BARREL RIDER

As Wugen1 sat praying in the meditation quarters, he suddenly realized how empty his life was— there was no reason for him to spend more time on the cultivation of the mind.

When he was 8, he left home to become a monk. Others did this because they were forced by circumstances or wanted to escape, or they just wanted to run off to be lazy. But when Wugen left home, it was because he believed he should spend his life immersed in the careful study of Buddhism, entrust his life to the vast emptiness and find a realm where he required nothing—that is to say, nirvana.

He searched for the path to nirvana among Buddhist principles. He read all the Buddhist scriptures he could find, both true and false. He tried to find traces of the route within everything these scriptures said, and organize them into an organic whole, finding and rejecting falseness and, in the end, relying on these true principles to take him to his objective.

He, however, found all manner of contradictions in these scriptures. Maybe the route to the Buddhist kingdom would lead him instead to hell. Just as religious discipline can lead to the breaking of religious precepts, Buddhism could turn you into a demon; his long study of Chan principles found him thinking of the sweet, soft bodies of the opposite sex, whereupon he could lose himself in everyday tasks—carrying water, planting vegetables, eating, drinking, begging for alms. In the end, he gave up meditation and ceased researching Buddhist scriptures, believing that the real Buddhist principles lay in everyday life.

At 30, he began to research Go and at 35 he took up musical instruments. At 36 he started painting and penning poems, and at 37 he found an old monk to teach him martial arts. That old, taciturn monk assisted in the monastery kitchen. By the time Wugen had become a well-known, high-ranking monk, even high-ranking officials considered meeting him an honor.

At 40, Wugen returned to secular life—not formally, as his petition to do so was denied. Thus he gave up the temple and slipped away in the middle of the night, going to Jiankang city, where nobody knew him. He wore plain clothing, had short, messy hair, and spent much of his time in brothels. When he was out of money he’d steal from the wealthy or beg. He lived this way until 55. He didn’t think anyone would recognize him, the world forgetting the dharma name of the once auspicious monk, Wugen.

Quite by chance, Minister Zhu Yi and Wugen both became enamored with a certain prostitute, who told Zhu Yi that among her frequent customers there was an odd man who liked to have sex with her in a meditation position. Zhu Yi was quite curious and asked the prostitute to introduce them. He left a name card, which she passed on to Wugen the next time he visited. Wugen wrote a polite letter employing complex prose and ornate calligraphy, in which he refused the invitation.

Zhu Yi, however, instantly recognized Wugen’s handwriting, as he’d met him when he was a lowranking official on a visit to Biyun Temple. Wugen had been a monk there, and had given him a poem as a memento.

Wugen’s secular life thus came to an end. Because he was never officially released, it was a cut-and-dry case: the sanctimonious Minister Zhu Yi sent people to forcibly transport him back to Biyun Temple at Moling. It is believed he did so out of jealousy.

At Biyun Temple, Wugen was forced

to shave his head and once again put on monk’s robes, demoted to the lowest level monk and often mocked as a deserter.

But, in truth, were he to escape again, no one would have stopped him; despite being 55, he was still quite strong and an experienced martial artist. No one knew why Wugen didn’t run away or petition to leave, but he’d lost his passion for a secular life—or, rather, his lust for the opposite sex. He humbly performed the tasks of the lowest-ranking monk at Biyun Temple—emptying the latrines, watering vegetables, chopping wood, and of course attending morning and evening lessons. He seemed satisfied with his lot.

The year he turned 60—on a morning not unlike any other—he sat in meditation with other monks when he suddenly realized the emptiness of his life—in this world, as well as other worlds, there was no reason to spend any more time in the further cultivation of the mind.

He felt a deep despair, a void which could not be filled, even with death, a notion that intensified his depression.

The monks at the temple felt a tremor. All but Wugen stood. They looked at each other and seemed to all realize that it was an earthquake. They ran frightened out of the meditation room and gathered in the open space in front of the main hall. The earthquake grew in intensity and the lacquered tiles fell like rain from the roof of the main hall. The stupas shook back and forth as some of the walls collapsed. The monks were scared, terrified that the end of the world had come. They cried out in fear, some reciting Buddhist chants.

