Love is not possessive. It is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.

the apostle Paul¹

“Were there any more stories from the wedding at Fred’s house?” mj wanted to know.

“It's filled with it,” Bill said.

“Betty Ann, do you have any good stories?” mj asked, trying to spread limelight around.

“No, I'm shy tonight,” she said coquettishly, barely audibly.

Mj laughed at the Bride of Mero, a story in a big, fancy, illustrated paperback he had bought in a New Age bookstore.

People had fallen away from the respectful life of law and order which their practice of Buddhism had given them at one time in their western part of ancient China. The men had turned all of their energy to racing horses throughout their rural province, and to hitting accurately with bow and arrow.

So: the Buddha showed up one day in drag (!), dressed as a Bodhisattva, a female version of himself; and tricked them into returning to the true way. 

“One of the stories I really remember,” Dlune said, being rarely shy, “is the one about Poley.”

“Oh, Jesus!” Bill went. “He was insistent on –.”

“Yeh,” Dlune said. “Poley wanted to bring Betty Ann to the altar, y'know?” She directed this at mj.

No, he did not know. Not the details, anyway; because he had been downstairs with regular peon wedding guests, awaiting the ceremony; and the highfalutin intrigue had been upstairs.

Mj looked at his wife with surprise: “Oh?”

And Bill horse-laughed to find a new storyteller in the room, Dlune: “AH CHA KHA KHA KHA HA-ha-ha-ha.”

The historic spiritual trick had occurred in a remote valley, in a tiny village on the bank of one of the upper branches of China’s Yellow River. One summer morning very early, an unfamiliar woman appeared who was uncommonly beautiful and seemed to be of noble birth. The people talked about her, saying that her almond eyes, jet black, flashed from beneath brows that were like little bows; and that the blackest hair fell in graceful waves around her face, which was 'oval, placid and lovely'. In her hands was a woven bamboo basket lined with green willow leaves. It was filled with fresh river fish of golden color. She called out to advertise what she was selling, just as any fishmonger of the village would do, except that when she called, her voice sounded like a breeze ‘rippling strings of hanging jade beads’; and no one in the village could say who she was, or what valley she might be from.    

“Poley was her 'father'. Right?” Dlune kept up with this story of hers, less intimidated by the official storyteller than Betty Ann seemed to be at the moment.

Mj thought he knew where she was going. Poley had always loved to act like his affection for Betty Ann was fatherly-type love.

The Buddha in drag would appear every morning in just the same way as on the first day. As soon as her fish were sold, she would disappear again so utterly, that some villagers thought maybe she had not been there at all. But the young men of the area knew for certain she had been there; and they watched for her return each morning until one day they ganged up and would not let her pass them. Several of the young men wanted her to marry them. They begged her and begged her, and she said: “You are all honorable young gentlemen, every one of you, and I do want to marry, of course, but I cannot marry you all. But if one of you could recite the Sutra of the Compassionate Kuan-yin by heart, perfectly, from beginning to end, I would marry him.

Dlune went on like a disciple of Bill’s master-storytelling, briefly allowed to speak for him: “And Betty Ann,” she said, “kept running away. Y'know, Poley wouldn't leave the foot of the steps.” She laughed. “Betty Ann kept hiding up there.”

Bill helped his storyteller apprentice: “Poley was arguing with me.”

Dlune authorized this by nodding. “And they couldn’t get him to leave. So finally Ken said,” she used a tone of finality: "’I have the solution. We'll all stand together’!"

Mj, surprised at this new twist, clapped his hands and stamped the miserable old creaking hardwood floor, howling, “Haaaaagh.” No one had ever told him this.

Betty Ann said with fondness, “Oh yeh, that's right. He did, didn't he.”

"’And we'll all walk in together’," Dlune finished Kenny Matthews’ short speech unifyng his countrymen.

The honorable young gentlemen of the village had never so much as heard of the Sutra, they were so absorbed with riding and archery. But that evening they got together as a great big pack, studied it, and competed to see who could recite it best; and by morning, thirty of them knew it by heart. And when they blocked the disguised Bodhisattva’s path again she said to them: “You are all honorable young gentlemen, every one of you; but I am only one woman, and I can only marry one of you. But if only one of you could explain the meaning of the sutra to me, I would marry that one.”

