Konrad and Alexandra (PDF) - Rolf Gross

except for a couple, kissing in the dark! Not far from this place, on a sandy flat next to a lake—a cinema! A hummingprojector, an improvised screen, a dozen people on rickety chairs under the open sky. We were speechless.George discovered the restaurant. Nothing but shrimp! Mountains of red shrimp, briefly cooked, with everything on,heads, legs, feelers, hair. George pulled off the head of one, pried the meat out and ate it, as if he had done this all hislife. Wei-ji applauded, and I shook my head. And then it turned out that George as a child used to fish for crayfish in thesummer in the Mingrelian streams! "We ate them raw!" And why had he made such a fuss about eating shrimp inPeking?He laughs. "Remember, I ate them with gusto! I did not know that shrimp looked like pink worms when one cooks thempeeled. Where is the wine? They must be washed down with a glass of wine!"The restaurant owner sent his boy out, who returned with three bottles of a heavy sweetish white wine. By midnight wehad eaten three buckets of shrimp and drunk all the wine.Our visit to Putuo Shan Dao began with a tipsy night.The morning was sunny, the world in new colors. The village did look like it was from southern France. The lake wherethe films had been shown turned out to be full of fat red and golden carps, the sacred pond of the monastery to which leda zigzag footbridge, to confuse the ghosts who can only run straight!A yellow-washed wall surrounded the monastery complex. The man-high character "fo" for Buddha painted in blackstrokes on the wall. It consists of the sign for "self" crossed by two vertical strokes, "the man with no self." The mainmeditation hall towered, slightly elevated at the center surrounded by small buildings, living quarters, a kitchen, prayerhalls with Buddhist images. Everything very simple. Ancient Ginkgo trees gave shade. A rain of golden leaves fell ontothe cobblestones. Like in the fairy tale I filled my pockets with the sacred gold.From the meditation hall came the muffled booms of a heavy drum, above it the chant of a Sutra reading. After every linethe jingle of a bell. At the end of a verse a great gong.The monks wore ash-gray linen jackets and long pants buttoned at the bottom, shaven heads, many young neophytes,intelligent-looking older monks.Through a side entrance I stole into the meditation hall and surprised two novices in an intimate conversation, gesturinghands. Startled, they dashed off. The sound of the big drum filled the hall, resonated in my chest. Under the loweredgaze of a colossal, seated Buddha two rows of monks recited a Sutra. Throughout the room knelt pilgrims on smallcushions. Every time the gong sounded they bowed, touching the bare stone floor with their foreheads.I seated myself in the farthest corner on an empty cushion and abandoned myself to the sound of the drum and thechanting. Then I got on my knees and joined in the bowing. I discovered that the bending down presses the air out ofone’s lungs. One has only to lose oneself entirely to this rhythm, then this becomes an effective meditation exerciseaccessible to anyone. The pilgrims mechanically repeated a formula which I did not understand.When I found Wei-ji and George they were having a glass of wine in the village tavern. George laughed, he had fearedthat I had gone straight to nirvana. They were discussing my cremation, hoping that the incineration of my mortalremains would free the world of my restless foreign spirit (gui-hu) and I would no longer threaten my friends’ sense ofreality. Wei-ji exploded in a peal of laughter. I must have looked nonplussed. But I could understand these two soullessmaterialists, they were bored.In the afternoon we decided to climb the mountain. On our way we passed a nunnery with an over-life-sized recliningBuddha in Paranirvana, the death of the historical Buddha Gautama. The nuns had shaven heads and wore noheadgear. Strange, how similar men and women look without hair.The path to the top of the island mountain climbed straight up the steepest slope, by way of stairs! It was hot and humid.We passed two young girls in heavy clothing who threw themselves on the stairs, got up and two steps onwards threwthemselves down again. In the heat of noon!Wei-ji could not hide her disgust. She said guardedly. "Mr. Konrad, these are Tibetan girls, aren’t they embarrassing? NoChinese would make a show of his emotions like that." I was overcome by contradictory feelings. The surprise of seeingTibetans for the first time, compassion with their devout prostrations, annoyance with Wei-ji’s Chinese arrogance—andthe eminently sensible Confucian insight that man should leave religion to the clerics who specialize in such things. I amafraid it will cost me some time to resolve these contradictions in my mind.At the top of the mountain opened a panoramic view across numerous islands and the open yellow sea, and then Idiscovered that the flags on the mast—squares of colored cloth frayed by wind and weather—were densely printed withTibetan letters, prayer flags, so far from the Land of the White Clouds!Exhausted and thirsty, we asked for a cup of tea in a monastery which cowered, protected from the wind, in a hollow onthe far side of the mountain. The brother doorkeeper produced an intelligent-looking monk of my age who introducedhimself in English as the abbot and inquired after our wishes.Over a cup of tea, its leaves swimming—one strains them with one’s teeth—I collected my courage and asked the abbotfor the history of early Ch'an.In contrast to the Sufi, the Chinese have a very pronounced sense for history. The abbot gave us a brief description ofthis Chinese variant of Buddhism. Bodhidharma, the mythical founder, came to China from southern India in the sixth176