Return to Suzhou

Someday I make take my own advice. As marvelous as it is to enter a room, make a circle of people hungry to know something and proceed to create a universe in the image of the world as we would like it, it’s not the whole story. 

We all also need to just get out into the world and wander, to awaken to wonder while we wander. To let go of an identity forged by willful, focused, relentless work and release into that nobody-in-particular who is in awe of the sights and sounds around us. No matter how life-giving and joyful that identity may be, it’s important to remember it’s not the whole story. 

 

And so I set off on a little pilgrimage to Xiyuan Temple in Suzhou, a place I had visited in 2006 and remembered being astonished by it. I was awestruck by the giant statues depicting the many different incarnations of Buddha and disappointed that there was a clear “no photography” sign. In a rare act of compliance to the law, I refrained from taking any photos and then regretted not having the images to remember and share. In the back of my mind, I always thought, “I have to go back there some day.”

 

Today was the day. Earlier this week, at a dinner out with my hosts, I noted that we seemed to be far from downtown Shanghai and they confirmed that is was over an hour away. On a long shot, I asked if we were close to Suzhou and the exciting answer was, “20 minutes by train.” I had Saturday somewhat free and told them the story of wanting to return there. Within ten minutes, it was all arranged. Yet another sterling example of both the generosity and the organizational skills of my hosts. 

We pulled into Suzhou around 9:30 and it looked nothing like I remember. 18 years ago, it was a sleepy little town with barely a high-rise and a reputation as “The Venice of the East,” a reference to the various canals (minus gondolas) threading through the town. Now it looked like Sao Paolo, endless rows of 30 story buildings. We left our bags at a hotel, took the omnipresent Chinese Uber to the Temple and there it was, more or less as I remembered it. 

 

First stop was to get some incense, light it and then join the many folks bowing in the four directions with the lit sticks. Into the courtyard, enter the main temple and three bows to each of the Buddhas in the four directions, each one representing a different aspect of our true nature— the calm smiling one, the demon, the one playing the lute, the warrior. I’ve often felt like my non-attraction to Christianity came from the way it reduces our polytheistic natures to just a few— The Father and the Son. (Admit it, who really knows who the heck the Holy Ghost is?). The entrance of the Virgin Mary in Medieval Times was an enormous boost in the theology (witness the cultural explosion of art and music and cathedrals named Notre Dame), but still doesn’t compare with ancient Greece, the West African orishas, the Buddhist incarnations and most extraordinary of all, the Hindu Gods and Goddesses.

 

Circumambulating the inside of the temple, there were some twenty other statues representing a pantheon of Buddhist guardians, each with their own particular territory— love, kindness, charity, etc. So far I wondered why I thought these statues were so extraordinary in that first visit. As I circled to the back, there was a three-dimensional depiction of the heavens where all the Bodhisattvas live and I thought, “Perhaps it was this.” (A few photos to come). 

 

Out into the gardens, some folks gathering around a few cats, many feeding the carp in the pond, some climbing in and about jagged rocks with staircases threading through. My host Tonny and I then went inside a busy, bustling restaurant that served only one dish— a fabulous ramen in broth with vegetables and tofu. You sat wherever there was an empty seat with strangers slurping their soup and there, elbow to elbow with the buzzing, jostling crowd, skin slick with sweat, not a class plan in my head and a delicious anonymity, I paused for a moment and silently exclaimed, “I am home.”

 

Home meaning actually in a particular place in a particular time. Actually in China, without a Starbucks or KFC in sight, without me sharing songs and games in English, with kids and parents and grandparents bowing to remarkable statues in public, with a few sidewalk vendors selling sour plum tea, dumplings, fans and such, feeling my Buddhist ancestors around me as I walked through the temple grounds. The kind of travel I’ve delighted in my whole life and doesn’t easily come without me making an effort to find it. 

 

And today I did. Perhaps it didn’t quite reach the exalted epiphany my 18-year wait promised, but still, it was marvelous. Now back on the train to Beijing and a 5:00 pm flight tomorrow back home.   (8/31)