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August 2023
Dear Friends,
I’d like to share an old Chinese ghost story that went on to become a famous kong-an.
Once, in a village by a river, a girl and a boy, second cousins, grew up together as inseparable companions. They were so close that the girl’s father once joked that they seemed married already. Eventually, they did fall in love. However, the girl’s father announced that she was to marry a different man.
The girl, Ch’ien, and her sweetheart, Wang-chou, were devastated, and Wang-chou was so upset that he decided to take his boat and leave the village. Just as he began to sail down the river, he saw Ch’ien standing on the riverbank. She stepped into the boat and they escaped down river together.
Five years passed. They had two children and were very happy, except that from time to time Ch’ien would burst into tears because she missed her family. They decided to return, and when they arrived home, Ch’ien waited in the boat while Wang-chou went up to her house to ask forgiveness for leaving with their daughter. Her father seemed surprised, and said, “What? From the day you left, Ch’ien has been upstairs lying on her bed, looking so sad, and she’s never said a word.”
Just then, Ch’ien from the boat arrived at the door, and suddenly the Ch’ien from upstairs came down to the entrance. The two Ch’iens looked at one another, smiled, and walked right into one another. Instantly, they became one.
We can recognize this quality of being of two minds, undecided, torn between, conflicted. Because of this ever-so-human condition, we can also understand how this occurs in the larger social and political spheres of countries torn apart by conflicted views. How do we become one? This pivotal question informs our practice direction, opens our eyes to our Buddha Nature, and sets us on a path to see one another and ourselves, as one, and also, just as we are.
Yours, just exactly where we meet,
Jeong Ji
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