The Monk Who Left the Clergy

His name is Zhang Xiao Mo. An orphan from a farming family in the Central Plains, he was fifteen when both his parents died.

A monastery in the mountains took him in. His head was shaved, he donned a monk’s robe, and he was given the Buddhist name Sheng Xian. From then on, his life was meant to be one of lamps and ancient Buddhas, morning bells and evening drums, until one night, the whistle of a train down the mountain reached his ears, and his heart never found peace again.

At eighteen, he left the monastery and joined the army. His comrades called him “Monk Soldier,” and whenever a girl on a blind date heard about his past, she turned and walked away. He thought this was how his life would be: a man who could never wash away the mark of his past.

Until he met Xiu Fen. The young woman said, “So what if you were a monk? You’re not one now.” Those few words pulled him out of the depths of his insecurity. They married and had two children, a boy and a girl. After twenty years of ordinary family life, he had finally become a normal person.

Then Xiu Fen was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was advanced. Kneeling in the hospital corridor, for the first time he didn’t know where to put his hands: he couldn’t press them together in prayer, or raise them in a salute. He wanted to hold on to something, but there was nothing he could grasp.

His wife was gone. His children had grown up. Once again, he was alone.

One morning, he passed the monastery he had known all those years ago and heard the bell ring. He stood there for a long time but didn’t go in. He turned and walked toward the crowds at the market.

This time, he had truly returned to secular life.

This is the story of one man’s half-life: his bond with Buddhism, his bond with a woman, and his bond with the human world. It is also the story of how a man repeatedly battered by fate learns to find a place for his soul