Searching for Buddha

By Xiao-zi

Ahead of us walked a Tibetan family. From time to time they would all stop and fall prostrate to the ground, measuring their length in the mud.

"Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." (Acts 4:12)

"If we Chinese must have a religion, then it is Buddhism which seems easier for us to accept."

When I try to preach the Gospel to Chinese people, I am likely to get this kind of response. In fact back in 1991 when I went on a long journey in inner China, this was exactly my own mind-set. At the time, I was just beginning to switch from reading Buddhist books to reading the Bible. and I had many questions. So I decided to travel, hoping that by visiting famous mountain shrines and Buddhist temples I could get my thoughts together.

What I really hoped for was that on my travels I might have some wonderful and inspiring encounters with Buddhism. How this was would happen I had no idea. In my imagination, I could see some ancient sage with white eyebrows and bronze countenance, seated beside a raging waterfall, holding a cup out to me and helping me out of my confusion.

To my surprise, the trip started rather weirdly. Originally there were five or six of us preparing to go, some already Buddhists and some claiming to be atheists. I anticipated that we would be learning from one another or debating together on the way. But just as we were about to set off, some of the group fell sick and others had urgent business. In the end there was only one other person besides myself able to keep the commitment. So the two of us took the train inland. And this other person was a Christian.

Human suffering?

The first stop on our westward journey was the Qingzang Plateau. After going around the famous tourist attractions, we set out to areas further inland where very few tourists go. The deeper we penetrated into Tibetan territory, the more pervasive the religious atmosphere became. We saw black-robed monks meandering along the streets quietly moaning or uttering quiet sighs. Even the sheets on our hotel beds smelled of the grease in the lamps before the Buddhist altars. We followed the local Tibetans to their Lama Temple.

It was raining and the streets were muddy. Ahead of us was a Tibetan family. From time to time they would all stop, and fall prostrate to the ground, measuring their length in the mud. Then they would get up and go on. They did the same thing again and again. Their two small children, aged about five or six, stumbling along beside them, would one moment find themselves shoved down into a muddy puddle and the next picked up on to their feet again. The family wore long sweeping Tibetan robes, and as they went by they looked to us like a few tattered bundles of rags floating on a muddy sea.

I suddenly thought back to the Buddhist teaching that "All human activities are simply aspects of suffering: life, old age, sickness and death..." Here was this pious Tibetan family demonstrating by symbolic actions how human life does, in fact, consist of suffering. Oh, how we long to finally escape from these sufferings!

After leaving the Lama Temple, we were wandering around a nearby street market and spotted the same Tibetan family. They were sitting on a nearby piece of open ground with a simple picnic lunch spread out on a piece of cloth. The two children were playing chasing with each other as their parents watched on fondly. They were smiling happily, their white teeth gleaming in the fresh sunshine.

I began to feel really confused. Human suffering? If everything we do brings only suffering, then why should it be so difficult for people to let go?

Christianity speaks of suffering too, but only after assuring us of a joyous hereafter. When God created the world, He declared that it was all very good. And if it is good, you cannot logically go on to deny or negate it all. I had always thought that the task of religion was to advise people how to renounce the world. Now I suddenly understood that your starting point can make a big difference. Buddhism wants to negate life, to reject it, while Christianity talks about affirming life and passing it on.

Eternal life versus samsara

Our mini tour group had started out with just two people. But as we moved on we met up with other 'pilgrims' so that by the time we reached Sichuan, there were ten of us in the group. We were all lively young people, prepared to face any hardship or adventure - except for boring tours. That year Sichuan had had a large number of landslides. When we got there, the long-distance bus on the route to Jiu Zhai Gou had already been out of service for more than a week. We had to stay on in Chengdu for three days and every day we went along to the bus station to check if there would be a bus running. On the fourth day, the people at the bus station seemed more amenable and we insisted on getting going. After we had given a guarantee that we would waive their liability, they agreed to resume service.

Almost everybody in this world lives life each day cherishing the strange notion that death will never come their way. Does anybody ever ask himself, "Is this the day when I am going to die?" Young people are especially like this. But our trip to Jiu Zhai Gou saw me facing death for the first time. As our bus started its ascent up the narrow spiralling road, our hearts seemed to be suspended in fear. We saw chilling scenes caused by land slides, where huge chunks of rocks and mud had swept across the road, making the narrow passage even narrower. Whenever the bus driver made a sudden swerve, the two outside wheels of the bus seemed to hang in mid-air, while we lurched backwards and forwards. One minute we were like wingless eagles being hurled out over the sea and the next like sinking kites being doggedly dragged back up. On this particular adventure, our merry laughter was strangely stilled. The boys' mouths were clenched shut as their faces turned green. The girls made good use of their feminine liberty to scream and screech. Far below us we could see the mangled wreckage of two cars. Even our driver lost his nerve. He stopped the bus and asked us to take a break.

