Chandi sat cross-legged with her eyes closed on the stone floor of the darkened room, illuminated by only a single torch, hands resting lightly on her knees. Master Song strode slowly around the room with his hands clasped behind his back while he intoned the same mantra he had been repeating for the last three days.
“Close your eyes, relax your mind. Think of an event in your life that caused you great fear, despair, or shame, then go there. See it in your mind’s eye. Relive it, feel it, and let your emotions wash over you. When you are ready, I will know it, and you will feel me touch your forehead.”
Of the fifty learners in her cohort, there were but five left in the room, including her. She knew over the last three days Master Song had deemed the other forty-five ready and had at intervals touched their heads. Each one had then simply stood and approached a large stone door at the end of the chamber farthest from the entrance. The only thing that interrupted the smooth surface of the door was an iron handle, large enough to fit one hand. Unlike other doors, this one did not swing, but had to be slid sideways, into the wall. The mystery was there were no rollers on the bottom of the door, as far as she could tell. As a young acolyte, while exploring the temple with a few friends, they had chanced upon the door and tried pulling on the handle. Even with six of them tugging at the same time, the door had never moved even the smallest of amounts.
Each of the learners that Master Song deemed ready had approached the door, spread their feet to brace themselves, and then one-handedly slid the door open slowly with a great grinding sound of stone on stone, the activity clearly testing the limits of their capabilities. Once on the other side, the learner again slid the door, shutting it. Chandi had no idea what was on the other side of the door and had not seen any of the learners that passed through again since they exited. One thing that was consistent, however, was each learner manifested Li to open the door. In the dim light of the room, the glow surrounding each of them had been clearly visible. What was inconsistent, however, was there were varying degrees in the strength of the glow from learner to learner, and there definitely seemed to be a correlation between the intensity of each learner’s glow and the ease with which the door moved.
For the last two days, Chandi had alternately chafed and despaired at not being selected by Master Song. Always at the forefront of every lesson, skill or test she had ever faced, she had never been last at anything, or even in the bottom half, and couldn’t understand what she was doing wrong or what to do differently. None of the remaining learners in the room had eaten for three days, they had not returned to their sleeping quarters each night, and Chandi began to despair at ever being able to open the door as she felt herself growing weaker. She tried again.
***
Chandi had been orphaned at the age of seven. Living in the trading town of Changmai in rural China, her family was poor. She, her father, mother, and infant brother lived in one small rented room on the second floor of a dilapidated tenement near the center of town on a crowded street, all sleeping together each night on a bed of blankets, huddling together for warmth in winter. Once a single-family home long ago, over the years the individual rooms had been rented out to people who could pay for it, but too poor to afford anything better. With no running water or electricity, there were perhaps more than thirty people living in the two-story house, most of whom came and went, to be replaced by other unfortunates.
Each morning, her father rose before the sun and walked thirty minutes to a well, where water could be pumped up by hand. He carried back with him two large buckets of water suspended on each end of a pole which he supported on his shoulders. By the time he returned, Chandi’s mother would have a fire prepared in the small yard behind the house, over which her father would set the water to boil. Once the water boiled, Chandi’s father would transfer the water to a large metal pot half his height, which had straps and a spout on the side. He would strap the pot of boiled water to his shoulders, insulated with a blanket both to prevent burning his back and to keep the water hot longer, then trudge fifteen minutes to the town’s trading area where locals from nearby gathered to trade everything from livestock to mechanical parts, offering pours of boiled water by leaning over until the water exited the spout, for spare change. Most days, once she was strong enough to walk by herself, he took Chandi with him, and she could still hear him hawking, “Boiled well waaaaater! Boiled well waaaaater!” while she sat nearby where he could see her, watching him pace back and forth waiting for the next customer.
Sometimes, on a particularly good day, Chandi’s father would return home to refill his pot two or three times for extra trips to the trading post. Other days, he would sadly pour half a pot of water too cool to sell out on the street, to spare himself the labor of carrying it home. On those days, Chandi knew they would go hungry.
Her father was always kind to her, even when she misbehaved, and at times when she was tired and walked particularly slowly while going home at the end of the day, her small hand in his calloused one, Chandi’s father would pick her up and carry her, despite the metal pot still on his back and his own fatigue. He would chat with her while he walked, “Who is lovelier than my Chandi? You are my pretty girl!”
Chandi’s mother spent her days selling tissue paper, gum and other assorted items from her basket, standing on various street corners with Chandi’s brother strapped to her back. She always wore a scarf around her head, Chandi recalled, and multiple layers of clothing, even in summer, with a long skirt. All she hoped for was to sell her meager items for a little more than what she paid, but it was not easy. Every item sold was fiercely negotiated by every customer, and at the end of the day she was lucky to have made enough to buy a small bag of rice for their evening meal, but it helped.
Chandi could see her father clearly in her mind’s eye, but the memory of her mother was hazy, since she spent most of her days with her father. Her brother she could only recall as a baby who slept a lot, and did not cry much. It was a difficult life, and she had never been to school, but life was about to become even more bleak.
She went to sleep one night huddled among her family on their bed of blankets. The next thing she knew, she awoke in confusion lying on the cold street, with a strange man over her, shaking her shoulders and yelling, “Are you all right? Are you all right?” They were outside her home, and many people were yelling and screaming, staring and pointing at the huge fire that engulfed the house where she once lived. She never saw her family again.
Seeing she was alive, the man straightened and simply left her lying on the street. Chandi never knew if he had carried her out of the inferno or had simply found her there. Her chest was painful, and it was difficult to breath, but she crawled away from the street and huddled next to the wall of the building opposite the burning house. Eventually she fell asleep, despite the roar of the fire and din of voices that surrounded her.
***
This was the moment on which Chandi had been focusing the last three days. The feeling of loss and despair when she lost her family had been great, as well the grief and heartache she felt knowing her family was gone forever, that she would never see them again, or hold her father’s hand, or sleep tightly huddled next to her parents and brother for warmth and comfort.
Weak from her fasting and knowing now this memory was somehow inadequate for the exercise Master Song had set before her, her mind drifted back to her childhood.