Hidden Monastery

by Gabrielle Wang

  The Abbot put his hand under Jax’s chin and lifted his head. ‘You look well enough, Mingzi. Come, maybe some more training might drive this invisible illness away.’

  ‘Yes, Abbot.’ Jax lowered his head so he wouldn’t meet the Abbot’s eyes.

  ‘And you,’ the Abbot growled at Yu Yu, ‘are meant to be on duty in the vegetable garden, are you not?’

  ‘Yes, Abbot.’

  ‘Well, you better go then.’

  ‘Yes, Abbot.’ Yu Yu gave Jax a quick wink then ran down the stairs.

  ‘Come with me, Mingzi,’ the Abbot said.

  Jax followed the Abbot along the balcony and down the stairs. He wanted so much to ask him about the drawing in the book and about this creature called Peng and what it had to do with him.

  The Abbot turned to Jax. ‘Come and walk beside me,’ he said.

  Jax caught up to him.

  ‘You must be patient, Mingzi,’ the Abbot said. ‘Everything will be revealed to you at the right time. First you must train hard to prove that you are worthy of being a Peng Master. Can you do that?’

  ‘Yes, Abbot. I think I can,’ Jax replied. Then he looked into the Abbot’s eyes. ‘I know I can.’

  ‘Good.’

  It was then that Jax made a solemn vow to himself – to become the best student the Abbot had ever seen, and show that he could be a Peng Master.

  A Whoosh in the Dark

  Yu Yu was sitting cross-legged on a perfectly round stone in the Courtyard of Imaginings when Jax and the Abbot arrived. She hadn’t quite made it to the vegetable garden. The Abbot shot her a stern glance, ordering her away with a flick of his hand. ‘Please let me stay, Abbot,’ she pleaded. ‘I can learn a lot from watching, you said so yourself.’

  ‘Ai… Qu, qu, qu… Go!’ the Abbot said.

  Yu Yu sighed, and slowly walked off.

  ‘She can be a very stubborn girl, sometimes,’ the Abbot said, turning to Jax. ‘Mingzi, come over here and feel the trunk of this gingko tree.’ The Abbot stood under the branches that stretched almost to the edges of the courtyard. He rubbed the massive trunk affectionately. ‘This tree is over one thousand years old and has survived through war, drought and floods.’

  ‘How can anything live to be that old?’ asked Jax, looking up through the branches.

  ‘It knows a secret,’ the Abbot smiled.

  ‘A secret?’

  ‘Yes. It gathers food from the sun and the soil. But it uses only what is necessary. The rest it stores away. Conserving energy, that is its secret. In order to become a great Peng Master, you must be like this tree and not waste energy on unnecessary actions, thoughts or emotions. A Peng Master must understand that everything in the universe is interconnected. To see things on a much broader scale.

  We are connected to the trees, to the sea, to the earth, to the sun, to the moon. Therefore what we do today will affect tomorrow. Every act you perform, no matter how small, impacts on something else. It is like the vegetable garden at the back of the monastery. You must look after the seedlings now, then they will grow and produce a good crop. If you fail to give them water and let the weeds take over, then the seedlings will choke and die. Your mind, Mingzi, is also like a vegetable garden. You must nourish it with only good thoughts and weed out the bad. You must conserve your energy. Do you understand?’

  Jax knew he had a lot to work on, especially weeding out the bad thoughts. But his mind was no longer muddled like it used to be. And he felt stronger now than he had ever felt before. He looked at the Abbot and nodded.

  ‘Good.’ The Abbot put his arm around Jax and smiled. ‘The basic training usually takes years, but you, Mingzi, will have to do it in a fraction of that time. The silver wind is approaching too quickly.’

  ‘But… but how can I learn that fast?’

  ‘Have you not felt different since arriving here? Stronger, faster? Can you not feel that part of you is being fed by your connection to this place and your connection with Peng? As long as you work hard, it will be possible. You are destined to be a Peng Master, don’t forget. You have special skills that ordinary boys do not. First we will begin with stretching your muscles and tendons, while making them strong, keeping a balance. We will also make your eyes as sharp as an eagle’s, and your ears as sensitive as those of an owl. But most important of all – your spirit must be strengthened. Are you ready?’

