“We’re celebrating a big moment. You have completed you training with me! I have taught you all I can. Now, it’s time for you to continue on your own,” he said, smiling, the candlelight reflecting off his teeth and his long dark-blue shirt.
“What do you mean, completed? We’ve only worked on Dim Mak!”
“Yes, precisely.”
“The first thing you told me was that Dim Mak was only part of it. Remember when I tried to push you over? You were fixed to the earth. You were moving like a tree in the wind. That wasn’t Dim Mak. I’m not an idiot. It’s powerful, what you taught me, but there’s something else!”
“Maybe…”
“I thought you’d agreed to teach me.”
Sanfeng sipped his hot tea and made no reaction to Namara’s commentary, as though he was alone in the room.
“There is more. But as I explained from the beginning, we had to see how far you could take yourself, what were your abilities. You went to your limit. It is impossible for me to teach you anymore, not in this the actual sense.”
“Chrissake, I never understand a damn think you say!”
Sanfeng sighed as though he was disappointed in Danny’s stupidity.
“Very well! You want to know, I will explain! Our universe is constituted of an element that surrounds us, called chi. The Chinese name means, really, the universal energy that we find in everything, like you, me, this table, this floor. In opening yourself to the universe, you can accomplish things most men would call impossible.”
“And you’re saying I’m not open, is that it?”
“Not necessarily… but you need to understand that, to attain such an openness, only isolation, and meditation can lead you to your deepest self to find what you can really accomplish. It would be completely whacky to tell you that you can succeed in the western world, that never stops moving, and in which your spirit is nothing but vagabond. Never could you understand that which I explain in this world you live in, Danny. It is no accident that we crossed paths and I feel things that you may or may not believe. I saw the darkness you carry within you. I do not judge you, believe me… I understand. You must also understand, however, the suffering you carry in you will mean your downfall if you do not purge it. You must eliminate them, empty yourself, make peace. You are an integral part of the universe and you are not excluded, whatever you might think. There are circumstances that made you what you are, but accept the fact that you are a part of all of us. At this moment, you can use the universe to your will by the force of your spirit. At this moment only, you can move mountains and do unimaginable things. The real power is at the heart of yourself. Open your eyes and see! Accept the order of things and the only limit you have is that of your openness toward the universe. Can you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes.”
“The reason I’m here is no accident. I spend the majority of my time digging deep within me, exactly that which you lack. However, you succeeded in becoming powerful in a world that is, to me, completely unknown. We are perfect opposites, truly. I am the yin, so you, my friend, are the yang! However, none of us can attain equilibrium staying in our respective sides. Our meeting leads to equilibrium and therefore, invincibility! You learned how to beat the outer world, understand it, respond to its hostilities and survive. However you ignore all of yourself and you interior force. As for me, I’m here to test my spirit and force against all experiences, hostilities and temptations. Every new experience for me is a gift, because it lets me attain each time a little more of that which we call perfection. Of course, when I see myself naked in a mirror, I have to admit that I’m already pretty close.”
“Pffffffff! I’m going to go ahead and pretend I never heard that last part.”
Sanfeng guffawed and took a bit of the glazed chicken.
“You know, I told you that I would go as far as I could. Let’s say I want to go further… what’s the next step?”
Sanfeng stood and disappeared for a few seconds, to return with a bronze medallion on which was engraved a fire-spitting phoenix. He deposited it in Danny’s right hand.
“Well… What follows will be that you take this medallion and go to China, to the Lingdao monastery at Mount Emei. When you find the monastery, give this to the monk Chao Heng. He will know who sent you. But your path, you must take it alone. I cannot help you more than this. Now, eat, before it gets cold!”
He saluted Sanfeng. “Thank you for everything,” said Danny.
“The pleasure is mine. Thank you for putting you confidence in this old fool. You are a being full of goodness. I saw it from the start, even if you ignored it, warrior. That your quest will lead you to climb amongst the stars, so that you radiate from one continent to the other, my friend,” he said, full of conviction, as he raised his glass.
CHAPTER 35
Mount Emei region, Sichuan, China.
“Damn macaques,” Namara growled – his canteen had just been stolen by one of the wild monkeys that populated Mount Emei.
Knowing that he’d have to walk so many kilometers in the dense forest to get to Lingdao, he’d gone and bought hiking boots and a pack, which he’d filled with only that which was necessary. It had been hours since he’d arrived, and he hadn’t stopped walking in the little narrow trails, slowly edging up the huge mountain. Upon his arrival at Emei, he’d met an old lady on the side of a country road. She sold hard eggs in a vinegar solution that boiled in a bowl on a counter in her cabin. He had taken care to buy some for the ascension. He knew that the old lady was the last possible source of supplies for him. Then, he would be by himself in the mountains. Ignorant as to the fauna of the forest, he thought tying his canteen to his bag would be sufficient.
