Bodhisattva of Emptiness
Bodhisattva Stories #12
Sophia never knew of the existence of the Bodhisattva of Emptiness. In fact, the concept of emptiness had no place in her life. From her childhood, there wasn’t a moment when she was idle. Whether it was studying, pursuing hobbies, working, or in her relationships, Sophia gave her all, investing every ounce of her energy. Sophia’s efforts were not in vain; she became a renowned scholar, earned numerous honors, and enjoyed a blissful marriage, giving birth to three lovely daughters.
In her later years, Sophia was quite affluent and felt her life was complete, desiring nothing more. At this time, the Bodhisattva of Emptiness paid a quiet visit, taking away Sophia’s husband. At seventy, Sophia felt emptiness for the first time, wandering through her days distracted and unsure of what to do. The life puzzle she had painstakingly completed was missing its most crucial piece, and it was an irreparable loss. She didn’t realize that this was just the beginning of the puzzle falling apart.
When Sophia was seventy-five, she was honored with a lifetime achievement award in recognition of her academic contributions. It had been a long time since she had experienced something so exhilarating. Sophia attended the ceremony with high spirits and went up on stage to give a speech summarizing her academic career. When she came to speak about Aristotle, a key term reached her lips but repeatedly failed to come out. Suddenly, Sophia panicked. Unbeknownst to her, the Bodhisattva of Emptiness had taken that word away. In front of a full auditorium of guests, she froze like a robot that had suddenly lost power, unable to move from that spot. Her former student, now the dean, quickly came forward to escort her off the stage, while the audience immediately erupted in understanding and supportive applause. But Sophia couldn’t forgive herself; it was a blemish on her life!
However, it wasn’t long before this blemish, along with many other things that weren’t blemishes, was erased from her mind. She began to find academic articles incomprehensible, and even regular newspapers and magazines became difficult to follow. The books that filled her house became alien, like meaningless ornaments. She threw out boxes of books one after another, which her eldest daughter rescued on a visit but eventually were sent to a second-hand bookstore. Without the books, the shelves became contentless voids, oddly disturbing to the eye, so she dismantled them all.
After several incidents of getting lost and forgetting to turn off the stove while cooking, Sophia’s eldest daughter brought her to live in her own home. The Bodhisattva of Emptiness continued to visit unannounced, quietly taking things away now and then. Today it was a piece of past memory, tomorrow a certain living skill. One day, Sophia stood in front of her late husband’s portrait, asking her daughter who the man was and why his photo was placed there. Another day, she mistook her eldest daughter for her second daughter, who had emigrated and only returned once a year. When the eldest daughter tried to spark her memory by going through old photo albums with her, she realized that Sophia no longer recognized anyone, except for loudly calling out the name of a young man in a photo with her from her youth. The daughter didn’t know that the man was her mother’s first love, who she broke up with when she decided to study abroad in the UK. It turns out Sophia’s life was not without regrets. However, the Bodhisattva of Emptiness soon took away even this regretful memory.
Sophia’s speech became like a text file constantly being hit with the delete key, not only becoming thinner in content but also diminishing in vocabulary. Not long ago, she had argued with her daughter about the distribution of her inheritance, and soon she could only repeat conversations about meals, taking medicine, and bathing. The Bodhisattva of Emptiness even took away her concept of time; Sophia began to confuse day with night. She would get up at dawn to ask when dinner was, and at dusk to inquire about breakfast time. Between sleeping and waking, she did not know where she was.
After a fall that led to hospitalization, Sophia needed a wheelchair to get around and required the help of a housemaid for daily self-care. Lying in bed all day, Sophia began to incessantly call out for her third daughter: “Clara! Clara! When will you come? When will you come? Clara! Clara! Say ‘mom’, say ‘mom’! Mommy!" Sophia had forgotten that her third daughter, Clara, had already passed away from cancer at the age of twenty. It was unclear whether knowing or not knowing this was better.
In the end, as the Bodhisattva of Emptiness was about to complete its task, a word flashed through the remaining consciousness of Sophia—the Latin term she couldn’t remember during her speech. But it was just that—a flash, and then the word was gone again.
You might think the Bodhisattva of Emptiness has no heart of compassion and acts without method. In fact, the Bodhisattva of Emptiness didn’t take anything away; it simply restored everything to its original state. However, few people know this, and no one has seen the incarnation of the Bodhisattva of Emptiness, as if it never existed.