Bill took over and was not poignant. “Well. Y'know what I said. I said, ‘I'll go downstairs and tell Poley to get lost, now I'm gettin' bugged’. 'Cause she was all over me about this.” He did a Betty Ann who was cute, but frantic: "’Bee-ill, I don't want him to walk up with me, Bee-ill’."

“Y'see,” she explained, “I didn't want any kind of procession going in there. The place just wasn't right for that.”

And the next morning ten honorable young men of the village were at the river bank to claim the beautiful woman as their bride, for they felt that they understood the sutra. But again she said that though they were all honorable, each and every young man, she was only one and could not marry ten. But if, within three days, one of the ten had only experienced the meaning of the Sutra of the Compassionate Kuan-yin, she would definitely marry him happily.

“What you don't know,” said Bill to Betty Ann in a more intimate tone, “is that Virginia Waring took me over to the side too, and said, ‘Poley's standing there, y'know’. And I said, ‘I don't know what to do about it, Virginia. Can you tell Fred to tell him not to do this’?"

This warmed Betty Ann’s heart. “Hah. Aaooh. Oh, Bee-ill!”

“And Virginia said, ’Fred won't do it. She's hurt his feelings. Now you should tell 'im’. This is the way it went on,” Bill complained to mj. “Don't you remember that?” he asked Betty Ann.

“Yeh,” she said. But unlike Bill, she still had some affection for the whole sticky mess of muck, as was clear from the gooey fondness in her voice.

And then on the third day, in the early morning there was just one honorable young man at the river bank to meet his bride, and his name was Mero. And when Mero appeared and she first saw him, she smiled.

“So who all processed in then?” mj asked, for the record.

“We all went in together!” Betty Ann corrected.

They did not ‘pro-cess’. A hierarchical order could not exist. Because they were in a great big Mexican BALL of friends and family. No favorites allowed; no ‘father of the bride’; whether Poley; Fred; or whoever. No gloating by a Number Two later. No second most favorite. Nobody but hubby existed, as a wedding made clear.

They ‘all’ went in together. And they ‘all’ stood together.

“O Son of the House of Mero,” said the mysterious and beautiful fishmonger to the honorable young gentleman, “I can see that you are well on your way to experiencing fully the real meaning of the Sutra of the Compassionate Kuan-yin, and I accept you as my husband gladly. You may find me this evening at my house which lies at the bend in the river. My parents will receive you.”

“Who was 'all'?” mj insisted on knowing.

“Dlune,” said Betty Ann, “and –.”

“Poley,” said Bill.

“Poley,” Betty Ann said, “and –.

“Mark,” Bill said.

“Mark and Bill and Paul and Ken,” Betty Ann wrapped up, Paul Waring having been Bill’s best man; and Ken the preacher.

“And you!” mj shouted at the bride.

And that evening Mero went and found the little house at the bend in the river, right along the shore and surrounded by reeds and rocks. And an old man and woman stood at the door, welcoming him in. He introduced himself as the Son of the House of Mero. “I have come to claim your daughter as my bride,” he said to them. The old man told him they had waited for him for a very long time. And the old woman took the honorable young gentleman to her daughter’s room. And he went in through the door.

“So Ken,” said Dlune, claiming this story about Poley from start to end, “just told Poley to just come along, y'know.”

‘And Becky and Docka and Schubert the cat’, mj thought. ‘And Fred Waring’.

But it still was not right, this accounting of the ones who had walked in with the bride in an anonymous ball. Until the interviewer thought: ‘and me’! because he should have been there too, given the way he felt about Betty Ann.

And about Bill.

And the young Mero entered the room to find it empty. He looked out the window at the sand which reached all the way to the river’s edge, and he saw the foot prints of a woman. He went out and followed the tracks to the edge of the river, where he found a pair of woman’s sandals. He looked behind him in the twilight now and the house was gone, replaced by a stand of dry bamboo shoots that rustled in the breeze of the evening. And suddenly he realized that the beautiful fishmonger had been Bodhisattva, and he fully understood how tremendously kind the compassionate Kuan-yin really was. And to express this and tell the story of all that had happened to him he composed the lines:

She made a bridge of love, that he

            might cross to the shore of Bodhi.

O Compassionate Avalokiteshvara,

            most benevolent!

And from that time until now, in that western part of China, many have followed with reverence the Buddha’s Dharma.