The climate surprised him. The forest was dense and varied, the climate cool but comfortable. A constant humidity hung in the air and the fog stuck. The trail continued unceasingly. The countryside was breathtaking, following the path that plowed into deep valleys. He stopped several times to admire the huge mountains that surrounded him and whose summits disappeared into the opaque fog. Birds hovered and swirled around the peaks and cried, as though to wish him well. The more he walked, the higher he rose. After some time, breathing became more difficult as air pressure lowered. He quickly realized that he was not as alone as he thought in the green, humid forest. Hundreds of wild monkeys hid all around him. They were like miniature grey gorillas, the size of a little kid, and moved as a group. When he felt the presence of the little beasts, he was worried they would attack him, but they seemed content to watch, study, follow. They never attacked.
When he thought he was finally rid of companions, he glanced up and saw yet another, who had come out of the forest to perch on a raised branch and watch him walk, scratching its white goatee. Not realizing that the canteen on his pack would be interesting to a macaque, he learned soon enough – a monkey lurched toward him like lightning and seized it. The knot broke and he fell backward, but he got his balance while his proud little friend cried in satisfaction, scaling a tree, holding his loot.
* * *
Namara couldn’t feel his legs. It had been six hours of straight uphill trek. Despite his fatigue and the humidity that drenched his clothes, he wouldn’t slacken his pace. He arrived in a deep valley surrounded by narrow, high mountains. They looked like huge stalagmites covered in vegetation, only their peaks showing rocky relief. Deep in the valley, he could make out the little monastery in the shelter and camouflage of the mountains. There were five rudimentary wood constructions, blackened by the mountain humidity. The structures surrounded a huge pare expanse of interlocking brick. Only a giant bronze cauldron sat in the centre. A thick plume of incense smoke swirled from the cauldron into the sky to mingle with the fog.
A light odor of incense hung over everything, and an atmosphere of peace reigned as though time didn’t exist. The architecture was massive, sober, and reminiscent of ancient China. At the center, a little Asian man in a long white tunic practiced movements of a style
unfamiliar to Namara’s experienced eyes. The man approached him with a smile. Namara returned the smile and presented the monk with Sanfeng’s medallion. The monk motioned with head toward a building and had Namara leave his bag before following.
They traversed the monastery and entered into a building in which hundreds of candles maintained semi-darkness. The incense was stronger in here, and dried flower petals covered the entrance. Danny counted nine monks, excluding the one that had accompanied him, all dressed in that same white tunic, a sort of linen, apparently. They seemed to be in deep meditation and his guide moved him toward a monk who was seated at the other end of the wall. The latter opened his eyes upon feeling the presence of a visitor. The guide gave him the medallion, and he contemplated it for a long time before looking at Danny with a kind smile.
“How fares Sanfeng?"
“He’s doing really well.”
“It has been a long time since I’ve seen my old friend. What has become of him?”
“He lives in New York. He’s got a store.”
“New York?” he asked with amusement. “That does sound like him. You must be very special for him to have given you his medallion, and you must be very determined to have made it here. My name is Chao Heng. And yours?”
“Danny.”
“And you are here to learn, I take it.”
“Yes.”
“Very well. Welcome to Lingdao, which means, in Chinese, ‘Way of the Spirit’. Follow me, we shall find you clothes and food… surely you must be hungry!”
Chao Heng introduced him to other monks, who seemed just as amicable as him. He explained that Danny would live amongst them for some time, and thus Danny was welcomed as one of their own.
* * *
“Breathe… concentrate on your respiration and rid your mind of thought. You must loosen yourself until you no longer feel your own body,” said Chao Heng calmly.
“I’m gonna go nuts,” muttered Namara, whose legs trembled with exhaustion.
“Concentrate!”
They’d been holding the position for two hours. He was upright, knees bent, hands at chest-height as though he was holding a giant beach ball. His legs burned like fire and he couldn’t think of anything but pain.
“Empty your mind completely,” said Chao Heng, who was holding the same position with ease.
“I’m trying.”
“Don’t try, do…”
This torture had been the daily norm for Danny for a while now. Every day, they walked to a cave some distance from the monastery to practice Chao Heng’s exercises for hours. Chao Heng didn’t like questions. There was little conversation. Silence and tranquility lived here. Occasionally, a bird or one of the woodland animals would break the silence. Danny was practically fighting himself. He had no idea why he was doing the exercises, but do them he did, all day long.
His body hurt from staying still so many hours. The days ended around a fire, where Chao Heng played songs on his bamboo flute. The rest, they listened to the crackle of the fire and the sounds of the forest. The heavens glittered with millions of stars, taunting them with their own universal insignificance. The days seemed endless for Danny and he wasn’t getting closer to figuring out what good the training was doing. Is being here a mistake?
He felt nothing and understood nothing of the meaning of it all. He wanted to leave. One night, by Chao Heng’s side, he yearned to ask him – interrogate him – what the hell he was doing here. He didn’t ask, of course, because he knew that it would be impossible to ask such questions of a Chinese monk. The apprentice obeys and trusts his master. Asking questions, arguing, would be considered an insult, and he wouldn’t jeopardize whatever bond they had. He stayed with the monks, clad in white like them, training like them, learning to tame the silence like them.
