I had come down from the mountain fastnesses of my home in Kashmir on
pilgrimage to a certain island off the coast of China. A long, long
pilgrimage, but necessary; for, with a Buddhist monk attached to the
monastery of Kan-lu-ssu in the hills of North China, I was to collect
certain information from the libraries and scholars of two famous
monasteries on the island of Puto. I, Lancelot Dunbar, am known to the
monks of the northern monastery of Kan-lu-ssu by the friendly title of
“Brother of the Pen,” and it is my delightful lot to labour abundantly
among the strange and wonderful stores of ancient Buddhist and historic
knowledge contained in some of the many monastic libraries scattered up
and down India, China and Ceylon. It follows that my wife and I own two
homes.
One is a little deserted monastery in the Western Hills, in China, known
as “First Gate of Heaven,” and so beautiful that the name might have
grown about it like the moss on its tiled roofs. Following the bigger
monasteries, it has its quiet courtyard, its lotus-pool and the peaked
roofs with their outward, upturned sweep. The pines crowd upon us, and
the cloud-dragons of rain and wind play in their uncouth sport among the
peaks and fill our streams with singing, glittering water.
Our other home is a red-pine hut near the Liderwat in Kashmir. The
beauty of it, the warm homeliness set amid the cold magnificence of the
hills and immeasurable forests, no tongue can tell. The hut is very
large and low, divided into our own rooms and the guest-rooms, with
hospitable fireplaces for fragrant pine-logs and floors strewn with rugs
brought by yak and pony down the wild tracks from Yarkand and Leh.
Beautiful rooms, as I think—the windows looking out into the pines and
the endless ways that lead to romance and vision.
Which home is the more beautiful I cannot say. We have never known, and
our friends give no help; for some choose one and some the other. One
day I shall write of our life in Kashmir, the clean, beautiful
enchantment of it, the journeyings into the mountains—but to-day I must
recall myself to the pilgrimage to Puto.
It is an island off the coast of China, as I said before, most holy to
the Buddhists of the Far East, dear to all who know it in its beauty and
religious peace and the lovely legends that cling about it, a place of
purification of the heart and of a serenity that the true pilgrim may
hope to carry away with him as the crowning of his toil and prayer. It
is one of the Chusan Archipelago and is separated from the large island
of Chusan by a stretch of water known as the “Sea of Lilies.” And it is
not very far distant from the hybrid dissipations of Shanghai and the
swarming streets of Ningpo and can be reached from either. Yet it is as
far removed from their hard realities as if it were built on floating
clouds and lit by other dawns than ours.
Shanghai concerns itself, I am told, with that ancient and universally
respected Trinity of the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. I know little
of it myself and accept the testimony of friends, and especially of one
who knew it well. “I just think,” he said with conviction, “that if
nothing happens to Shanghai, Sodom and Gomorrah were very unfairly dealt
with.”
So I met my friend Shan Tao in Ningpo, and we set sail together. The
island of Puto, at all events, concerns itself with a very different
Trinity from that of Shanghai. For the deity of Puto is the Supreme,
enthroned in eternal light, and on his right hand stands Wisdom and on
his left, Love. The patron saint of this island is Kwan-yin (the Kwannon
of Japan), the incarnation of divine love and pity, she who has refused
to enter paradise, so that, remaining on this sad earth, she may be
attentive to the tears and prayers of humanity and depart from it only
when the Starry Gates have closed behind the last sinner and sorrow and
sighing have fled away like clouds melting into the golden calms of
sunset. Yet when I say “she,” I limit the power of this mighty
_Bodhisattva_, or _Pusa_, as Buddhas-to-be are called in India and
China. For that pure essence is far above all limitations of sex and,
uniting in itself the perfection of both, may be manifested as either,
according to need and opportunity. Be that as it may, Puto is the
holiest, most immediate home of Kwan-yin, and her influence spreads far
beyond its shores and makes the very sea that surrounds it sacred.
Therefore it is to this day the Sea of Lilies.
