Billy
Crazy Diamond
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2009
- Messages
- 1,192
- MBTI Type
- INFJ
In the summer of 2005 I was fortunate enough to spend in China with my girlfriend and her family. They took me under their wing and showed me all around Szechuan from Jin Li square in Chengdu to Le Shan Mountains Buddhist retreat. It was an experience I have yet to surpass. The purpose of this story however isn’t to tell of trip details and tourist destinations, it’s to tell a simple lesson I learned - partially in China, then through bits and puzzle pieces over the next few years as the message filtered its way through time and space.
One portion of China I saw was a Buddhist temple in a very poor rural area known to the locals as the “Green Dragonâ€. The day was hot and overcast, Szechuan is always hot and overcast because of its mountainous boundaries. Our Lexus, scented with fine lilies threaded elegantly on black red string rolled up into a street filled with young children, the elderly and women, open sewage bisected the road, and the people lived in what we in the U.S. would dare to call poverty. I wouldn’t call it poverty, more like desolation. We pulled up to a girl wearing a white men’s t-shirt, our driver, my girlfriends father asks in his harsh sounding chengdu-nese dialect, “where is the Green Dragon Temple?â€
She replied by grunting something with a sly look as she squinted through the window at me, and then pointed to the north. I could see a tuft of black armpit hair reaching out from her shirt sleeve as it rolled back from gravity, “we’re not in Maple Syrup Land anymore†I think to myself.
We drove off and she shrank into the distance behind us in a mustard cloud of dust. We were nearly 5 minutes away Yang says.
We parked around the corner from a concrete building, very state looking construction, plain, lifeless, and gray. Then I noticed a large set of pillars which formed a gate. The gate had ten foot high concrete walls extending from its sides that hugged the entire temple grounds. Inside of the walls it was the most tranquil experience one could imagine. I lit candles and incense (purchased on the grounds) and prayed for guidance and wisdom. Little did I know how prophetic those prayers would be.
When we left, outside of the gates there were many people, It was near biblical in suffering, lepers, the sick, and the starving. Children as young as preteens and elderly as old as 80 winters gone by. And they were begging for money from the rich tourists leaving the temple. A boy approached me with a small cup with some loose coin and a folded note, my instinct was to give, give them the money that I didn’t care about that sat idle in my pocket, more than enough to feed them all. I stopped and as I reached into my pocket my friends pulled me away and insisted it was just a scam, “it’s only a scam, don’t give them anything. They’re scum.â€
I listened to my friends and I shuffled passed them and I hopped into the car and we drove away. Each dip in the road made me feel nauseous, my chest was in pain, like a crushing feeling and my heart ached with each beat as though it was riddled with shards of glass, I felt warm liquid on my cheeks, I was crying, my body was aching for the hurt I didn’t realize I felt. I turned my back on people who needed help, help I could give. I failed my own standards, I broke my own heart. Tears were welling up from an unquenchable spring of sorrow, how could I have been so closed off to the needs of others?
During my trip through the temple I had purchased a few wooden bead bracelets that were supposedly blessed. Each bead had a fat little Buddha carved into it. I took them as a symbol or a memento so I could never forget the trip, I am fond of symbols. After that car ride home I played with the beads in my hand and I began to write a poem out on a scarp piece of paper. The beads reminded me that I spent my money in the wrong place, on trinkets and not on food for those who were hungry. But I had a long road to travel yet, the message effected me through subconscious pain and guilt, I felt ashamed for being so closed off to the suffering of others, so I wore one of the bracelets to mark that shame to myself. The lesson manifest physically.
One portion of China I saw was a Buddhist temple in a very poor rural area known to the locals as the “Green Dragonâ€. The day was hot and overcast, Szechuan is always hot and overcast because of its mountainous boundaries. Our Lexus, scented with fine lilies threaded elegantly on black red string rolled up into a street filled with young children, the elderly and women, open sewage bisected the road, and the people lived in what we in the U.S. would dare to call poverty. I wouldn’t call it poverty, more like desolation. We pulled up to a girl wearing a white men’s t-shirt, our driver, my girlfriends father asks in his harsh sounding chengdu-nese dialect, “where is the Green Dragon Temple?â€
She replied by grunting something with a sly look as she squinted through the window at me, and then pointed to the north. I could see a tuft of black armpit hair reaching out from her shirt sleeve as it rolled back from gravity, “we’re not in Maple Syrup Land anymore†I think to myself.
We drove off and she shrank into the distance behind us in a mustard cloud of dust. We were nearly 5 minutes away Yang says.
We parked around the corner from a concrete building, very state looking construction, plain, lifeless, and gray. Then I noticed a large set of pillars which formed a gate. The gate had ten foot high concrete walls extending from its sides that hugged the entire temple grounds. Inside of the walls it was the most tranquil experience one could imagine. I lit candles and incense (purchased on the grounds) and prayed for guidance and wisdom. Little did I know how prophetic those prayers would be.
When we left, outside of the gates there were many people, It was near biblical in suffering, lepers, the sick, and the starving. Children as young as preteens and elderly as old as 80 winters gone by. And they were begging for money from the rich tourists leaving the temple. A boy approached me with a small cup with some loose coin and a folded note, my instinct was to give, give them the money that I didn’t care about that sat idle in my pocket, more than enough to feed them all. I stopped and as I reached into my pocket my friends pulled me away and insisted it was just a scam, “it’s only a scam, don’t give them anything. They’re scum.â€
I listened to my friends and I shuffled passed them and I hopped into the car and we drove away. Each dip in the road made me feel nauseous, my chest was in pain, like a crushing feeling and my heart ached with each beat as though it was riddled with shards of glass, I felt warm liquid on my cheeks, I was crying, my body was aching for the hurt I didn’t realize I felt. I turned my back on people who needed help, help I could give. I failed my own standards, I broke my own heart. Tears were welling up from an unquenchable spring of sorrow, how could I have been so closed off to the needs of others?
During my trip through the temple I had purchased a few wooden bead bracelets that were supposedly blessed. Each bead had a fat little Buddha carved into it. I took them as a symbol or a memento so I could never forget the trip, I am fond of symbols. After that car ride home I played with the beads in my hand and I began to write a poem out on a scarp piece of paper. The beads reminded me that I spent my money in the wrong place, on trinkets and not on food for those who were hungry. But I had a long road to travel yet, the message effected me through subconscious pain and guilt, I felt ashamed for being so closed off to the suffering of others, so I wore one of the bracelets to mark that shame to myself. The lesson manifest physically.