  Jax nodded, excited to begin. He imagined walking over flaming coals, or climbing tall cliffs and jumping off them.

  ‘I can see what you are thinking,’ the Abbot smiled. ‘And discipline by accomplishing difficult tasks is good training. But the hardest part about strengthening your spirit is – relaxation.’

  ‘Relaxing?’ Jax was puzzled. ‘You mean just sitting around looking at clouds and stuff?’

  ‘Relaxing means letting go. You let go of all the tense areas you find in your body, then you relax and clean your mind. Remember, just take away the energy from any thoughts that bother you.’

  Jax thought instantly of Ma’s gold necklace, and he felt his chest tighten and his heart begin to race.

  ‘Breathe,’ the Abbot said. ‘Breathe deeply. And relax. Then think of what you can do to solve your problem. If you find you cannot do anything right now, relax that image in your mind, and let it float away. Do not give it any more energy, and it will go of its own accord.’

  Jax fought to push the image of the necklace away but it kept stubbornly reappearing.

  ‘Learning to relax is indeed difficult,’ the Abbot said. ‘We all want to struggle! You will learn to relax, but it takes time. For now, let us do something else.’

  He told Jax to jump up and hang off one of the lower branches of the gingko tree, letting his arms stretch and stretch. Then he had to hang from his knees, with his arms held down, to stretch his back. Over the next few hours, Jax learned how to stretch every part of his body, and the Abbot told him that he should stretch every day when he woke up, and again before training.

  By the time the dinner-drum sounded, Jax was glad the day was over. His muscles were sore and his mind, exhausted.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Yu Yu peeping around one of the pillars, beckoning him over.

  ‘Hao le, good,’ the Abbot smiled. ‘You did very well today. Get some dinner and we will begin your hearing training tonight.’

  More school after dinner! Jax thought. But he had to admit that learning this way wasn’t boring like sitting in a classroom.

  Jax bowed to the Abbot respectfully, then crossed the courtyard to meet Yu Yu.

  ‘I’ve come to get you for dinner. What have you been learning?’ she said.

  ‘Stretching and breathing and stuff. My whole body aches.’

  ‘You’ll get used to it. E le ma? Hungry?’

  ‘Mmm… starving.’

  ‘Good, then you can try some of my dumplings. I made two hundred,’ she said proudly. ‘Still got floury hands. See…’ She held up a pair of ghostly white hands.

  ‘I thought you were meant to be working in the vegetable garden.’

  ‘I was, but I got hungry so I decided to help Cook Fan in the kitchen instead.’

  Dinner that night consisted of bean curd prepared in four different ways and lots of different vegetables. Jax thought Yu Yu’s dumplings were the best. They were stuffed with dried mushrooms, young bamboo shoots, water chestnuts and cabbage all finely minced.

  Jax was about to put the last one in his mouth when he saw the tiny monk, Lao Tan, nod at him from the other table. Jax looked at Yu Yu. He wasn’t sure who Lao Tan was nodding at, as the little monk was slightly cross-eyed.

  ‘Lao Tan wants you.’ Yu Yu nudged him in the ribs with her elbow. ‘You’ve got to go with him. I’ll eat your last dumpling.’ She reached over and took it from his bowl before he had time to answer. ‘Off you go then.’

  Jax was too tired to do any more training. But then he remembered the vow he had made to himself – to be the best student the Abbot had ever seen. He got up
from the table and followed the little monk out of the dining hall to a small room at the side of the monastery. A strong smell of pickled turnips made Jax’s eyes and nose smart. He looked around. Barrels and sacks of rice and flour had been pushed hard up against the walls, and dried cabbages hung from the rafters like withered green hands.

  ‘Sit down and be as quiet as you can,’ said Lao Tan, pointing to a sack in the middle of the room.

  Jax sat down and crossed his legs, wondering what was going to happen next. The door closed, plunging the room into blackness. Jax couldn’t even see his own hand in front of his face. He sat very still, waiting. Where was Lao Tan? Had he locked Jax in there all by himself? He listened for the sound of breathing, but could only hear his own breath and his heart pounding. Just as he was beginning to feel scared:

  Whoosh… then Whack!

  He felt something soft but solid hit him in the side of the head. ‘Ow,’ he cried out.

