The mornings began before I fully understood what they were doing to me. I couldn’t remember why I agreed to this experiment; I kept reminding myself, ‘remember your why, remember your why.’ But it wasn’t like in an American movie where you recite that into the mirror. We didn’t have that luxury, or a mirror in a monastery, maybe it simply seemed unnecessary.
The air felt cold in that distinctive way old buildings do at night. I bundled up in layers and entered the corridor, still partly connected to my past and partly in something I hadn’t yet understood. On that first morning, I literally stumbled.
When I imagined what it might be like, everything seemed clear and destined to happen, as if just crossing the monastery’s threshold would instantly bring wisdom to my shoulders. I believed that stepping inside would cause the transformation to naturally take over me — I wanted clarity and insight as generous welcome gifts, but no, nothing came down. I was simply cold, hungry, and unbearably exhausted.
I was a heartbeat late with every move during morning practice. I barely understood their Mandarin at that time — my well-practiced university Chinese had turned into sounds and tones that my brain couldn’t yet grasp — so I followed them closely. For days, I just shadowed them, copied the angle of the spine, the lift of the joined palms, the shift of weight through the soles of the feet, and I learned, I mean, my body learned what I did not understand just yet.
Days went by in almost complete silence. I believe they had to adapt to me as well — to someone who didn’t fit their rhythm, a foreigner, and additionally, a woman. I felt the simultaneous weight of being visible and invisible. I was present, undeniably so, yet felt somewhat on the margins, like a footnote in a text already written, long before I arrived. That humility — the imposed sense of smallness — humbled me more than I expected.
After a while, I stopped trying to earn my place. I stopped overcompensating with extra discipline or exaggerated attentiveness. I simply waited, waited for time to move, for the days to complete themselves, for my voluntarily chosen exile finally to come to an end. And then, just when I had surrendered to that brutal quiet, someone finally chose to speak to me.
After that, I would participate in teachings following my early morning movement practice. It’s difficult to express what I experienced there, and I doubt words can fully capture it. Certain experiences defy description and fade away as soon as I try to organize them. I can only share fragments—some images. Come, join me in these moments.
The room was simple, light filtering in through narrow windows. There was no furniture, we sat on the floor, some of us had a pillow. The floor was cool beneath our folded legs. I remember the sound of pages turning. Remember, my impatient mind, still trained to perform, kept trying to analyze, to categorize, to understand correctly, and answer properly to questions nobody even asked. I recall the intense frustration as repetitive actions gradually become monotonous, and my thoughts slowly cease to flow. I remember staring straight into the candlelight for hours, or watching a piece of dust dance in the sunshine. I remember losing sense of time, I remember waking up with numbed legs and fingers blue from cold I didn’t even realize. I remember koans, lots of koans. A koan is a brief, thought-provoking story or question used in Chan practice to challenge our usual way of thinking and guide us toward deeper insight beyond ordinary logic. The aim is to dismiss the need for an answer and to encourage the question itself to collapse completely.
Two monks were arguing: one said the flag was moving, the other said the wind was moving. The master said: it is not the flag moving, not the wind moving — it is your mind that is moving.
It all began with héshí — hands gently pressed together at the chest, fingers pointing upward, shoulders relaxed, and breathing steady. The two hands coming together formed a symbol of unity, representing the end of conflict: self and other merging peacefully. When the hands rose toward the forehead, it symbolized a wish for mental clarity. Moving toward the mouth signified a pledge for honest speech, and returning to the heart reflected a promise to act with integrity.
Although much from that time has faded at the edges, this gesture left a lasting impression on me and now influences how I approach every person and each living being. My goal is to keep my thoughts, words, and actions aligned. Whether fortunate or not, I also expect the same coherence from others, and 97% fall apart relatively quickly under that standard.
I learned how to bow and what it means. You gradually fold forward from the hips, lowering your head beneath your heart, representing the intellect descending into subconscious awareness. In full prostration, you kneel and let your forehead touch the ground, your body briefly horizontal, unguarded, palms resting open on the floor for long seconds. It’s important that you are exposed, that you show vulnerability, that you show you are unarmed, and that you show trust that this won’t be used against you. Three bows, one to Buddha for awakening, one to Dharma for truth, and one to Sangha, for the community.
It’s painful to write this because today someone took advantage of the vulnerability I allowed myself to show. That’s what happens when you choose to bleed among sharks, I guess. But no surprise, because it’s in these morning teachings where I got familiar with Buddha’s words. I have to admit, as bad as it sounds, at first, I hated them. I fought them with every cell of mine. In my defense, I was barely twenty, I had lived so little of life compared to what I know now — lessons that, unfortunately, have confirmed themselves again and again.
Life is suffering. The more you love, the more you suffer. And at the time, sitting in that small room, studying those sentences, I remember wanting to escape when I first heard: The problem is, you think you have time.
