Chapter 487: Shaolin Asks Zen

1999 April just after Qingming, the morning mist on Song Mountain's Shaoshi Peak had not yet dispersed.

Li Ping'an stood outside the Shaolin Temple mountain gate, looking up at the black‑background gold‑letter plaque—imperial calligraphy of Kangxi—weathered by three hundred years, its lacquer now mottled, yet the three characters "Shaolin Temple" remained as robust as ever.

Morning light drifted over from the eastern ridge, bathing the plaque in half‑light, like the temple's millennial fate.

Lin Xueqing stood at his side, her scarf tightly wrapped, revealing only a pair of warm, gentle eyes.

At the beginning of March they set out from Shenzhen, first returning to their hometown in central Henan. In front of the green‑stone stele on the back hill, Li Ping'an squatted for half an hour, pulling the weeds out root by root, gathering the incense ash in handfuls, burning three sticks of incense and pouring three cups of wine.

Li Ping'an simply knelt before the stele, his forehead pressed to the icy stone, for a very long time.

Lin Xueqing offered no counsel. She knew some tears would not come, some words could not be spoken, some debts would never be repaid in a lifetime.

After leaving Li Family Village, they headed westward: Luoyang Longmen, White Horse Temple, Yanshi Market Ruins.

At each stop, Li Ping'an was unhurried, walking and looking slowly, as if to redeem the time owed from the first half of his life, inch by inch.

Today was April twelfth; they arrived at Shaolin.

The mountain gate had not yet officially opened; the morning bell had just struck three times, and few tourists were present. A few young novices in gray monk robes were sweeping the passage, bamboo brooms skimming the bluestone slabs, the rustle sounding like fine rain on the eaves.

Li Ping'an was not in a hurry to go inside.

He stood outside the gate, gazing at two millennial ginkgo trees. Their trunks were so thick three people had to clasp them together, twisted branches coiled, new leaves just unfurling, a tender green that seemed to weep water.

It is said they were planted in the Tang dynasty, having witnessed thirteen‑staff monks rescuing a Tang king, having seen Wu Zetian ride up Song Mountain, having seen warlords set fires and Japanese invaders bomb.

They have seen too many dynastic rises and falls, too many people come and go.

"Let's go," Lin Xueqing gently nudged his arm.

Li Ping'an nodded, lifting his foot over the threshold.

One step.

A millennium of time whooshed past on both sides.

Entering the gate led to a passage lined with stone‑tablet corridors on either side.

Li Ping'an walked very slowly, examining each stele one by one.

The "Great Tang Empress Imperial Vow Inscription Stele," its characters faded, bore the date of the fourth year of the Chui Gong era. That year Wu Zetian was sixty‑five, had been emperor for five years, and came to Shaolin to pray for her mother.

The inscription was devout, declaring "a heart long filled with sorrow, early enlightenment of cause and condition," as if that woman who slaughtered ministers and changed dynasties was here at the gate merely a daughter missing her mother.

The "Qianlong Imperial Stele," its plaque

"Tomorrow I will gaze upon Zhongyue, tonight I lodge at Shaolin.

The heart follows six samadhis in stillness, the temple is set deep within myriad mountains."

Li Ping'an stood before this stele for a long while.

"This emperor is indeed a clear‑minded man," he said.

Lin Xueqing asked, "What do you mean?"

"He says 'the heart follows six samadhis in stillness,' yet he expands this temple, performs imperial sacrifices on those mountains, wages wars on these lands—none of which the word 'stillness' can complete," Li Ping'an shook his head. "He talks of letting go, but still clutches in his hand. Just like me."

Lin Xueqing said nothing.

Lin Xueqing knew her husband too well. In over sixty years, when had he ever truly let go? He could not let go of his sister, could not let go of those soldiers, could not let go of the factory, could not let go of the technology…

He had lived his whole life so full that there was not a single gap to place the words "let go."

Now he was sixty‑eight, finally arriving at Shaolin.

But could he truly let go?

Beyond the Hall of Heavenly Kings stood the Bell Tower and Drum Tower; further in lay the Mahavira Hall.

Inside the hall incense curled, the Three Buddhas of the Three Times sat upon lotus platforms, their jeweled forms majestic. Li Ping'an did not kneel, only stood at the threshold, quietly watching the three golden statues.

A young novice came forward, palms together, asking, "Benefactor, would you like to offer incense?"

Li Ping'an shook his head, "I will not disturb the Bodhisattvas."

The young novice looked puzzled, yet smiled and stepped back.

Lin Xueqing asked, "Since you're here, why not bow?"

Li Ping'an stared at the Shakyamuni statue, his gaze unusually calm.

"I've done what I have in this life," he said, "the Bodhisattvas may not be accustomed to."

He paused.