Then, the earthquake stopped. The head monk ordered that a party descend the mountain to check on the situation in Moling village. Other monks gathered food and water and some went to retrieve mats and blankets as they planned to sleep outdoors that night and observe the situation. Just as these monks were busying themselves, those few who had been sent down to Moling village returned. The head monk was quite surprised by their swift return—as well as the odd expressions on their faces.

“Master, we’re flying!” a monk yell as he ran in through the outer gate.

Another monk yelled, “Master, there was no earthquake! We can’t get off the mountain, though!”

Another monk, a bit calmer than the others, entered the gate last, saying to the head monk: “Master, the mountain is flying!”

The head monk walked out of the gate and from there, through the thick pine forest, he could see Moling village, shrouded in mist. He could feel the mountain slowly rising. The calmest monk walked over to him and said: “Master, we went to the foot of the mountain, but there’s no way to go down, because the mountain’s already dozens of meters off the ground.

The head monk had all the monks temporarily stop work and return to the area in front of the main hall; he took the monks who had already been back down the mountain with him.

Biyun Temple was situated on Mount Wu, five kilometers away from Moling village. By the time the head monk walked down the mountain path to the edge of the forest, Mount Wu had ceased ascending and was already about 50 meters off the ground.

Upon seeing the flying mountain, the residents of Moling flooded from the village, with only the infirm and some children left behind. Seeing a mountain suspended in the air they took this as an omen that the Buddha would return. They carried incense sticks and sacrificial items and placed them below Mount Wu, and the head official ordered local squires to kowtow in front of the incense.

Mount Wu neither rose nor lowered. It just floated in the air like a giant mirage.

The monks of Biyun Temple tried to get the mountain back to the ground. First, they put on their robes, arranged incense, flowers, and fruits, and knelt in front of the Buddhist statues, begging the Buddha to save them, to free them from their predicament, but their prostrations and prayers had no effect. The white clouds moved slowly in the clear sky, shadows glided from Moling village, past the wild fields outside, over Mount Wu and Biyun Temple, dozens of meters in the sky, and then back over the fields outside of Moling village.

The curious villagers gradually dispersed, and only a few remained— those with family at the temple, officials designated responsible, and people with nothing better to do. By the afternoon, the head monk had given up on prayers and decided to lower a few people down by rope. The monks found 60 meters of hemp rope and tied one end around a pine tree and the other around the waist of a volunteer.

The volunteer was lowered toward the surface, but never seemed to get any closer to the ground. Mount Wu seemed to rise. Worried that the mountain would rise too high for the rope, he yelled out to be lowered more quickly, but the rate of the mountain’s rise and his rate of descent were the same. When they were out of rope, the mountain stopped rising, but there were still dozens of meters between him and the ground. The monks had no choice but to pull him back up, but the mountain didn’t lower itself in response; it stayed at the same height. By this time, they were more than 100 meters off the ground. If one climbed to the top of the highest stupa at Biyun Temple, they could see the Yangtze River, like a silk cord floating upon the earth. None of the monks discovered this, and even if they had, they wouldn’t have been in the mood to appreciate it.

With the grain and vegetables stored in the temple, the monks didn’t have any pressing survival issues to worry about. After the sun set the monks returned to the temple to eat and conducted their evening class as normal, with nothing said throughout the night.

On the morning of the second day, a number of people from Moling village tried to make a new hill under the mountain, hoping to be able to reach Mount Wu and bring the monks down. They dug a hole by the large pit left by the mountain, and began piling up dirt, but they quickly discovered that their efforts were in vain, as the

to seize him. The betrayers besieged him and the crown prince, and Xiao’s formerly loyal supporters fell into a spiral of scheming and infighting. Although a large number of troops still supported him, they were unable to break the siege.