For when the Dwarf-men, the Japanese, came storming down on the island
from Hangchow long ago and carried off a part of the sacred relics, they
woke in the dawn to find their ship moving slower and slower and finally
rocking like a ship asleep in what seemed a vast meadow of lilies. Thick
as snow about them lay the ivory chalices with golden stamens; thick as
the coiling of snakes innumerable were the long piped and knotted stems,
with the great prone leaves. Neither oar nor sail could move the ship;
for the mysterious lilies, white and silent, that had sprung up from the
depths in a night held it as if with chains. And then comprehension
entered the hearts of the Dwarfs, and, taking hurried counsel, they put
the ship about and headed for the sacred island once more. As they did
so, a soft wind like the waft of a passing garment breathed on the
surface of the sea, the ivory chalices closed and the crystal lymph
flowed over them, and, where the leagues of blossom had spread, were now
only the foam-flowers of the waste ocean. So the treasures were restored
to Puto, and, when the story was told to the monks, they adored the
Heavenly Lady who guards her own.
Lest it be said that the burdened consciences of the Dwarfs misled them
into a dream, let the story be told of Wang Kuei, a haughty official who
was sent on his Emperor’s behalf to do reverence at the shrines of Puto
and did it grudgingly and with a pride that ill became him. So, when his
ship set sail from the island and he sat in glory on deck, glad at heart
that his service was over, suddenly her swift course was stayed. Behold,
in the moonlight, the meadows of ocean had bloomed into innumerable
lilies, and there was no sea-track between them, no glimmer of water in
the interstices of the paving-leaves, and the ship was a prisoner of
beauty! Then the story of the Dwarfs rushed into his soul. In haste he
prostrated himself on the deck with his face toward the island and
prayed for pardon as he had never yet prayed, and the Heavenly Lady
heard him and the lilies were resumed into her pure being. The man of
pride returned to Puto and, doing homage of the humblest, went back in
security to his Emperor.
But who can tell the beauty of Puto, looking forth on its little sisters
of the archipelago with the serenity of an elder who has attained? We
put up in one of the cells allotted to pilgrims in a monastery among the
hills overlooking the Sea of Lilies. Surely, I think, a lovelier place
could not be. The little ways wind about the island, past great rocks
sculptured with holy figures and groves of trees that climb the hills to
the tiled roofs of the many temples and monasteries. And wild and sweet
on the hills grows the gardenia, whence the island has its name of
“White Flower.” The sunny sweetness of its perfume recalled to me the
far-away, wild daphne bushes of Mount Abu in Rajputana, near the
marvellous white temples of Dilwara, temples of another, yet not
unallied, faith. It is easy to tell when the gods go by—it can never be
common air again, but sweet, sweet unutterably.
All day I trod the bays on sand fine as powdered gold or wandered among
the flowers, taking notes for my book at the various temples and talking
with the monks and such hermits as are not under the vow of silence.
When they found I was at work for Kan-lu-ssu in the hills, they opened
their hearts and told me many things.
I suppose it is difficult for the western mind to comprehend the
impulses that send a man to dwell in the solitudes of Puto, girdled with
its miraculous sea, there to let the years slip from him like a vesture,
unheeded, unregretted—but to me it is easy. Let me tell the story of
one of these monks, gathered from his own lips and told where a ravine
breaks down to the sands of a little bay; where the small waves fall in
a lulling monotone, a fitting burden to quiet words softly spoken as the
shadows lengthened to the hour of rest. He was named in religion “High
Illumination.” His name in the world I cannot tell.
His father had been a farmer in Anhui, a well-to-do man for his class.
There were two sons, and my friend was the younger. His father, of whom
he spoke with deep reverence, had the utmost confidence in the elder
brother. In dying, he expressed only the desire that the elder brother
would make a just division with the younger of all the possessions he
was leaving, and so departed.
“And I was content,” said High Illumination, “knowing my father’s wisdom
and believing that his wish, uttered in the presence of us both, would
be as binding upon my honoured brother as an imperial command.
Therefore, when all observances of departure had been completed and the
proper time came, I expected my share in peace, and the more so since my
good father had provided for my marriage with a beautiful maiden, the
daughter of a lifelong friend. But that was not to be.
“And still my brother said nothing; all the duties of the seasons
proceeded and I worked and helped him, expecting daily that he would
speak.
“Then at last in great astonishment I ventured this: ‘Honoured Elder
Brother, the will of our just father is still unfulfilled. Should we not
proceed in this matter?’
“And he, with anger and a reddened face: ‘What is this discontent? Do
you not share the land where you labour upon it? What more would you
have?’
“So, very temperately and courteously, I said: ‘Honoured Elder Brother,
I work but as a hired man who has no hire. I have not so much as a
_cash_ in my pocket to buy me the least of pleasures or needs. I have
but my food, and that, as I think, my elder sister [the brother’s wife]
grudges me. Such certainly was not the intention of our just father.’