  He heard Lao Tan giggle and turned towards the sound. But before he could utter a word…

  Thwack!

  This time it hit him full in the face.

  Lao Tan giggled again.

  Jax punched out angrily. ‘Lao Tan. Stop. I don’t like it. It hurts.’

  But then he realised that if he talked, he couldn’t hear the thing coming. He sat very still, hardly daring to breathe.

  From his left side, he heard the whoosh coming towards him. But this time, it was as if everything had slowed down. He ducked, feeling it nick his ear.

  ‘Hao, hao, hao…’ laughed Lao Tan. ‘You learn fast. For now it’s only a handkerchief full of dirt, hung on a string from the ceiling above you. But as your ears get better, we will make the string into thread, and the bag into something harder.’

  Jax was not sure he liked the sound of that.

  Lao Tan seemed to be having the time of his life, giggling and laughing every time he heard the whump of the bag hitting Jax in the head. But as the evening grew late, Jax found that without even trying too hard, he could tell which direction the bag was coming from.

  ‘Hao le,’ Lao Tan said, opening a window to let in the moonlight. ‘That’s enough for now – you are getting tired. Have some sleep. Tomorrow the Abbot will teach you to stand and to walk.’

  ‘I can already stand, and walk, just fine!’ Jax said under his breath, annoyed at the little monk making fun of him all the time.

  This only made Lao Tan laugh even harder. ‘Oh, no, I don’t mean like that. You will learn to move in a new way, a natural way that lets your mind and body move as one. Like the way a cat moves, graceful and strong, with no wasted energy. Go now, Mingzi. You have done well!’

  Jax felt himself fill with pride. He stood up and brushed some dirt off his shoulder. ‘Thank you, Lao Tan,’ he said, bowing respectfully.

  As they stepped out of the room, a sudden gust of wind blew several tiles off the roof. Lao Tan quickly jumped out of the way, pushing Jax with him. The tiles smashed on the paving stones below.

  The little monk looked up at the sky and frowned. ‘That’s strange,’ he said. ‘We never get strong wind like that in Whispering Cloud Monastery. Something very bad must be coming.’

  Jax wondered at Lao Tan’s comments. Then he thought, it’s true. Since coming to the monastery he had only felt a gentle breeze, even though there were always dark clouds in the sky above.

  ‘Quickly, Mingzi. Go and rest. Tomorrow you will need to work hard again.’ Lao Tan’s voice held an urgent note. ‘There is not much time left.’

  A Shadow Leaves the Monastery

  Jax said goodbye to Lao Tan and headed towards the monks’ quarters. As he crossed the courtyard, he glimpsed a dark shadow slipping quietly out through the front gates of the monastery. He stopped, wondering who could be going out at this time of night. Didn’t the Abbot say that the gates had to be kept closed? Maybe he should tell Yu Yu. No, all Jax could think of now was sleep. His body was sore from the stretching and his head throbbed.

  The frogmouth owls sat huddled together, their backs to the wind. They watched the Abbot close the gate and leave the quiet of Whispering Cloud Monastery. Their heads turned as one as he passed beneath them. The Abbot was wearing his purple ceremonial robe and it flapped around his legs as he strode by. Clutching a small cloth bag in one hand, he headed quickly through the rainforest towards the lake.

  From within the stillness under the branches of the ancient banyan tree, the Abbot looked out over the water. The surface of the lake was covered with small waves. He relaxed and let his mind float out of his body.

  Peng… Peng… The Abbot called the creature, just as the wind and the moon had called him before.

  From deep within his underwater cavern, Peng felt the strong vibrations through the water. He heard a voice and raised his head to listen.

  It is time, Peng… it is time.

  The Abbot took the small cloth bag and poured a powder, made from finely ground herbs, into the palm of his hand. Bending down, he carefully sprinkled the powder in a large circle around him. Then he waited, his eyes closed, his mind stilled.

  Before long, Peng’s massive head rose out of the lake. Seeing the Abbot, he let out a bell-like cry that skipped over the water, wrapping around the Abbot’s thoughts and melting into them. Tears clouded the Abbot’s eyes as he felt his connection with this young creature.

  Peng swam towards the Abbot, and when he reached the old man standing inside the circle of herbs, he knew instinctively what to do. He lowered his head and let the Abbot lay a palm on his forehead.