"In the marketplace you fight me, in the stock market you kill and be killed; during the financial crisis, billions of dollars burned each day. The Bodhisattvas teach letting go, I teach competition; the Bodhisattvas teach compassion, I teach ruthlessness."

He smiled, his smile containing both self‑mockery and candor.

"Now that I'm old, coming to the temple to burn incense, clutching the Buddha at the last minute—does the Bodhisattva accept?"

Lin Xueqing grasped his hand.

"The Bodhisattva does not accept," she said, "I will."

Li Ping'an was momentarily stunned, then gently squeezed the hand full of fine lines.

"Good." He said.

Leaving the Mahavira Hall, they passed the Scripture Repository and arrived at the Thousand Buddha Hall.

The hall's door stood ajar; pushing it open, the dim light revealed the massive mural "Five Hundred Arhats Facing Vairocana" looming before them.

Three hundred twenty square meters, painted by an anonymous Ming‑dynasty artist. The five hundred Arhats displayed varied postures—riding clouds, crossing seas, seated in meditation, preaching—their robes fluttering, vivid as life.

At the center, the Vairocana Buddha sat in lotus posture, his face compassionate, as if gazing down upon the five hundred disciples who, after a thousand years, still had not attained enlightenment.

Li Ping'an stood before the mural for a long time.

He said nothing, and Lin Xueqing did not disturb him.

After a long while, he suddenly spoke.

"These five hundred Arhats," he said, pointing at the mural, "were all ordinary people before becoming Buddhas—farmers, merchants, pig‑butchers, soldiers, even robbers, courtesans, murderers."

He paused.

Later they let go.

Lin Xueqing asked, "What did they let go of?"

"They let go of what they thought they couldn't let go of," Li Ping'an said. "Hatred, obsessions, identity, the past. Then they became Arhats."

He looked at that Vairocana Buddha statue.

"I'm not an Arhat," he said. "There are too many things I can't let go of in this life. Sister, those sacrificed soldiers, factories, conglomerates, children… I have clutched each of them with my own hands for decades, even to the point of bleeding, and I wouldn't loosen my grip."

He paused for a long time.

"Now I want to loosen a bit."

The hall gate suddenly swung open.

An old monk stood in the doorway, wearing gray robes, his white eyebrows hanging to the corners of his eyes, twirling a string of agarwood Prayer Beads in his hand. He glanced at Li Ping'an, offered no small talk, and only gave a slight nod.

"Benefactor, have you been to the stupa forest?"

Li Ping'an shook his head: "I'm about to go."

"Then let's go together," the old monk said, turning around with a relaxed stride.

Li Ping'an and Lin Xueqing followed behind.

Passing through Ciyun Hall and exiting the west gate, they entered a stone slab road flanked by pine and cypress. The green stones beneath their feet had been polished smooth as mirrors by millennia of footsteps, and green moss grew in the cracks. The wind through the pine forest rustled like rain.

After walking roughly two hundred steps, the view suddenly opened up.

They arrived at the stupa forest.

Over two hundred and thirty stupa tombs, from the Tang era to the present, stacked layer upon layer, covering the entire hillside.

Some of green brick, some white stone with carved flowers, some dense‑eaved, some pavilion‑style; the tallest, a seven‑tiered pagoda, appeared faintly in the morning mist.

Beneath each stupa lay a sleeping eminent monk, and each stupa inscription was a miniature history of Buddhism.

The old monk walked to a Tang stupa and stopped.

The stupa was not tall, three dense‑eaved levels, its brick hue darkened, and the inscription had faded beyond recognition.

"This is Chan Master Fuyu's stupa," the old monk said softly, as if fearing to awaken the sleeper. "Kublai Khan once took him as a teacher and conferred the title 'Great Chan Master Guangzong Zhengfa.' Before his passing, he said, 'My stupa shall be at Shaolin.' A disciple asked, 'What shape shall the stupa take?' He replied, 'Like my robe and bowl.'"

He paused.

"Therefore this stupa has no adornments, plain as a monk's robe."

Li Ping'an stared at the plain Tang stupa, silent for a long while.

"Did the Chan Master leave any words for posterity?"

The old monk twirled the Prayer Beads.

"Yes. Before his passing he recited a verse: 'When I came, I was naked; when I left, I became a wisp of smoke. In the decades between, I never earned a single copper coin.'"

Li Ping'an smiled.

"My mother said the same," he said. "In 1942, before she starved to death, with only her last breath, she clutched my hand and said, 'Ping'an, Mother left nothing for you.' I replied, 'Mother, you left me.'"

He paused.

"Mother just smiled."

The old monk looked at him, his gaze warm as autumn sun.

"Benefactor, your mother was a great practitioner."

Li Ping'an nodded.

"She was."

Ascending the stupa forest, the old monk walked very slowly, as if strolling.