“Then, his face distorted with rage, he replied, ‘Have your way, and if
it bring bitterness and disturbance of spirit, then thank yourself for
your greed!’”
High Illumination paused a moment as if in memory.
“Greed!” I said indignantly. “My friend, you were wronged and cruelly.
You could in a court of law have compelled him to do you justice.”
“Yet he was right: for me it was greed,” said High Illumination, with a
smile of quiet humour. “I had thought of it night and day, till it had
soured my soul. But the next day at dawn my brother called to me with
anger in his voice and said: ‘The division is now made. Come and see.’
“So we passed along through the dewy dawn-gold in silence, past his
fields of budding rice and millet prosperously green, and at last we
came to a great stretch of pebbles and water-springs where nothing would
grow, no, not even a blade of grass. The place had come to my father
from many ancestors, and none could either use or sell its barrenness.
“And there it lay, grey and hard in the morning gold, and my brother,
pointing, said: ‘Take it; the division is made. And when you store your
plentiful rice, thank my generosity.’ And, turning, he left me and went
back to his prosperity, laughing.”
“It was a devil’s deed,” I said. “Surely he laid up for himself a black
_karma_ in so doing.”
High Illumination shook his head slowly. “Who can judge the karma of
another? Daily did I pray that my brother’s feet might be set in the way
of peace, and I had assurance that thus and no otherwise it should be.
But hear the story and its loveliness.
“So I sat nearly all day, staring at the pebbles. There was not even a
yard of the ground that spade and hoe could conquer, and I knew myself
vanquished. Then in the evening I rose and went to a neighbour and said,
‘I beseech you to find me work; for I must eat or die.’ He gave me work
and the wage was my food only; for he was bone-poor. So I lived for two
years, and, if I passed my brother, he would jeer at my rags and
leanness.
“Now, as I went by my desolate heritage one day, I saw that between the
pebbles were pushing little bright green shoots, strong and hardy,
thrusting the small stones aside to make room for their impatience. The
tender greenness pleased me. It was like warmth and sunshine to see the
life of it, and I wondered what manner of growth could find food among
the stones. For a while I could not go that way, but, when I went again,
behold a thing most beautiful, for all the plants were covered with buds
like pearls!
“My brother, hear a marvel. One day, before ever I came in sight of it,
a sweet perfume, warm with the sun, exhaling the very breath of
paradise, surrounded me. When I approached, the desert had blossomed
abundantly. I could not see the stones; they were covered with lilies,
white lilies, each with a gold cup, set in ivory, to hold the
incense-offering to the sun. What could I say, what think in beholding
this miracle of loveliness? I sat beside them to watch what they would
do, and a light breeze moved the flowers like bells upon the stems, and
there was a going in the leaves of them as though the hem of an unseen
garment trailed among them. And they were mine.”
“They had never grown there before?” I asked.
“No man of those parts had seen the like; nor I myself. Every day, when
my work was done, I went to look at them and sat to see their beauty of
ivory and gold. And once, as I sat, the rich official, Chung Ching-yu,
rode by. Pausing in astonishment, he bought a handful of the flowers,
giving me the first money I had seen for a year, and he told me to
gather the bulbs in due season and receive from him in return their
weight in silver. And what he said ran on to other rich men and to men
not rich, in the city of Ningpo, and they came bidding against one
another for the bulbs to sell to the great and to send in ships to
strange countries, until I who had been poor scarce knew how to store my
riches. And I saw what my lilies loved and put for them more stones and
water, and the next year they were a wilderness of sweets, where all the
bees of the world came to gather nectar.
“But I knew indeed whence they came, since such beauty could not be of
earth, and I withdrew myself to a lonely place and addressed my prayer
to Kwan-yin, who had thus blessed my poverty, and I said: ‘O Adorable,
whose ears are open ever to the cry of the oppressed, whose beautiful
eyes are pitiful to sorrow, I bless thee for this compassion. And
because I dread the love of riches, and the flowers and not money, are
to me my soul, give me grace so to receive the mercy of thy gift that it
may befit thy greatness and my littleness.’ Even as I said the words, a
thought came to me, and I went to find my brother, whom I had not seen
for long days.
“Now, when he saw me come, his face darkened with rage, and he said:
‘Are you come to taunt me because of my folly, in that I gave the best
of all the land to your idleness, or to thank me for the gold it has
heaped upon you? Speak out; for the lucky man may speak.’