That line frightened me more than anything else; now it’s tattooed on my arm as a permanent reminder not to wait. Not to postpone that call, not to delay love because it feels inconvenient or too intense—live while you can, love while you can, say it while you can, say it too soon, say it too loud—just say it, because you never know which hug or goodnight kiss will be the last before everything shifts, which phone call will be the one to separate the “before” from the “after” in a blink of an eye.
When I left the monastery months later, the city struck me as surreal and hostile with its brightness. The sounds were too piercing, the lights were overly artificial, and the conversations were rapid, smells just simply bad. I felt lost about how to relate to people again. Reintegrating into a world that felt endlessly overstimulating was disorienting. Food, in particular, seemed exaggerated; the sweetness felt artificial, leading me to avoid flavors that once seemed familiar. It was as if I was viewing everything through glass or from inside a bubble — present, yet disconnected from it all. Not truly part of anything.
I recognize that sensation now.
In New York — the city that once beckoned me with promise — now sometimes gives me the same feeling of disorientation. The skyscrapers, the glass, the polished shine. and all the noise, the way everything is shoved at you with full force: bigger, brighter, faster, richer, shinier. Spectacle itself dulls the senses, as if thisglare is meant to keep you from seeing the true price.
You hear it described as beautiful, grand, and limitless, the center of the universe- wtf, this city has the best marketing team for sure. But OK, let’s say it is. I sometimes still feel it is. Yet, beneath its brilliance, there’s a structure that requires more than human effort just to keep up. Productivity becomes as vital as oxygen, and exhaustion becomes normal. Even the carrots are sweetened, because raw reality seems too intense for people to handle, the flavor of unfiltered truth would be overwhelming.
Sometimes it seems like the city intentionally dazzles you, forcing brightness into your face so you won’t realize how lonely you are inside and how unable you are to find real connections in the midst of all that rush. In NYC, there is always more, always better, always something more exciting or simply different. It highlights how fragile the safety net is, and how slim the line is between just getting by and falling apart. It’s almost absurd that, in one of the wealthiest cities in the world, people might hesitate to call an ambulance when one is needed because of the cost.
And so they endure in silence. We do. We still go with our pain, we calculate, we hope it will pass — the bill, the injury, the panic, the night, life itself…We hope something will end: the discomfort, the fear, the isolation, sometimes we don’t even know which ending we are hoping for. God Bless New York. I want to befully present, not anesthetized by your lights.
I completed my thesis on Chen Buddhism, I mastered the language, and graduated summa cum laude. I worked as expected— a Chinese-speaking psychologist was a perfect fit for the Chinese Bank. However, I hated the job, left it, and gradually forgot most of the language, since I never really used it after those three months—the only three months I spent as an employee.
When I took refuge, I did it in my own awkward, stumbling Chinese, carefully explaining that my Christian identity still mattered to me, that I could not renounce it without losing something essential, and that if taking refuge in Buddha required erasing that part of myself, I would not be able to commit — and what I received in return was surprising spaciousness, assurance that I could remain Christian and still walk a Buddhist path, that perhaps my faith was never about choosing one camp but about carrying forward what is true and alive in each tradition for me.
When you take refuge, you are asked three questions, and you must answer “wǒ néng” — I am capable — are you capable of taking refuge in the Buddha, in the Dharma, in the Sangha? and you say yes, I am capable.
This past year, as many of you now know, has been the hardest and most demanding year of my life, filled with challenges I once believed I was not strong enough to navigate. I remember standing in front of my apartment door the day my little dog died, collapsing before I could even turn the key, unable to cry, unable to move, my hand refusing to function because I knew that once I stepped inside, she would not run toward me with his tail wagging, and I felt incapable — incapable of walking in, incapable of meeting the eyes of my other dog and watching him understand what it means that I’m coming alone, incapable of carrying my own grief and his at the same time — and I stood there for minutes, repeating to myself, in myself, stubbornly, fithout really feeling it, just kept repeteing it: yes, I am capable, I am capable; and somewhere in that repetition I realized I have no choise, I have to be capable. This time, it’s not a question of decision. And just as of today, I realized that I’m not only capable of bearing his pain, I am capable of protecting him from more of it, capable of keeping him from attaching to someone unworthy and breaking his heart, and I’m capable of guarding myself as well.
“The phrase “Wǒ néng” carried me throughout the year as an unseen current guiding everything. Today, I realized I want to remember what it feels like to bow, breathe, let my head fall below my heart, and then rise again with steadiness. It’s now 4:35 a.m., and I haven’t finished what I want to say, but I’m exhausted, so I’ll split this into two parts. This is a teaser for you and a reminder for myself: I still want to share the story of the Fire Horse. Much love.
To be continued