  They stayed there all night, and it was not until the first bird-call of morning sounded that Peng slipped back into the waters of the lake.

  The Abbot hurried back to Whispering Cloud Monastery. He had completed his task. Behind him, a sudden gust of wind struck across the water, whipping the waves into a frenzy, and the branches of the ancient banyan tree groaned.

  The Fighting Moves of Gongfu

  As Jax became used to temple life, his old life with family and school seemed to fade into the distance. He didn’t miss home like he thought he would. It was as if he had wrapped up all the old parts of himself and put them away for a while. The monastery was his whole world now.

  Days passed and the Abbot and the monks taught Jax how to stand – completely relaxed – in the gongfu ready posture, but with an inner core of upright strength. Then how to walk, softly and quietly, but with an unbreakable connection to the ground, which meant he could not be easily pushed over. Only after he was able to do all these things well did they begin to teach him how to punch and kick and leap and turn.

  Yu Yu had explained it to him, ‘You must be able to stand before you can walk, and solid walking is your foundation. You have learned much more quickly than I did. I stood for months, doing nothing else.’ She laughed. ‘The Abbot wanted me to practise standing relaxed, but without slouching or drooping. That allows you to draw energy from the earth itself, and makes you strong inside. Then you learn to walk without losing that connection to the energy so that when you punch or kick, it has power.’

  Jax would practise a single movement one thousand times, a punch or a kick, until it felt as normal as taking a step. His balance was perfect and if Lao Bing tried to push him over it was as if he had roots growing out of the soles of his feet. He was immovable. Sometimes Yu Yu would creep up from behind and then, as if he had eyes in the back of his head, he would spin around and block her punch. Or she would try to kick him, but he would leap away like a cat. Then they would laugh and laugh.

  He loved to watch Yu Yu practise. She had trained since she was three years old and was especially good at Flying Star – a metal tear-drop on a long chain. She could punch and kick and spin around with the ball and chain hidden in her hand. Then, as she came out of a cartwheel, the chain would fly out three metres to strike her target, a tiny peanut sitting on Lao Bing’s palm. Quickly drawing it back, she would send the chain flying up and over her shoulder, then twist it around her neck, ci
rcling smaller and smaller, then larger and larger until suddenly, it would leap out to strike a small bell hanging in the gingko tree. With a sharp flick of her wrist, the chain would spring back to fold up neatly, making the tear-drop land in her hand.

  But to Jax, the most amazing of all was how quickly he was learning the art of gongfu. All his life he had felt distracted, confused and muddled. There was always a noise in his head, like when you listen to the radio and it’s not quite tuned to the right station. The Abbot said that learning in a classroom was not always the best way for everyone. ‘A caged cricket will never sing as sweetly as one that is free,’ he had once told Jax.

  Jax’s eyesight had also improved so that now he could see in the dark almost as well as he could see in daylight. It was as if he was seeing everything clearly for the first time, the world was in such sharp focus. There was only one thing Yu Yu could still beat him at: a strange game they called tuishou – push hands. They would stand facing each other, one leg forward, and hold each other very lightly on the arms. The rules said that you could not tighten your grip and use strength to push the other person: you only lightly touched arms and moved them in circles. Time after time, Jax found himself suddenly off-balance, without Yu Yu pushing him at all!

  ‘This exercise shows you where you are not relaxed,’ she said. ‘I feel those tense spots through your arms, and gently move until your posture is so contorted you can’t stand up any more.’

  The Abbot walked up as she was speaking. ‘She is right, Mingzi,’ he said. ‘And there is one thing you have not relaxed yet: your idea of yourself. Let go, and don’t mind too much if you look stupid. To learn, here, you must lose and lose, and by losing, learn to win.’

  Jax found that almost the hardest thing of all. He still cared what he looked like in front of people, especially Yu Yu.

  During the times when he wasn’t training, Jax would sit on the terrace with Yu Yu, their backs warm against the sundrenched wall and she would ask him questions about the world outside. Jax would try to answer them as best he could, but it was as if his mind was filled with fog and now he could see only vague images of streets and people and buildings. Deep down, Jax knew that he would go back there again one day, but for now, he was perfectly happy to be where he was, in Whispering Cloud Monastery.