On the side of the Tsz Shan Monastery, in the New Territories, there is a stone trough of water resting on grey river pebbles. Bobbing on its surface are wooden bowls and ladles. Their purpose is as tools to make an offering. The lady beside me misinterprets them for a drinking apparatus despite posted warning in Mandarin and English. A guard comes to chastise her--she looks quizzically before finishing her drink. I fill my bowl with a scoop of the cold water, and after a few deep breaths, I begin my walk down The Compassion Path.
The temple is new but styled as old: dark wood like the shrines of Kyoto, illustrations from the Yulin Caves lining its walls, overgrowth creeping from the dense surrounding foliage. This newness is unsurprising. To get to Tsz Shan, we drove through deep tunnels connecting the scattered islands of Hong Kong, past countless towering apartment buildings and skyscrapers. Most everything was built in living memory. I was shocked to learn that the Mandarin Hotel, at twenty-seven stories, was the tallest building in the city when it was finished in 1963. Now it is shadowed on all sides.
Waiting at the end of The Compassion Path is Guan Yin. Her towering statue, imposingly large notwithstanding its pure whiteness and slight groundward tilt, is more to the scale of the hills behind than the other figures in the temple complex. She looks beyond the walls with the warm gaze of the Enlightened to the common features of Hong Kong; steep green mountains rising from the sea, craggy shoreline, narrow protruding rectangles filling the space between. For she is the bodhisattva of compassion. Between her fingers she holds a pearl. In her hair is Amitabha Buddha. She empties a vase with her left hand into the Thousand Wishes Pond, to which I am walking to pour my libation into.
This part of the world has changed at an unprecedented pace and scale. Living people born where I currently stay started life in a kampong of attap roofs, a rural Malay village devoid of modern amenities, not so different than one from centuries before--now it houses a KFC and a mass-transit train station. Victoria Harbour glistenes in the night with neon reflection, and the only remaining Chinese junks take tourists on joyrides between the Supramax bulk carriers. Over 70 million people live in the Pearl River Delta these days, more than seven times the population there fifty years ago.
Such rapid transformation is jarring, I can imagine. In the blink of an eye a new landscape has arrived. But it is inspiring, too. Just see how much can be done in a lifetime. Revel in the wonders of human ingenuity. It's part of why this region draws excitement. It holds a gravitas, an undeniable proof that the limits of belief are untenable. Here I feel my fears of change have been conquered, my nostalgia put to rest. The view she looks over still resemble that in Summer Mountains. The future can glitter on its own.
The Path towards Guan Yin is wide, inevitable, and it is most beneficial to traverse with intention. Some water spills over the bowl's edge onto my shoes--whether my unsteady gait or focus is to blame I'm not certain. The tropical sun bears down with intensity. With every step the setting grows quieter, the figure more domineering. Her soft smile washes down with empathy.
As I reach the end, offering what I carried in return for the wisdom of the divine, I ask for guidance in my desires, guidance to achieve fruition of what I most need. The salty ocean breeze combs my hair. Amidst the noise, the swirl of the world, there is a place to be found. With each passing day I sense I am closer.