CHAPTER 36
Danny did his best to hold onto the markers of his reality – what day it was, what time, how long he’d been there. Eventually he was able to let go, forget everything. He became accustomed to this life’s rhythm and he’d never slept so soundly in his life. All the stress within him, the need to act and move, vanished bit by bit. At that moment he realized how much he’d been hauling around within him his whole life without ever realizing it. For the first time, he had a taste of inner peace, and he liked it. One day, after an hour in the cave with Chao Heng, his life ever-so-subtly changed.
Suddenly, he began to perspire intensely for no reason. The sweat soaked his clothes like he’d been running for miles. Then he felt his legs freeze from his toes to his hips. Cold shivers wracked his body. This is it, he thought, I’m finally going nuts…
“Hold your position. Do not think about what you’re feeling, it will pass!” ordered Chao Heng, who knew exactly what was going on.
There was a level he’d reached, a door that was opened. Danny knew it, and Chao Heng, too; he was smiling proudly. The following days were surprising and surreal. Throughout his exercises, pieces of his past began to swim to the surface: his parents’ death, and Chandra’s; his difficult childhood; Colombia; any trauma he’d ever experienced in his whole life. His memories came in flashes that were so strong he might have been reliving his whole life.
His body reacted with trembles and vibrations. It was like a movie in his head, like everything that he’d managed to tuck away in a little cerebral prison decided to break out. Chao Heng began to add more exercises, more secret techniques to his training. One day, as they lit the incense in the central cauldron, the gong rang, breaking the silence with its eerie resonance. Danny jumped. And when he turned to look, there was no-one in site, except a monk smiling at him from too far away. He wouldn’t believe his eyes, or his ears. It was impossible, but these phenomena became more and more frequent from then on. As he practiced a concentration exercise under a huge hundred-year-old tree, a bolt of lightning struck. There was an ear-splitting crack like a cannon, and the two halves of the trunk fell neatly on either side of him in a crash of breaking branches. Any other angle, and Danny would have been crushed. How coincidental that both Danny and the lightning bolt had chosen that tree, out of the thousands that grew in the forest.
* * *
My imagination’s playing tricks. But at the same time, Namara couldn’t deny that everything seemed to be linked to his training. He felt more altered each day, and more serene. He saw the world around him in a different way, but he couldn’t put his finger on what way that was. One night, as he practiced, he felt a tap on his right shoulder and turned to respond, but to his shock, there was nobody, or at least nobody at arms’ length – but there was someone, a monk, sitting no less than three hundred feet away. Chao Heng smiled at Namara to see such confusion on his face and beckoned him over to the fire.
“Come over, Danny, I must speak with you.”
“All right.”
Chao Heng sat in front of the fire with his flute and raised his head to contemplate the stars.
“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”
“Yeah, they’re… magnificent.”
“You’ve begun to feel things?”
“Yeah… yes.”
“And you understand what they are?”
“Not really… maybe you ought to explain? I don’t know if I’m going crazy or I don’t know what…”
“It’s not your imagination, I assure you. The universe speaks with you. You’ve opened yourself to it. You serve the universe, and this is what happens.
“Ok, but I’m not serving anything. It all happened suddenly. I don’t have any control over what’s happening!”
“Not yet, but it’ll come, be patient! You have already heard of the Third Eye?”
“Yes. It’s a sixth sense of sorts, I take it?”
“Exactly. The capacity to feel and see things that others cannot. Extrasensory perception, if you like. In all cultures, since the dawn of time, certain individuals of highest knowledge had this sixth sense. Certain peoples of India have had this knowledge for centuries, but only a few really k
now the secret of the Third Eye. Some countries hide this knowledge within their religious dogma. The people of certain hunting tribes have such an ability that, through concentration and willpower, they can slow their heart rhythm to such a point that doctors couldn’t take a pulse. They bring themselves to legal death through relaxation and breathing. They become living dead, in the eyes of an outsider! The mind is much stronger than body and matter. Some have this clairvoyance, most do not. You do, but you ignore it at the moment. Sanfeng knew you had it, and I’ve seen it in you as well. You know, Sanfeng was probably the best and highest among us. Though he seems strange at first meeting, I can assure you that he is extremely powerful. His presence in America is no doubt a means of increasing his power, going by his logic. I am not worried for him. I am certain he does well.”
“I’m no clairvoyant, I’ve never had visions.”
“Some have it from birth, some attain it at a different level. Perhaps you don’t yet have precise visions, but you will be able to feel and see things. You can accomplish things that you wouldn’t believe. Only time will permit.”
“Why is this all happening to me?”
“Because you have something to accomplish. The universe holds no accidents. You are an integral part of it. You must learn to listen when it speaks to you, because it will indeed speak. You must open your perception of the invisible and question what you have taken for granted. Sometimes, reality is different from what we believe. And…”
“And?”
“You must make peace with yourself. The universe put you to the test with your life’s obstacles. You have suffered much, but you must understand that these were necessary challenges to become who you are. These hardships fashioned the force of your mind and will. You cannot be what you are without having lived what you have lived. This is what you must understand. Let go of that which chokes you. Do not dwell on them; they were necessary. Be serene, make sure it becomes a power that will protect against the obscure forces that exist and that you encounter.”
Redemption Page 20
