Read Petals from the Sky for Free Online Page B

when I turned nineteen and received a scholarship to go to college. The same year, Father won seventy thousand dollars at the racetrack, enabling our family to move back to the city of Tsim Sha Tsui. Six months later, he lost all that money, so we had to move again—to a slum in Kowloon city. Then the trip to the temple became long and expensive, forcing me to reduce my visits.
    A year later, Yi Kong began to take over the supervision of the Golden Lotus Temple after its chief nun, Wisdom Forest, had become ill and passed away. Whenever I visited her, Yi Kong would express her wish for me to be a nun in her temple. One time she asked, “Meng Ning, do you know you have a perfectly shaped head? I’m sure if it’s shaved, it will be an object of admiration for many monks and nuns.”
    Another time she said, “Meng Ning, you have the rare quiet nature of a high nun. My Shifu, Wisdom Forest, said that if a person has the karma to possess this quality, she should not waste it in the dusty world.”
    Later, when Yi Kong knew that although my interest in being a nun was serious but I had not quite made up my mind to shave my head, she’d change to a joking tone and ask, “Meng Ning, when are you coming to play with us? There’s lots of fun going on here.” Of course I understood that by “coming to play with us,” she meant when would I become a nun in her temple, and “fun” meant helping with her many ambitious projects.
    Being the only child in the family, it was hard for me to tear myself away from my parents and throw myself inside the temple gate. Chinese deem it extremely unfilial for an only child to become a monk or a nun—unless his or her parents have passed away. Otherwise, who would take care of the parents during their old age? Who would carry on the family name? Who would inherit the family’s possessions?

6
    The Fire
    Y i Kong’s voice, pealing like temple bells, woke me from my wandering thoughts. She had just begun her Dharma talk on self-centered thinking.
    “We all like to judge. And no matter whether we feel superior to what we criticize or feel miserable ourselves, we still like to keep the game going. Because in judging—our spouse, our friends, our partners, even strangers on the street—we can make ourselves the center of things.” She paused. “With our mind full of judgments, prejudices, and egotism, we’ll always think things like Why does my sixty-year-old aunt always dress like a young woman? Why does my friend’s father date a young girl half his age? I hate my mother-in-law’s cooking; it’s horrible. ”
    Whispers and suppressed laughter scattered among the audience. Yi Kong waited patiently for the noise to subside, then paused to scrutinize the audience in the front rows, then those in the middle, and finally those in back, as if challenging us all to face the truth.
    “We also fail to realize that what we need is not this self-centered thinking, but functional thinking—to plan our future, to run our business, to study for examinations, even to prepare a good dinner.”
    She went on to talk about how meditation could help to rid us of our attachment. “When you meditate, you’ll discover self-centered thoughts are like monkeys jumping from tree to tree. Meditation is to help stop this monkey business—”
    The audience laughed loudly, cutting off Yi Kong’s speech and dispelling the solemn atmosphere. I saw several boys laugh; one arched his back like a cat ready for mischief; an elderly woman giggled, cupping her mouth. I continued to look around and suddenly saw Michael Fuller. He was also looking at me, slightly turning away from a nun who talked intently to him. It was Compassionate Speech, probably now assigned to translate for him.
    Yi Kong broke the spell of our stare by speaking again. “We have to empty our self-centered thoughts and learn to let go! Detach!—”
    Right then a loud “Fire! Fire!” broke out like a bad dream in the peaceful hall. People