Ani Lin: The Journey of a Chinese Buddhist Nun, Pip Griffin. Pohutukawa Press, Leichhardt, N.S.W. 2040, Australia. pip.griffin@bigpond.com 2010. 144 pp. ISBN 9780980318425 (pbk). AUD20.00 + postage from the author. AUD27.95 + postage from gleebooks 49 Glebe Point Rd., Glebe, N.S.W. 2037, Australia. books@gleebooks.com.au www.gleebooks.com.au Overseas orders through gleebooks, please.
Reviewed by Patricia Prime
For the poet, the credo or doctrine is not the point of arrival but is, on the contrary, the point of departure for the metaphysical journey.
— Joseph Brodsky
An odd choice to introduce a review of the poem novel Ani Lin: The Journey of a Chinese Buddhist Nun, by Pip Griffin? Perhaps; perhaps not? The collection is about explorations and discoveries which are as much cerebral and metaphysical as geographical and physical. The path readers are taken on by Griffin has origins that are intriguing and transits that are stimulating.
As the dust jacket informs its readers: “In 1892, 18 year old Lin enters a mountain nunnery, where she begins a journey that will take her on a difficult spiritual and physical path. Her dream is to work for equality for women in the Buddhist world.” In her Afterword Griffin announces that this is an imaginary tale: “In 1874, my imaginary nun, Lin, was born in a village near Yunnanfu (capital of Yunnan Province and renamed Kunming in the 1920s). She died in 1939, the year I was born. Her story was conceived in 1985 when I first travelled to Guilin (Guangxi Province) and experienced feelings of déjà vu in the spectacular karst landscape.”
Griffin’s opening poem “Coming home from the market” exemplifies the ethos behind the poem novel as she introduces the young girl to her readers:
I ride my bicycle
on the bumpy road
through hazy landscape
patchwork gardens illuminated
by the setting sun
stacked mountains layered
against orange sky
This is a work laden with possibilities that result out of an engagement with people, places and landscape, real but also mythically-charged. Take the poem, “Life in the nunnery.” Here the reader is taken through a ‘rite of passage’ as the young woman enters the novitiate:
Rising before dawn
a splash of cold water
clears my mind
my body
will soon learn
to ignore discomfort
the big drum
calls us to the Shrine
The experience may not be familiar to many readers and yet it is subjective, a combination that ensures that our view of the unrecognizable and the intimate coalesce with one another.
The girl’s transformation hinges upon her memories – upon whether what is remembered is truthful, an accurate recollection of her experiences. In “An audience with the Abbess,” for example, her meditations reveal
that in another life
my husband was
a wealthy merchant.
Though privileged,
I was a second wife,
of value merely
by belonging to a man.
In “Ordination,” an evocation of taking her vows, Lin’s life is transformed into a meditation on the way in which she will live her life from now on:
I will respect all life
not take things not for me
keep chaste
neither speak untruth
nor become intoxicated
will never eat from noon
until the sunrise of the next new day
In “Leaving the nunnery,” meanwhile, it is time for her to begin her travels over the remote and mountainous Horse Tea Road that leads to Tibet, where she will teach in a village for six years. Her only possessions are her bamboo flute and the scrolls that Reverend Mother gives her: “precious texts on / scrolls of silk” with the prayer
Lord Buddha’s words
will guide you
and the girls
that you will teach
The journey is beautifully evoked by Griffin as the girl traverses rivers, mountains, sacred peaks, sanctuaries and a visit to the Mu household where, in the poem “Visiting the Mu household” “Prince Mu has asked us / to take tea with him.”
Griffin’s poem novel is activated by small moments unfolding from the fragments of daily minutiae: a sense of miracle, bliss is localized, transcendence is brief and raw, insight comes from focusing on the elements of Lin’s journey, the playing of her flute, wandering in the lamasery garden, meditating, eating and drinking. Noticing, honoring, entering the most ordinary experience is urged on us throughout the volume. For Griffin, the moment suffuses and suffices. For example, she concludes the poem “Dance of the Dongba.”
next morning
at the little shrine I’ve made
my flute sings
my prayers fly
to Kuan Yin:
Oh my Lady – you who
hears the cries of all the world –
my spirit has a home here.