“Then, standing at the door, I said this: ‘Elder Brother, your action
was unjust, and certainly the Divine does not sleep, but awaits its hour
in peace. As for me, the Spirit of Compassion has seen my poverty and
had pity upon me, and now I will tell you my heart. Two nights ago as I
lay and slept, it seemed to me that the moonlit air grew sweet with a
sweetness more than all my lilies—nay, than all the flowers of
earth—and I knew that the gates of paradise were opened and that the
immortal flowers exhaled their souls, and that to breathe them was
purification. Then, far off on a cloud so white that it resembled the
mystic petals of the lotus, stood a lady with veiled face, and in one
hand a chalice and in the other a willow spray, and even through the
veil her beauty rayed as the moon behind a fleece of cloud. My Brother,
need I say her name?’
“And, as I spoke, the hard face softened; for who is there that knows
not the Pity of the Lord? I continued: ‘In a voice sweeter than sleep,
she augustly addressed me, saying: ‘The Divine on its hidden throne
knows no repose while the sigh of the oppressed is heard before it. And
because this injustice was borne with patience, the armies of the
flowers of paradise were marshaled. Say, now, whether justice was
done.’”
“And I said, ‘It was done.’ And, as a cloud slips off the moon as she
glides upward to the zenith, so fell the veil—but what I saw I may not
tell, nor could, for I weep in remembering that Beauty.”
His voice faltered even in recollection; nor could I speak myself. We
sat in silence awhile, looking over the Sea of Lilies with the twilight
settling softly upon it.
Then he resumed: “So I said: ‘Elder Brother, having seen this, I have
all riches and need no more. Take the land; for I depart into the life
of peace, where is no need of gold or gain, having beheld the ineffable
Treasure of the Nirvana and the very Soul of Quiet.’
“And his eyes kindling, he said, ‘What, is it mine—all mine?’
“‘Yours. Yet remember that these lilies are of heaven. It is in my mind
that these will have not only pure water and clean rock but also a clean
heart to tend them.’
“Then, very doubtfully, he took my hand and held it awhile in his and,
dropping it at last, turned, weeping, away. Thus we parted, and I came
to Puto.”
“And you never saw him again?”
High Illumination smiled, looking to where the star of evening blossomed
above us. “Four years passed,” he replied. “Then, among the pilgrims who
came to the holy shrines, I saw my brother, and yet could scarcely think
it he, so reverently and with such humility he knelt where the Divine
Lady waits in gold at the left side of the Infinite One.
“Need I recount the rest, O Brother of the Pen? He came to my cell and,
seated at my feet, he told me all. When I was gone, the lilies withered,
and at first he thought he lacked my skill and spent much money on
digging and trenching, but still the lilies died, and at last he saw
that the air that clung about his garments withered them. So, as he sat
musing on this strange thing, he resolved in his soul that he would no
more sell the Divine in the streets nor market his peace for gold, but
that he would set aside these stones and pure springs for almsgiving to
the poorest of the poor. Looking up, he said this: ‘Spirit of
Compassion, have pity on my soul, bound and crippled by the love of
gain. For I too am not beyond the bounds of thy pity, and, if there is
hope of it for me in this life as the fruit of some solitary good deed
in former existences, grant that the flowers of heaven may blossom once
more and the souls of many rejoice in their loveliness.’
“And, as the words were said, he knew that the prayer was heard. The
lilies returned in a beauty beyond telling, and it seemed that half the
world desired them. He who had not known the joy of giving became now,
as it were, the very source of charity and gave not only of his lilies
but of his rice and millet and all his gains, that the heart of the poor
might be gladdened with plenty. So, as he told, we sat together, hand in
hand, with tongues that could not be satisfied in telling and eyes that
beheld the greatness of the Divine. And for many years he came, and the
monks watched and watched for his coming and I most of all. And at last
he did not come, but his son in his place, who told me that the bond of
life had been gently loosed, and it was believed that High Presences
stood about his death-bed while the villages mourned.
“O Brother of the Pen, write this true story, that all may know there is
none like unto the Hearer of Prayer!”
The evening star hung like a steadfast lamp over the dim ocean, and the
air was so still that, when at last a faint stirring came in the grasses
and leaves, it was as if some listening influence were passing softly
away, as indeed I believe.
Skeptics may say that the wish was father to the thought. But I know
better. And as for the flowers themselves, there is a strange
susceptibility in the plant life we call “lower.” Of that truth I know
many stories which I shall tell one day.
