Most people would say that everything we do is driven by some motive or goal. My only reason for writing down my experiences of spiritual cultivation is love — a kind of love that has no beginning and no end, that will never disappear from anywhere, because it simply is. In this love, the self has no foothold. The heart becomes utterly surrendered, gentle, and open. Everything I have done, am doing, and will ever do is simply the expression of this love.
I. The Origin of My Path
At twenty-three, I had already walked through the four stages expected of an ordinary woman: school, work, marriage, and motherhood. My life was peaceful and uneventful. When my son was ten months old — it was the day before the Mid-Autumn Festival, I remember — I bought some sandalwood incense and fruit to bring to my parents. My family had a Buddhist heritage going back generations, though by my parents’ time, all that remained was a single porcelain statue of Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva. Their entire Buddhist practice amounted to reverently placing some fruit before the statue and lighting a stick of incense on the first and fifteenth of the lunar month, plus eating vegetarian most of the time. That was all. So at that point, my entire understanding of Buddhism was limited to statues, temples, monks, and vegetarian meals.
Although my son was already over ten months old, I had not recovered well from childbirth, and my health was in terrible shape. The walk from my home to my mother’s was only fifteen minutes, but I felt so dizzy and unsteady it was as though I were walking on cotton. As I walked along like this, my foot suddenly landed on a tattered book. Compelled by some force I couldn’t explain, I bent down and picked it up. It had no front or back cover. I flipped through it casually, and four lines of verse leapt out at me:
I came to this land from the very source,
to transmit the Dharma and save those lost in confusion.
One flower blooms into five petals —
the fruit will ripen of its own accord.
The moment I read this, a jolt of shock ran through me. At the same instant, a clap of thunder exploded in the sky, so loud that my hand trembled and the book fell to the ground. I stood there dazed for a moment, then snapped back to myself. I looked up — the sky was perfectly clear, without a single cloud. I picked up the book again and read those four lines over and over. I had no idea what they meant, nor where that sudden thunderclap had come from on such a clear day. Completely baffled, I looked at the filthy, ragged book in my hands, couldn’t understand why I had even picked it up, and hurriedly tossed it onto a rubbish heap.
Some time later, I happened to mention this incident while visiting my younger brother. Strangely, those four lines had been carved into my memory like words cut with a knife. After hearing my story, my brother thought for a moment and said, “That’s a gatha — a Buddhist verse — written by Patriarch Bodhidharma. I don’t know why you had such a strong response to it. Perhaps you have a deep karmic connection with Buddhism. I just bought a few Buddhist books — you can take them home and have a look.” He then handed me two works by Master Nan Huai-Chin: How to Cultivate and Realize the Buddha Dharma and What Does the Diamond Sutra Really Say? I wasn’t particularly interested, but decided to take them home and flip through them anyway. I finished both books quickly, though I only half-understood them. The Chan koans and Buddhist stories, however, captured my full attention.
One day, while my son was napping, curiosity suddenly struck me and I decided to try sitting meditation, following the instructions I had read in those books. I sat down — and from that very moment, the direction and shape of my entire life changed.