"Next stop is Hell's Gate. Get ready for it!" he called out.

One person started cursing. However had we managed get ourselves stuck away up here? But human life inevitably has its crises. You may be able to escape some of them, but you cannot escape them all. I had often found reasons to avoid thinking about death. But now I had to face up it. Wasn't it a kind of fate?

What happens after death? I asked myself. "If Buddhism is true, then how can I know what I will be in my next life? A dog? a rich person? an imbecile? How much good do we have to do to ensure a good next life? Or perhaps there is simply nothing after death. If so, why should I bother to do good in this life? I don't know. I really don't know."

"I know the Lord will protect us!" Someone in the bus was standing up and speaking in a loud voice. It was the Christian in our party. "Let's pray together. When we are in trouble the Lord will give us His peace. When we face death, He will give us His eternal joy !" she announced confidently.

Normally we would all have all laughed at her, but at this crucial moment we could only look at her gratefully. We calmed down as we set off again. Our companion continued standing as the bus tossed up and down like a wok in a chef's hands and she sang hymns to encourage us. Before we knew it, Hell's Gate was behind us. The driver, who had turned away awkwardly during our friend's prayer, now turned around and gave her the thumbs-up. I was deeply moved.

More than once I had argued with her that there was really not much difference between the Christian eternity and the Buddhist samsara. But could I have stood up and made positive assertions about the future of all of us? I was not even sure of my own future, let alone that of other people. Not even a high-ranking monk could have encouraged us with such words of hope and of faith.

In the face of certain death, all human philosophies lose their meaning. So how was it that an ordinary Christian was able to be so calmly confident of her own destiny and at the same time to bring spiritual comfort to those around her?

True God versus man-made gods

Many of us have heard the story about religions concerning a father who had a pure gold ring that he wanted to pass on to his descendants. But how could he do this, since he had not one but three sons? So he had the ring melted down, divided the metal into three parts and made three rings out of them before passing them on to his three sons. As time went by, the three sons started arguing with each other, each claiming that only his ring was the true inheritance and that the others were fakes. The three rings represent Christianity, Buddhism and Islam.

I had always thought that this was a most interesting illustration and when I was traveling around Chongqing, the story came to my mind again. We were having a hot-pot dinner in a street where there were a large number of restaurants and each one was claiming to offer the best hot-pot dinner in town. So I told the story to my Christian companion. I pointed to the restaurant manager who was busy inviting passers-by to come in, "Look at that. How can you tell which one is right and which ones aren't?"

My friend did not reply, but kept on eating. After a while she raised her head and said through the steam from the hot-pot, "If you had a pure gold ring, would you melt it down and mix it with other metal? Name-brand factories do everything they can to protect their own brands and to defend themselves against fake products. If God is truly God, isn't He powerful enough to defend Himself against human blunders so that His truth can be handed on without distortion?" "But how do you know that yours is the genuine article?" I continued to challenge her.

"Truth only becomes clearer through debate," she said firmly, with no sign of giving way, "You figure it out."

Actually my biggest problem with Christianity was that it sounded too simple. God has created the heavens and the earth; Jesus saves; repent and you will receive eternal life. This is all Christianity is about. Buddhism is far more mysterious. Thousands of Buddhist scriptures and hundreds of Buddhist schools offer profound and convincing words of wisdom. Isn't that what truth and true philosophy should be like?

But my friend was not at all impressed by this, however: "Too many words are a sign of ambiguity," she said, "If something isn't clear, you are only left with different kinds of guesswork. But if you really know something, you can explain it in a few words."

I had to keep my mouth shut because I was afraid she would ask me what Buddhism was. And that couldn't possibly be explained in just a few words.

My partner pointed to the hot pot with her chopsticks, "You're right about real hot-pots and phoney hot-pots. It is not easy to find the real one. But no matter how many faked ones there may be, there must also be a real one. So you can't refuse to believe in the real one simply because you are afraid of fakes."

Wonders in the City of Demons

We left Sichuan and took the boat downstream along the Yangtse River. Alongside the river there was a city called the City of Demons. The city was famed as being close to the mouth of hell. It was said that everyone who went there, no matter how evil they were, would give up their wickedness and be converted to Buddhism.

