Clear Scales Reflect a Meditative Heart

On a rainy night, after her husband is murdered, a heavily pregnant woman staggers to the door of a ruined temple deep in the mountains. Inside is only an old monk, withered as an ancient tree. She gives birth, dies of exhaustion, and entrusts her baby to him with her dying breath. The monk silently takes the tiny, warm life into his arms and names him Wang Yan.

From then on, the old monk and the boy live together, keeping watch over their crumbling temple. Wang Yan grows up with his master’s quiet “Mm” as his only response. He once saves an injured green snake and names it A Qing. He thinks this is all the world has to offer: plain rice porridge, meditation, firewood from the back hill, and the occasional little green shadow that appears and quietly slips away.

Then, one autumn day, his master passes away without a sound, yet his body does not decay. A wealthy merchant passing by treats it as a priceless treasure, turning the ruined temple into a shrine to the “Flesh Buddha,” said to turn stone into gold. The clamor instantly devours the last of the silence.

Kneeling before the “golden body” that thousands have suddenly begun to worship, Wang Yan feels nothing but bone-deep absurdity. The person they venerate is not the master who ate cold porridge and gave him a gentle cough to remind him of things. Amid the drifting incense, he takes off the new monk’s robe others have given him and puts his patched old clothes back on. He picks up his master’s worn-smooth staff and puts on his tattered bamboo hat.

As the crowd clamors, bowing its heads and begging for blessings, the boy walks against the flow of people, alone, down the weed-choked path behind the temple. Outside the mountain gate, the world is ablaze with excitement over a miracle. Within it lies the entire past he has just buried with his own hands: an old monk and a little snake.

In the end, no one in this world can guard another person’s silence for them.