Why Has Bodhidharma Left for the East?

1.

   For lunch, the young Malay man set off to find a place far away from the place of his work, a place far away for which it would truly mean a break from the tedious cycle of his working life, a peaceful, quiet place far away where he could enjoy the simple, pristine pleasures of being alone, at rest and wistful, and satisfy his hunger.

   With food bought from the street vendor, in his car, he drove away.

   For many a half-hour later, in his search for a personal peace, the young Malay man drove --sometimes after taking many junctions along the way and deciding whether to continue on treading the same path to its end or to start anew at a new junction-- into many unfamiliar places he never thought to have existed in the first place, whilst he thought he knew so well of the world he had lived and worked in for so long; the sight of debilitating poverty choking on itself in the gutters of the slums, the business of Man in the hysterical, filthy chaos of the marketplaces, the unlawfulness of the streets and the alleyways of the town center; and towards these unfamiliar places, the young Malay man felt the sharp stings of sorrow and rage, and the crushing weight of helplessness collapsing onto his being; but each time that he came to these unfamiliar places, his heart and mind, albeit plagued by the maddening sorrow, revolted in denial and disgust, and thus he drove away in his car to escape from them, just as he was escaping from the tedious cycle of his working life earlier.

   But then: finally, the young Malay man came upon a beautiful sight for which he felt that his journey for a personal peace had met its worthy destiny, and thus, he drove the car away from the pulsating vein of the busy highway and onto the vacant patch of earth that sat closest to the spot: a short, shady tree standing silently in the middle of a wind-swept field of green grass, fore to modest plots of paddy fields. It was a beautiful, calm sight as picturesque as many of the portraits of serene, faraway exotic landscapes he had only seen in golden frames on high office walls and in thick textbooks.

   He parked the car, and prepared himself for a peaceful meal under the tree.

2.

   As the young Malay man sat quietly under the shade of the peaceful tree, enjoying his simple lunch alone and away from the tedious cycle of his working life, and as the calming, cool winds from the four corners of the field swept his previous troubles and sadness away and across the vast emptiness of the midday sky, he listened to the sounds of the tree and the green grass and the paddy fields around him, and to the voice of his being alone in the middle of nowhere, at rest and wistful--

3.

   That early a Friday morning, Nenek was already outside at the backyard lawn of the house in her Chop Gadja kain kemban and a wet, heavy green towel wrapped around her head, tightly; the old woman had just came back from the nearby cold telaga for a morning bath, her elegant shivering from the chills brought by the kampong’s cool, humid breeze, and as the small rattan basket of squeezed, wet clothes wedged at the bend of her wide hips indicated, perhaps a bit of a leftover laundry was done as well. And as she walked across the length of the backyard lawn to the dew-dripping wire clotheslines right behind the zinc-roof chicken coop; one heavy step forward and the next, like the striving pendulum of an ancient grandfather clock swaying gracefully from one side to the other, in her own dignified, perpetual motion; with her wrinkled brown skin still wet from the cold morning bath, and her scarred, calloused heels still steep with sticky, soft mud from the soil at the neck of the telaga, and her whole body quivering from the memory of the cold water; she hummed a familiar, melodic tune.

   I stood behind the closed leaf of the bedroom window as I spied and listened.

   That tune that she hummed as she hung wet, squeezed pieces of laundry from the rattan basket she carried onto the wire clotheslines, pieces spread apart over many, parallel clotheslines stemming from the same two-stand wooden feet; last night some time near midnight, when she was alone sitting on the cement floor of the dank and dark kitchen, slicing, dicing, rinsing and cooking for what was to be that early Friday morning’s breakfast, preparing it whilst listening to the relaxed, oldies music on nighttime AM radio, and as I was slowly starting to fall asleep on the toto mat in the next room; that tune, that she hummed at the clotheslines, was first aired on the radio; and on the cement floor of the dark and dank kitchen that midnight, she, for the first time, hummed to it.

   Hearing it again that morning, but without the radio, was like a recurring dream.

   “How, through her, a machine's voice can sound so peaceful and beautiful.”

4.

   --For the first time in his life, the young Malay man saw with his eyes and heart, and he understood with his mind and mouth, all striking as loud as thunder and as fast as lightning; “The world is not imperfect; for, the imperfection lies in the way we describe the world, or the language that we choose to define such an imperfection.”

   Immediately, he rose from the earthly comfort of his seat and came out from under the cool shade of the tree, hurriedly cleaned up the mess that he had made, that disturbed the initial, beautiful state of the spot; the old newspapers that he sat on to protect him from the dirt and the dampness of the soil; the thick, plastic food wrappings that came along with the food, to keep it warm and dry and fresh; the water bottle that was almost entirely consumed but a few precious drops left; and all that he threw carelessly onto the backseat of his car: car and apartment keys, cell phone, and the office work tag.

   “The language that describes the way of the world; that, I must seek.”

   The young Malay man looked at the falling Sun, and thus he began his journey.