:: Chants ::

Artisha Sutra, Verse 41.

"But without practice of the perfection of wisdom,
The obstructions will not come to an end."

'Buddhism,' says my mother, taking my hand in hers in an instinctive moment of motherly guidance as we neared the temple, 'it's not a religion.'

'Maybe not for you,' I reply, nodding to the throngs of people―young and old, men and women, trendy and dull, the wealthy in dress, the desolute in spirit, all of them, clutching joss sticks with eyes clenched shut, clasping hands with fervent prayers, shoving offerings with devoted desperation―who will not agree with my mother's academic understanding.

She pulls me gently towards a scattered group of elderly women, selling fresh flowers out of plastic buckets fastened on bicycles to random devotees―two dollars only miss, very fresh, can buy for Buddha! 'Religion is far too generic a word. It suggests―'

'Vulgarity of practice, a business-like approach: I pray, you answer. I buy a bunch of flowers, you give me hope that my wishes are heard.' I shrug. But my hand remain firm in hers―I may be a diametric in thought, but I'm no less a daughter in reality.

She ignores my answer. Her counter, instead: 'We'll buy the flowers from the oldest lady here―or one with the least customers.'

I have to smile. My mother's instictive kindness is the closest I know to perfect wisdom. She lives it, this kindness―it's like she inhales the general sense of misery and suffering in the pettiness around her, and breathes out sagely wit along with a strong, sated sense of charity.

We walk towards a bent old lady, hunched like a forgotten statue under her plastic umbrella. A September shower is starting, and the rain materialises in a shimmer of mist. 'Aunty, how much?' My mother asks kindly, gesturing to a lotus bud caped listlessly in a plastic sheet in her faded blue bucket.

The old lady grins, showing her gums and a row of decaying teeth. 'Aiyah, I follow the temple's idea. I tell people to pay what they think their offering is worth.' She says, her singsong Cantonese rising above the babel around us: the traffic, the chants, the people-sounds, the wind. Pollution cannot be louder than philanthrophy. There is something governing us all―I just don't know what it is, at the moment.

My mother laughs. Kindred spirits, I think. In my mother's shadow I'm quiet. Her strength of character and the beauty of her thoughts give me no reason to mar it with my lack. 'You're a wonderful student of Buddhism,' she declares, thrusting a five-dollar note to the old lady.

She hands the lotus to me. 'I bought this for you. You offer it.'

'So Buddhism is a philosophy,' I semi-declare, watching my mother's reaction, just as she's watching my actions (careful, don't trip, walk over here, don't let the smoke irritate your skin―).

A man comes close towards us, too close. Old enough to know better, but not old enough to hide his lust, he leers at me, lingering his greedy gaze over the lines of my body. I take very little offence at men who are so handicapped by their own lewd, lurid lusts―in my harsher moments I regard them as animals, and I have no challenge for them. Stare if you want. What can you do, you sad, sordid fuck?

But my mother glares at him, stepping just ahead of me, as though shielding me with her own maternal protectiveness. He turns away and trains his wanton eyes on another girl, much younger than myself, and I am forgotten.

I hear my mother sigh. Then, effortlessly connecting the last thought of our talk to the latest change of our currency, she says, 'The doors of a temple will always remain open. Therefore everyone here can be―religious. We can all light an incense and offer donations and break our necks bowing to the gods. But can we all be Buddhists, and practice its philosophy even in something as simple as knowing what to do, what to say, when to say?'

'Buddhism is a practice, then?' I ask, as we jostle up to the front of the temple, where the Great Gold Statue of Buddha stares with impassive peace, on its velvet stage, at its mortal audience below.

My mother watches the crowd―now rowdy and rude in their eagerness to their religious rights―push its way to the front and shakes her head.

'Life is the absolution, and death is the resolution. All that is in between is the practice.'

I reach out for her hand again, already missing the warmth of her fingers and the familiar beauty of her calloused palms. 'You haven't answered my question, Mother,'

We watch as a young mother told her little girl to snatch up the sweets placed at the altar 'so she can have more later'―without thought, without fault.

My mother wrinkles her nose with girlish disdain. And then, the teacher comes back, filling her eyes with the wisdom taught and practice learnt: 'Haven't I?'