Red Mandarin Dress

things to do in this world that there is no point worrying about the other world not known for sure. Still, Chen saw no harm in lighting a candle, holding incense, burning some afterworld money. Perhaps it could lead to a sort of communication with the dead.
    He bought a bunch of tall incense and lit it, like others. He prayed that Buddha would guide him in his effort to catch the murderer, so that Hong would rest in peace.
    As if that were not enough, he made a pledge, holding the incense: if he succeeded in catching the criminal, he would be a cop all his life, forgetting about all the other plans or ambitions he had for himself. A conscientious cop, contented.
    Afterward, he moved to the back of the temple, where he climbed a flight of stone steps to a high-raised courtyard. Leaning against the white stone railing, he tried to think, gazing at the ancient eaves of the temple against all the postmodern skyscrapers.
    He became aware of another monk coming toward him. It was an old monk with a weather-beaten face and a deeply lined forehead, carrying a long string of black beads in his hands, his steps barely audible on the stone.
    “You look worried, sir.”
    “Yes, Master,” Chen said, hoping that it wasn’t about making another donation. “I’m an ordinary man, lost in the mundane world of the red dust, so I am burdened with worries like a snail carrying its shell.”
    “The snail may appear so because you think so. There is nothing but appearance.”
    “You have put it so well, Master,” Chen said reverentially, for the old monk struck him as erudite. He recalled stories of sudden enlightenment in ancient temples. This could be an opportunity for his investigation. “Buddhists talk about seeing through—through the vanity of things in the world. I am trying hard, but I just can’t.”
    “You are no ordinary man, that much I can see. Have you read the poem about the sudden enlightenment of Liuzhu?”
    “I have read it, but it was such a long time ago. A metaphor about the bronze mirror, right?”
    “Yes and no,” the old monk said. “When the elderly abbot was going to name a successor, he decided to test his disciples. The number one candidate came up with a poem. ‘My body is like a Bodhi tree, / my heart, a bronze mirror, / which I keep wiping, / so there’s no dust left.’ Not a bad one, you may say. But the dark horse, Huineng, a housecleaning monk, proved to be the wiser in his poem: ‘Bodhi is no tree, / and mirror is no heart. / There’s nothing there. / How comes the dust?’ ”
    “Yes, that’s the story. Huineng was surely more thorough, and he succeeded.”
    “Nothing but appearance. The tree, the mirror, yourself, or the world.”
    “But we are still living in the world, Master.”
    “While you still have a lot of things to do, you may not be able to see beyond that world so quickly. An ancient proverb says, Discard your knife and turn yourself immediately into a Buddha. It’s a proverb because it is by no means easy.”
    “You are absolutely right. It’s just that I am so dumb.”
    “No, it’s not easy to reach enlightenment. But you can try to clear your mind of all the disturbing thoughts—for a short while. You have to move ahead step by step.”
    “Thank you so much, Master.”
    “It’s our lot that we should meet here today,” the old monk said, pressing his palms together in a gesture of departing. “So why thank me? Good-bye. We will meet again if it’s so destined.”
    According to Buddhism, everything happens through a sort of karma—a drink of water, a peck by a bird, or a meeting with an old monk, all of which must come out of what has happened earlier, and all of which leads in turn to something else.
    So why not try, as the old monk suggested, to forget all the thoughts he had already had about the case and see it from a fresh perspective?
    He remained standing by the railing, closing his eyes to empty his mind. He did not succeed at first. Perhaps people perceive only within the framework of preconceived ideas or images. No one lives in a vacuum.
    So he took a deep breath, concentrating his mind on the dantian , a tiny spot above his navel. It was a technique he had learned in his Bund Park days. Gradually his energy seemed to start moving in harmony with the singular milieu of the temple.
    All of a sudden, the image of the red mandarin dress came to him.
    It appeared, however, in a way he hadn’t experienced before. He seemed to be seeing it