It does not want to leave!
In another poem, “The courtship dance,” she takes us right into the midst of the dance:
In firelight
Zhema whirls
while men and women
dance a double circle
her many-coloured belts
swing wildly from her waist
The tension in many of the poems making up the poem novel is between the travelling and experiences, arising thoughts and meditation. In “Travelling the Horse Tea Road” Lin treads “with care on fallen / rhododendron petals”; turns “golden prayer wheels / with devout Tibetans” and shares a meal with monks. Lin is loaded with awareness, how at her journey’s end she will make “the village women happy / with my teaching.” Griffin paints delightful pictures of those met along the journey: the man at the border hut, the weary merchant, the boatman: “The Bhakor” evokes the sights and sounds of the market place in Lhasa:
yak bells goat bells
sing calling notes
dust rises
whirrs clangs bangs
shouts cries squawks
squeals bleats
hurt my head
In “An audience with the Dalai Lama,” Griffin wires her tense imagery on taut, honed lines that vibrate with currents of feeling. The potent tone of a meeting with the Dalai Lama in his beautiful palace is tenderly written. The narrative traces Lin’s day, from waking with the sparrows, to climbing “the Sacred Steps / of the Red Palace” to the meeting with His Holiness”:
a beautiful young man
chrysanthemum and saffron robed
he sits cross-legged
on blue-gold brocaded cushions
of his throne
Her life is now taken up with teaching the young women and the guidance of the young girl, Pema, whom she takes under her wing. The poem “Teaching” is where we first meet Pema:
her name is Pema Choki
‘lotus of the happy faith’
child of an artisan Yishe
whose wife is dead
though only ten years old
she cares for father
and five brothers
The years pass under Lin’s guidance until she decides that Pema, although only an ordinary girl, is ready to be trained for ordination. She consults the Rinpoche, who says:
Ani, you speak with fancy’s tongue!
There have been no female reincarnation
Here for many centuries. You know
Our practice precludes women’s ordination
Lin convinces Pema’s father and Jigme Trungpa Rinpoche (head of the gompa) that Pema should be allowed to become a novice, as we see in “Pema is allowed to become a novice”: “The Rinpoche is won over / Pema’s father yields.” Now Lin’s guide Lobsang goes off to war. The love and respect Lin feels for her guide Lobsang throughout her journey until his death in war is beautifully evoked. In the poem “Attachment” we see how the news of Lobsang’s death affects her, as she cries out
I have failed failed failed
failed Lord Buddha
failed to keep heart
free from attachment
In “Pema reveals esoteric knowledge,” the outstanding novice “has spoken / words she cannot know.” The lama resumes her lessons “with far stricter rules / she must chant texts for hours / keep eyes downcast / pray with humility / must not presume / to gainsay learned elders” and her story
tumbles
down steep hillside
like a spring thaw stream
Pema must be a Chosen One
could she be reincarnated
Princess Lhacham Pema Tsal
astonishing yogini
brought back to life
to Guru Rinpoche
entrusted with his precious
teachings centuries ago?
But gossip reaches the Rinpoche and it is decided that Pema must be sent far away to the Bekung Monastery. This decision forces Lin and Pema to decide to leave Tibet. In “Lin and Pema flee Lhato,” they find a young village man to guide them back to China. In “Return to Fanchu Si” they reach their destination where
these dear sisters
faces wet with tears
who hug first me
then Pema
take us to my old room
that’s quite unchanged
The poem novel ends with “Lin’s poem for Lobsang”:
Here’s peace
beneath our old azalea tree
now to reflect
to play my flute
and write:
In mountain stream, your face
in bamboo stems, your voice
in lotus flowers, your life –
live on in flute’s sweet notes
The details which make Griffin’s verses so memorable are samples of scenes from a receptive life, formed by emotion; minimal, muted, they nevertheless brim with beauty. Griffin’s poems are often spare, yet never neutral: there is heat and depth throughout. Understated, quietly reflecting the protagonist’s journey towards her destiny.
