The Market Was a Bust Today

45. 오늘 장은 망쳤다.

45. The Market Was a Bust Today

Yu Hui Jung

Not far from Potala Palace, past the cliffs of Chagpori and the Buddhas that cover Thousand Buddha Cliff, we arrived at a stack of Mani stones carved with the mantra “Om mani padme hum.” I fell silent and simply bowed my head.

I circled the tall, red, pagoda-shaped iron structure filled with thin slabs of rock showing images of the Buddha before descending the low staircase and stopping in front of the souvenir shop. Among the various craftworks in the case, my eyes settled on one item in particular.

It was a bronze incense burner. It was of firm construction, suitably weighty, and had a concise form. The bronze had a faint metallic luster. Unable to conceal my enchantment at its refinement, I asked the shop owner how much it was.

He told me that it cost 370 Chinese yuan, or a little over 50 dollars—I suspected that this was a jumping-off point for haggling, but he refused to budge on the amount—perhaps having sensed my attachment to it.

Instead, he held firm, pointing to a cheaper burner and suggesting I buy that one instead. Fearing I might lose the battle, I boldly decided to turn around and make to walk out.

Finally, the owner tapped on his calculator and called me back. Time to end this tug-of-war and settle on a suitable price, I thought. But then, I suddenly noticed that the other members of my group were all leaving for the next stop on our schedule.

I felt as if I had invisible cords attached to my left and right hands, pulling me in different directions. I could have simply given the owner what he wanted for the burner and followed my group, but my pretty pride would not allow it. I quickly ran out, catching up with the last person in the group.

But while my body had left the store, I had not yet let go of the incense burner. My attachment kept peeking its head out—I experienced every thought from “I almost got ripped off” to “It’s not mass-produced.

You won’t see another one like it anywhere else.” In the shortest space of time, I was visited nonstop by all sorts of torments: relief, fixation, disappointment, regret, and so forth.

The significance of burning incense is in the idea of “precepts”—of properly using one’s body, mouth, and mind. Yet my desire to acquire a vessel to place my incense in had left me completely addled. As I flailed about in the pull of these distracting thoughts, I saw light emerging from a dark window across from the Thousand Buddha Cliff.

Countless flames burned in lanterns fueled by yak butter. They looked like tens of thousands of fireflies fluttering in the air. I was able to calm my roiling mind as I looked upon the joyous eyes of the visitors worshiping the Buddha and the flames of the lanterns flickering like stars in the night sky.

There was a noted Sŏn monk during the Joseon era named Jinmuk. When he practiced at Bongseosa Temple on Seobangsan Mountain in Wanju, Jeolla-do, he would sometimes go down to Jeonju on market days and walk around the marketplace as a way of testing himself.

If his mind was not roiled by desire, he would say to himself, “Today was a good shopping day.” But if he found his eyes and ears rumbling with temptations, he would say, “The market was a bust today.”

I find myself looking back on my own foolishness in distant Lhasa.

The market was a bust today.