"Benefactor," he suddenly asked, "have you heard the story of Bodhidharma facing the wall?"

"I've heard of it," Li Ping'an said. "Nine years facing the wall, his shadow entered the stone."

"Nine years facing the wall is not nine years with eyes closed," the old monk said. "It is nine years with eyes open, watching that stone wall, watching each delusive thought in one's heart arise and extinguish. It's not about not seeing, hearing, or thinking; it's about seeing, hearing, thinking, and then letting go."

He looked at Li Ping'an.

"Benefactor, are there any delusive thoughts you cannot let go of in your heart?"

Li Ping'an gave no answer.

He stood in the middle of the stupa forest, looking around at the silent stone stupas—Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming‑Qing, and modern.

Nine hundred years of time had solidified here into bricks and inscriptions; beneath each stupa lay a once‑vibrant life, each having had obsessions, letting go, enlightenment, and lack thereof.

"My whole life," he finally said, "I've done many things. Some were right, some were wrong, and some I still don't know today whether they were right or wrong."

He paused.

"I always thought what I couldn't let go of were those matters—fear that Yaozong couldn't support the conglomerate, fear that Crystal Yuan couldn't keep up abroad, fear that Hong Kong would be hit again…"

He shook his head.

"Later I realized, what I couldn't let go of was myself."

"I fear I'm useless, fear being forgotten, fear that these 68 years were just a wasted life. So I dare not stop, dare not retreat, dare not hand the burden to the young. Because I fear—without me, Wanshang remains Wanshang; without me, the world still turns."

He smiled faintly.

"Quite laughable."

The old monk twirled the Prayer Beads, offering no reply.

Lin Xueqing stood beside him, silent.

Mountain wind brushed the stupa forest, the pine waves like tide.

After a long while, the old monk spoke.

"Benefactor, do you know why the stupa forest has no wall?"

Li Ping'an thought and said, "Is it so that eminent monks can be one with the mountains and forest?"

"Yes, and also not," the old monk said, "The stupa forest has no wall to tell later ones: this is not the end, merely a relay station. Every person who passes before the stupa forest will eventually become a stele, an incense stick, a wisp of smoke within the forest."

He looked at the layered stone towers in the distance.

"In nine hundred years, how many high monks have laid down their skins here. In life they were also attached, argued, stayed up all night over a sutra, ran the world for a ritual. Yet at the moment of death they all understood— all attachment is merely to leave a monument, a name, in the world."

"But what does that monument, that name have to do with the mountains and forests?"

Li Ping'an remained silent.

"Benefactor," the old monk turned to him, "your monument has already been carved."

Li Ping'an lifted his head.

"It is not in this tower forest, not on the merit monument," the old monk said, "it is in your factory, in your products, in the hearts of the young people you have cultivated. The 68 years you have clung to, that is the monument you have carved."

"Now, it's time to let go."

Returning from the tower forest, Li Ping'an said nothing all the way.

Lin Xueqing knew he had something on his mind and did not disturb him.

At dusk, the setting sun dyed Shaoshi Mountain a golden‑red. Li Ping'an stood by the window on the second floor of the Shaolin Temple guesthouse, gazing at the outline of Five Breasts Peak in the distance.

"Xueqing," he suddenly said, "tomorrow we'll go to Damo Cave."

Lin Xueqing nodded.

"Alright."

"Then to the First Patriarch Hermitage, the Second Patriarch Hermitage, and the Third Emperor Fort," he said, "we'll walk all over Shaoshi Mountain."

Lin Xueqing took his hand.

"No rush, take it slowly."

Li Ping'an looked out the window.

Yaozong called Telephone today, saying the Pangu 4.0 version had passed the ministerial procurement test and would be piloted in the national tax system next month. Xu Jiaming was so happy he treated the entire R&D Center to a meal, drank too much, and cried at the celebration banquet.

He paused.

"He said, back then I told him 'slow is fine, ugly is fine, nobody using it is fine, as long as we keep moving forward, it's not a loss.' He didn't believe it before, now he believes."

Lin Xueqing gave no reply.

Li Ping'an was silent for a while.

"The old monk in the tower forest was right," he said, "my monument has already been carved."

"Whether it was carved well or not, later generations will judge. Whether it was proper, Heaven will decide. As for me, I should let go."

He turned his head and looked at his wife.

"From tomorrow on, I am just Li Ping'an. No longer the chairman of Wanshang, no longer the child from Li Family Village who fled famine. Just a 68‑year‑old old man, accompanying my old partner to climb mountains and visit temples, tasting Dengfeng's baked flatbread and Luoyang's watery banquet."

He smiled faintly.

"Okay?"

Lin Xueqing also smiled.

"Okay."

