开心

Pip Griffin lives in Sydney’s inner west. Trained as a primary school teacher in New Zealand, she has taught in Australian schools and more recently created and conducted training programmes in writing and communication skills for Commonwealth Government staff. She has a B.A. degree in anthropology and a fascination with other cultures, and has travelled extensively in Yunnan and Sechuan Provinces, People’s Republic of China.

Pip’s two collections of poetry, Salt Lake (2004) and Last song; the first year (2007), are published by Pohutukawa Press. She has poetry in Five Bells (journal of the Poets’ Union N.S.W.), in several Australian anthologies, including Mood Lightning (Imaginal Press), Ten Years Live, Open Boat, Barbed Wire Sky and Light on Donbank (Live Poets’ Press), and short stories in Womanspeak and Sydney Life. Her most recent work is a verse novel/epic poem, Ani Lin: the journey of a Chinese Buddhist nun.

Kaixin were so impressed with Pip's writing, particularly Ani Lin, that they asked her if she would consider publishing it in Kaixin. To our delight, she agreed.

Ani Lin: the journey of a Chinese Buddhist nun

My imaginary nun, Lin, was born in a village near Kunming 1874 and died in 1939, the year I was born. Her story was conceived in 1985 when I first travelled to Guilin and experienced feelings of déjà vu in the spectacular karst landscape. Early In 2002, I began writing her story in verse. When I again travelled to China that year with two women friends, I wanted to experience the people and the landscape through Lin’s eyes. We went first to Guilin then on to Kunming, Lijiang and Zhongdian (Gyalthang). During the return journey we stayed at a Buddhist monastery on Mt Ermei, near Chengdu. Another Australian friend had told me that if we walked up the mountain path through the forest we would come upon a nunnery, Fuhu Si. We found it and were delighted to be able to talk (as best we could!) with some young nuns, one of whom in particular touched me with her friendliness and joy in living. She became a further inspiration for the story of Ani Lin.

Ani Lin: the journey of a Chinese Buddhist nun

on mornings when I wake
with pounding heart
Kuan Yin’s soft fingers reach
to touch my own
she whispers
daughter, this journey
is only the beginning
of what you have to give

In 1892, 18 year old Lin enters a mountain nunnery above her village near Kunming, where she begins a journey that will take her on a difficult spiritual and physical path. Her dream is to work for equality for women in the Buddhist world.

Five years later, accompanied by the Tibetan monk, Lobsang, she sets out along the remote and mountainous Horse Tea Road. Arriving in Lhasa many months later, she meets the 13th Dalai Lama before journeying on to the village where she teaches for six years. One of her pupils, Pema Choki, is a very special girl on whose behalf Lin will have to challenge the practices and beliefs of the high lamas.

Lin’s own beliefs are profoundly challenged, not only by her experiences but also by the intensity of her friendship with, and subsequent loss of, her beloved Lobsang.

Ani Lin: the journey of a Chinese Buddhist nun