But recent news was that the City of Demons was soon to be washed away as a result of the Gorges Dam construction project. So that year the city had become a great tourist attraction. As our boat moored at the jetty, we saw that the whole city was full of banners and burning incense. There were tourists everywhere, with cameras around their necks and their bags stuffed with souvenirs.

Our party didn't want to be left out, so we gathered around a street pedlar to buy incense. After some intense bargaining, my friends bought some incense sticks and headed off in the direction of the temple to burn them. I was left alone with the pedlar and was buying an incense burner from her. But when I came to pay for it, the pedlar started insisting that my friends hadn't paid for the incense they had bought and to demand that I should pay for it all. But I could clearly remember them paying for what they had bought. So I refused and started arguing with her. But the pedlar was a very skilled adversary. Before I realized it, some other pedlars had come over and were surrounding me, refusing to let me leave. I was helpless, and in the end I had to give in.

This bad experience took away all my excitement about the city. I had thought that the purpose of the City of Demons was to convert the wicked. So I found it hard to understand, then, how these pedlars who faced the City every day could be so indifferent about good and evil!

I was still feeling angry when my Christian companion ran over to me, an ice cream stick in her hand. "What a coincidence!" she exclaimed.

She said she had gone to buy an ice cream and began to chat with the old lady who was selling ice creams. She found out that the old lady was also a Christian, who had suffered a great deal during the Cultural Revolution. Her husband was very ill and she had to make a living by selling ice creams.

I became curious and asked her to take me to meet her. Very soon we spotted this smiling old lady under a big tree, selling ice-creams. I went over and bought one and began to chat with her. Still mindful of my recent bad experience I asked her, half-jokingly, "Granny, do you believe in Christianity because you are afraid of going to hell after you die?"

"If you don't know about God, what do you have to be afraid of?" the old lady retorted. She pointed at to people around us, "You see all those people there? How many of them really fear the gods? They burn incense and they worship the Buddha. But it is nothing more than a formality. Their hearts are never touched."

"But Christianity also teaches about morality, doesn't it? Isn't that the same as Buddhism?" I asked again.

"No, it is quite different," she said, "To worship the Buddha is to try to ensure a good next life for yourself. We believe in the Lord and that we gain eternal life by the Lord's grace and through Jesus, not because of our own deeds."

"What do you think is the greatest advantage in believing?" I really wanted to know how this old lady viewed her own difficult experiences and sufferings.

"Advantage?" She stared at me, lost for words. Then she told me that God was very close to her. In the Bible God likens himself to a Father; the church is his bride, and Jesus is our friend. So the close relationship between God and ourselves is comparable to our relationships with parents, between husband and wife and friends all put together. Nothing else even comes close.

Looking at this wrinkled old face, I suddenly understood something that had never previously occurred to me about Christianity: It is not only about truth, it is about compassion. Truth is something everybody can afford to pursue. But compassion requires receptivity and sacrifice, responsibility and faith. Human beings do not easily make such concessions.

"Their hearts are never touched." Perhaps Buddhism's greatest attraction was that I didn't have to have my heart touched. I could do all kinds of things like fasting, reading the scriptures, studying knowledge, all without having to lower myself to enter into a true relationship with a divine Being.

But, if there is no evidence of compassion, then our religion has never transformed our lives. If this old lady had not been so close to her Lord, she would never have known such support during her years of suffering.

Could Buddhism really provide me with this kind of testimony to compassion? If the heart is not touched, can 'good deeds' bring about true life transformation?

It dawns on me

To sum up, I reaped an unexpected harvest from my journey in search of the Buddha. Now whenever I discuss Buddhism with someone, I remember the Buddhist poem:

The Bodhi tree is no tree;
the shining mirror is no mirror.
There is nothing to begin with;
where does dust come from?

The poem is supposed to show the poet's understanding of the theory of emptiness. It teaches that Buddhism means emptiness. But when everything is empty, your life can bear no weight. King Solomon also talked about emptiness: "All is meaningless." But he still had his Lord, the Creator of Heaven and earth. And because of this Lord, Solomon's life was rich and complete.

Today we are fortunate in being able to hear the Gospel; we do not need to go wandering around as our forefathers did. We need only take one step to find the true God and the abundant life that He provides.

The Bodhi tree leads to nowhere;
The shining mirror shows the true mirror.
Apart from the Lord's grace,
We'd be stuck in the dust.

The author is from Shanghai. She taught English in college and went on to gain a Master's degree in English literature. She now lives in China.