The next morning, Li Ping'an and Lin Xueqing set out from Shaolin Temple, taking the mountain path toward Five Breasts Peak.

In April on Songshan, wildflowers sprouted among the trees, flocks of orioles fluttered chaotically. The stone steps of the mountain road were mottled; some sections were newly repaired, most were ancient paths worn by monks a thousand years ago.

Li Ping'an walked steadily, breathing evenly, his steps still bearing the foundation of Baji Quan. Lin Xueqing followed behind him, occasionally needing him to stop and wait.

"I'm old," Lin Xueqing panted, "when I was young I could stand on the operating table for twelve hours, then still stroll around Wangfujing for half a day. Now a mountain climb makes me gasp."

Li Ping'an reached out and held her.

"No rush, take it slowly."

Lin Xueqing looked at his hand— that hand marked only with age spots, the hand that had held a scalpel for thirty‑six years and now held hers.

"You seem to be getting younger," she said, "68 and you climb like a forty‑year‑old."

Damo Cave lay halfway up the mountain.

The entrance was small, about seven meters deep and no more than three meters wide. Inside, the light was dim, and a faint imprint could be seen on the stone wall—a legend that when Damo faced the wall for nine years, his silhouette was etched into the rock.

Li Ping'an stood at the entrance, not entering.

He stared for a long time.

"Nine years," he said, "facing the same wall, the same darkness, the same solitude."

"Wasn't it boring?"

Lin Xueqing thought for a moment: "Perhaps he had something inside his heart that didn't need the outside bustle to fill."

Li Ping'an nodded.

"In my 68 years, I've also filled my heart with things. Sister, the factory, the group, the children… each packed so full that there was no room to think of myself."

He paused.

"Now there's space."

He looked at that vague imprint in the stone.

"When Damo faced the wall for nine years, Huike came seeking the Dharma, cutting off his arm. Then Sengcan arrived. Sengcan passed the teaching to Daoxin, Daoxin to Hongren, Hongren to Huinen. One lamp passed to another lamp, for fifteen hundred years."

He turned his head and looked at his wife.

"I am not Damo. My lamp does not seek to be passed for a thousand years."

"Pass it to Yaozong, Yaozong to Cheng Ye, hoping they can raise this lamp a bit higher and keep it aloft a bit longer in the 21st century, and that will be enough."

Lin Xueqing looked at her husband.

Morning light slanted in from the cave entrance, illuminating his greying sideburns, the fine lines at the corners of his eyes, and those still clear eyes.

This man, after 68 years, is still the boy who, in the chaotic year of 1942, fled north.

He just no longer walks only for himself.

Coming down from Damo Cave, it was already noon.

They rested on the stone bench in front of the Patriarch's Hermitage, eating their dry rations with mountain spring water. Lin Xueqing took out two Dengfeng sesame cakes from her pack, the sesame toasted to a dark gold, and one bite filled her mouth with fragrant flakiness.

"These cakes are good," Li Ping'an said. "They have more bite than the refined flour steamed buns in Shenzhen."

"That's because your hometown is Henan," Lin Xueqing said, handing over the water flask. "One land and its water nurture its people; the stomach is most honest."

Li Ping'an took it and drank a sip.

The mountain breeze brushed past, stirring his gray-white hair.

At four in the afternoon, they left Shaolin.

Before the temple gate, a little novice monk rushed up, holding aloft a string of sandalwood prayer beads with both hands.

"Sir, the abbot ordered me to bring this," the little novice monk said, pressing his palms together. "The abbot says: 'May the mountains be high and the waters long; sir, take care.'"

Li Ping'an took the prayer beads.

One hundred and eight beads, sandalwood, with a warm, smooth luster, bearing the mellow maturity of years of chanting—exactly the string that the old monk in the Pagoda Forest used to turn in his hand.

"What is the abbot's dharma name?" Li Ping'an asked.

"Mingwu," the little novice monk said.

Li Ping'an nodded and slipped the prayer beads onto his wrist.

"Please tell the abbot," he said, "that I understand."

The little novice monk pressed his palms together and turned to leave.

Lin Xueqing gazed at the string of prayer beads.

"Have you become a Buddhist?" she asked.

Li Ping'an shook his head.

"I believe in the human heart."

He looked toward the mountain gate.

"Over the past thousand years, how many have come here seeking answers? Bodhidharma found his after nine years of wall-facing, Huike found his after cutting off his arm, and Abbot Mingwu found his after sixty years of turning prayer beads. Everyone finds a different answer."

He paused.

"My answer is not in the temple."

Lin Xueqing asked, "Where then?"

Li Ping'an did not answer.

He simply raised his head, gazing at the sinking sun in the west, at the distant, continuous Mount Song, and at the stretch of land below where he was born, where he would be buried, and to which he would return.

After a long while, he said:

"In the heart."