But how shall I tell the beauty of Puto looking forth on its little
sisters of the Archipelago with the serenity of a saint who has
attained? I sat alone next day by the carved Rock of Meditation
pondering these things, and bathing my soul in the peace of them as in
deep water. The mystery of the place was about me, for Puto is a home of
the mystic order of Buddhist monasticism which in India is called Jhana,
in Japan Zen, and there were men at hand to whom the bond of the flesh
is a thing easily unloosed. One sat on the height above me now in
profound meditation.
I analyzed my own heart. Is it because all this with the atmosphere it
creates, is so beautiful that I love it? Or is it because it presents a
truth forgotten, lost, in our hurrying day of fevered unrest?
Because it is of the truth. That is the answer. None can doubt it who
understands and loves these people and their teachings.
None—who is admitted to the quiet of their secret places and thoughts.
It is a truth which is a part of nature itself. Consider the lilies of
the field. They breathe it, the soft breezes whisper it among the leaves
of the maiden-hair trees, the measured cadence of the sea chimes it
eternally on the golden shores of Puto.
They have the secret of peace, which we have immeasurably and to our
ruin lost.
So my friend Shan Tao and I paced along the pilgrim’s path past the
sea-cave where visions of the holy Kwan-yin are said to have been seen
in the sun ray that strikes through the rent roof with something of the
same effect as the light contrived to fall from above in the temple of
Mendoet in Java on the white and beautiful face of the Bodhisattva who
sits in ecstasy below. And wandering on, beguiling the way with legends
and tales of the Excellent Law to reach the southern monastery, pausing
to look at the half ruined pagoda adorned on its four faces with
carvings of Kwan-yin, and her brother saints, P’uhsien, Wen-shu and
Ti-tsang, the last known in Japan as Jizo the beloved protector of dead
children, we reached the southern monastery and the courtyard with its
noble incense burners and candle holders, shaded by trees. Here it was a
part of my purpose to search for references in the library on the upper
story where the treasures are guarded by a serene Buddha in alabaster.
And let me say that if ever the libraries of the many Chinese
monasteries are searched with care and patience great additions will be
made not only to the science of the soul but also to the world’s wisdom.
Many lost treasures thus await their day of resurrection—treasures
brought back in the early days of our era by Chinese monks who made the
terrible pilgrimage through the cruel deserts and mountains to India
that they might return loaded with the spiritual treasures of
illumination and wisdom, and learned comments and digressions on these
written by mighty Chinese patriarchs whose gilded and lacquered bodies
are still preserved in the remote abodes of faith.
* * * * *
And when that day of revelation comes it will be found how much of the
religious thought of the divided faiths can be traced to common sources
in an antiquity so vast that it strikes the soul with awe. May that
knowledge bring union and surcease to the petty wranglings and contempts
which cloud the living waters of Truth.
There are few scenes more serenely beautiful than the lotus pond of this
monastery and its still waters doubling the old arched bridge and the
sailing clouds, and the sunshine, unbearably delicious, brooding,
brooding upon it like a soul in ecstasy. A soft collegiate calm was
about us, the monks coming and going at intervals with kindly glances at
my pen and note book, and the reverence for the written character and
for what it represents that contact with our civilization will most
certainly kill. A harmless snake was basking in the sun not far away,
and a deer taught tameness by fellowship wandered about under the trees,
as they do on the island of Miyajima in Japan.
How beautiful the confidence of the creatures in these Buddhist resorts,
how much we lose in losing their companionship! The gentleness of heaven
was on Puto that day, and the words of a poet-monk who wrote of the
beloved island floated through my mind like little golden clouds.
“Who tells you that there is no road to heaven? This is heaven’s own
gateway, and through it you may pass direct to the very Throne of the
Divine.”
I left it on a lovely day of summer—no foam-flowers blossoming on the
Sea of Lilies, a drowsy golden haze veiling the neighbouring islands. I
could scarcely have borne to leave it, especially its unrifled stores of
wisdom, had I not known that I was free of it henceforward and might
count on my welcome, come when I would. Almost, as we crossed the sea, I
could dream that the miraculous ship of Kwan-yin floated before us, its
sails filled with no earthly breeze, bearing the happy souls to the
golden Paradise of the West where the very perfume of the flowers is
audible in song. We who in Dante read the story of another Boat of Souls
may well recognize the inmost truth of this legend. And certainly in
Puto the soul may at least enter the heavenly Boat of Beauty that the
poets have sung in all tongues and ages, and pass in it to the blue
horizon of dreams and delights.