetables, to cook, and everyone spoils me.’ Yu Yu shrugged. ‘I think I am a very lucky girl.’
Even though Yu Yu said these words, Jax sensed a deep sadness behind them.
Jax tried to think about his own family, Ma, Ba and Mai, but something strange was happening to his mind. When he tried to imagine them, they seemed to be enveloped in a thick fog.
‘What about you, Mingzi? Do you have a family?’
‘I… I… have a mother and father… and… a little sister. Her name’s Mai… It’s funny, but I can’t remember them very well any more.’
‘You’re probably still tired. Don’t worry.’ Yu Yu picked up Jax’s hand and turned it over. ‘This little creature is so beautiful.’ She traced the mark with her finger. ‘I wish I had one.’
‘All my life I’ve wondered about it,’ said Jax with a sigh.
‘You know, Mingzi, I’m sure I’ve seen it somewhere before.’ Yu Yu looked thoughtful for a moment, then her green eyes sparkled. ‘Come with me. I’ve just remembered where.’