The magistrate of Moling had been recently assigned—his predecessor was promoted and transferred to the capital because of his successful reception of the emperor and was trapped inside the city by the rebellion. But the monthly letter of communication to Biyun Temple was the same as always. The head monk held a ceremony of the highest order to pray for the emperor. However, their prayers were in vain as the emperor and the crown prince remained trapped until winter.

In a letter from the magistrate to the temple, it was mentioned that one of the crown prince’s carpenters had built a giant kite, and attached to it an imperial script, sending it flying in the hopes that it would reach the troops loyal to him and that they would come to save him. However, the plan failed as the kite was shot down by Hou Jing’s troops as it passed over their territory. This letter gave an idea to the head monk: He remembered that they had access to a bamboo forest, which would give them material to build gliders. Thus, he ordered the monks to chop down the bamboo and cut it into strips. The monks were enthused by the entire plan, as it meant they’d have a chance to return to the surface, a hope which they had long since abandoned.

It wasn’t long until the first glider was completed. The monks made wings out of Buddhist scriptures. The head monk was initially unwilling to agree to this use of the scripture, as cloth was a better choice and they had limited supplies of both. However, without cloth, the monks wouldn’t survive the winter, so in the end the head monk was left with no choice but to agree to the use the pages from their books to construct the wings. As the glider had to carry a human, it had to be quite large.

The monks were careful in their construction, releasing the glider from the top of the stupas to see if it could descend stably. As they had no experience in the construction of such devices, their first attempt failed. The construction more or less toppled to the ground, the frame was destroyed, and the paper ripped. On their next attempt, they made smaller test models to save time and resources, producing small gliders that could land reliably before they started work on a newer, large model. They wrote of their work in a letter to tell the magistrate of Moling. They previously delivered their letters to him by affixing them to a rock and simply dropping it, but this time they attached it to a small gliding kite, and hung a rock from the little glider. When they set it off, it flew off, and even with the stone attached, it maintained equilibrium. It arrived successfully in the hands of the magistrate’s runner, and the monks cheered with hope and excitement at their initial success.

The magistrate sent them diagrams made by a skilled kite-maker in a letter, and the monks made a new large glider in accordance with these instructions. It flew down from the stupa quite successfully, and almost off the mountain. Luckily the monks were able to catch the glider (and the precious materials) before that happened.

For the next test, they prepared to attach a person.

The first test subject was decided by drawing lots, but the head monk, determined to be the last to leave, did not participate in this trial run. The test was successful, and the glider with the man attached flew down from the highest peak to Mount Wu’s pine forest. The branches of the pine trees broke the paper in a few places, but the monk was unharmed.

The damage to the wings was repaired, and the head monk wrote the time of the planned flight in a letter which was sent to the magistrate’s runner: noon, five days hence. Soon the whole village was abuzz with the news. However, when the day finally came, high winds kicked up, and even though the villagers gathered under the mountain to see the first monk return to the surface, the head monk chose to delay the flight. After all, after so much time, what was two more days? There was no reason to add unnecessary risks.

The chosen monk’s heart was full of joy and trepidation. He wanted to return to the surface and be with his family, but worried about his safety. His name had been transmitted in a letter; at this point letters were exchanged more than once a day.

On the appointed day, the pilot monk’s parents came early to the area below the mountain, and the magistrate of Moling arrived around 10 on an ox-driven cart. The weather was clear, and there was only a light wind, nothing to prevent the test of a return flight to the surface. The monk was bound firmly to the frame of the glider, and a large area of forest had been cleared to give him a runway. It was a moving sight.

The monk jumped into the clear blue sky, and the glider coasted stably. Just as people began to cheer, the paper wing ripped and the craft lost all stability. Flipping over and over in mid-air, it took a straight dive down. The crowd was transfixed by the tragedy. He didn’t die immediately. Perhaps being taken in his mother’s arms was some small comfort in his final moments.

It was clear that paper wasn’t reliable enough. It had to be cloth. The monks