Monk Punk and Shadow of the Unknown Omnibus

by Aaron French

  What is above, is below.

  Despite the heady fragrance of mountain poppies lining the meandering trail, I focus on the cloud that clings to the summit five miles distant. Does this Gelugpa Mountain always fly that wet white banner? If so I am to be blessed with a spring season of saturation. After four hours of steady uphill hiking my muscles had screamed for peace. That was a half-hour koan mantra ago.

  “At one

  Through two.

  In true spirit

  In harmony.”

  Now the mission calls me to move on.

  I caress a string of malachite beads. I should fight pride yet I recall with a smile the presentation of the beads from the Shaolin temple. A venerable master had decided I’d passed the first novice recondite hurdle. Those innocent days. Now, I face a real test.

  I stand then glance down at my resting bench: a too-big hessian bundle. One more glance up at my destination then a grab at cloth-wrapped string before heaving the load onto my back. Not a Sherpa, yet I walk in a burden’s shade. That morning I smelled of fresh river water; now my winter black robe reeks of over-active armpits. The hem has picked up the ochre and grit of the path.

  I place a foot forward up the path then remember. Without turning my head I speak softly as if to the wind. “Awake and gather your bundle, Genda Doi.”

  “Please, Master, not yet. My feet are sore and my back is killing me.”

  “Do not make me look back now. I am on the road. And I am not a master, but a teacher.” I smile to myself knowing I’d made the same mistake when I was a novice, a status I still possess. Four years is nothing. Genda is more chick than a chicken.

  “So you have told me, Teacher, but in the ordinary world you are my master. All right, I’m coming... why is my bundle heavier than yours anyway?”

  “Its weight is immaterial.”

  “Easy for you to say. Look at the food – I have a ton of rice, you have just the pot.”

  “Genda Doi, which is the more important?”

  After a slipped-sandal scuffle on loose gravel, followed by grunts of recovery, the apprentice finds his voice. “That’s a trick question, isn’t it?”

  “Zen isn’t about tricks.”

  “Only in theory. Okay then. I say food is more important – we can’t eat an iron pot. Ah, you’re pointing at the terraces on the slopes. There might be rice and millet in some, I suppose. I said it was a trick.”

  The path steepens, obliging both of us to have lungs screaming their own koanas.

  “Master, why do they call you Tiramisu? Isn’t that a chocolate dessert?”

  I refrain from sighing at the nomenclature tease. Twenty years. It’s too much. “I am Tiromiso, though it would be good to have a name of something that gives pleasure.”

  “Okay, but you’ve not told me why we’re slogging our guts out on this damned mountain.”

  “Gelugpa is a holy mountain. Show respect.”

  Genda takes a break from hiking and bows in the direction of the summit. “But why when the path is icy do we risk breaking our necks?”

  It is more than icy at this height. Snow patches hide in hollows. “We need to reach the monastery before the spring thaw.”

  “Why does it matter when there’s no one there but a few rats and eagles?”

  Something, not Genda, nags at me, making the hairs on the back of my neck rise. I try not to worry the lad but keep a wary eye on our surroundings. “The Enlightened One has given me the task to...”

  “To what? You are embarrassed to say and I don’t blame you. Why don’t you – hey!”

  “Apologies for pushing you to one side but there – a wolf...” Feeling calm but in rapid action I think my gim into my hand, run at the wolf now snarling and leaping at Genda. The sword slices from the wolf’s shoulder into its chest. The laceration draws the least blood for the kill. I silently wish its spirit better karma for its next life.

  “Whoa, Master! How did you do that? I didn’t even notice you carried that weapon in your robe. And how did you know that wolf was there?”

  “If you didn’t talk so much, you’d have time to watch for shadows.” I wipe the blade with a handful of snow and polish it with a dock leaf. I am impressed with myself and conceal a smile. I couldn’t let on to Genda, but that was my first application of four years of practice.

  “I thought you were into meditation, not sword fighting.”

  “When using a sword, you have no time to mind-drift.”

  “I get it. Scared shitless so you just have to cut and slash.”

  “Not really. You have much training ahead. Let us continue.”

  I am secretly amazed at how steady my nerves are after dealing with the wolf. As a lover of all life, it hurts to have had to kill. I wonder if my training would have sent me into an automatic killing machine if it was only me on this mission. I might have chosen to run, hide, or merely threaten the beast. But with Genda to protect, as well as myself, the wolf’s life in this present counts for less. Then if I had died or was injured, I wouldn’t be able to complete my mission, which would put The Enlightened One and his followers in danger. Was it a test? I don’t have time to ponder more...

  “Master, you were in the middle of telling me why we are going up this heap to a ruin and in the death throes of winter.”

  Without slowing my steady pace, I cast my senses around the boulders in case another adversary would interrupt my answer. “The pinnacle of Gelugpa, on which the temple resides, is unstable. The winter ice locks the rock strata down but the spring thaw threatens to send the top layer along with the ruins down into the valley. You know what would be in its path?”

  Genda takes sideways steps perilously near the edge and peers over even though gnarled trees and shrubs block his view. “The boss’s house is down there, right?”

  “The Nirvana Monastery of The Enlightened One is indeed in the path.”

  “But how are you going to stop thousands of tons of wet rock from slip sliding? And just where have you hidden your gim?”

  “I will be required to focus my energies and use the purple crystal.”

  “You mean the mountain will stay glued with that old pendant thing? Magick?”

  “Not on its own.”

  “So I couldn’t do it with my training?”

  “No.”

  “So what am I doing here?”

  I am wondering that too. Another test of me, or him? Likely The Enlightened One felt he was less bothersome up here than in the monastery. “To learn to focus.”

  The path narrows around a rugged bluff on our right and a sheer drop to our left. “Be sure to not allow your bundle to over-balance here, Genda.”

  “Master, maybe you could take some of the food in it. Then I wouldn’t plummet to an earlier reincarnation.”

  “We each have a burden to manage.”

  By watching my footfalls I almost miss the sunlight streaking from over my left shoulder, bouncing off the frosty valley sides and illuminating the temple only a mile away. It shines as if golden. My spirit lifts, though logic niggles in case the ice up there is already melting too fast. Suppose my training has been insufficient to allow my power to bind the loosening rock until the thaw is over in a few weeks?

  I recall with concern my practice sessions starting with holding a thick column of dry rice grains for twenty-four hours. Several grains fell then, and in the next ten times. I was able to use the power to heap dry sand into a sphere, but none of that compares to this mountain top. As Genda says, I have the magick of the amethyst, but it is a last resort and not in the hands of its true master.

  “Wow, look at that. You could have said.” His excited arm points to the glow.

  “Beauty is best self-discovered.”

  “Is that our goal?”

  “Yes and no. Zen is direct pointing to the mind.”

  The glory of the vision, and the concern it instils in me, forces me to hike faster, kicking up puffs of dust. If Genda doesn’t keep up, then so be it.


  “Master, wait for me.”

  “I need to start my mission more urgently.”

  Gusts of mountain wind take Genda’s return words around boulders and up to the scudding clouds. One of those clings to the temple now only a snow field away. I kneel to scoop up some ice and worry that it melts too quickly. I’d hoped to settle in for a few days, a week, and rehearse. To think a novice, like me, has had to live up here every spring thaw and pour their mental energies into keeping the foundations intact. Failure at least once is evidenced from the fallen blue stones of once high walls. Terracotta tiles peep through melting snow on the ground with only a rare few on roofs. I drop my bundle and hurry across this field, now an archaeological rubble, but once no doubt a vegetable garden, though what grows at this altitude? Dwarf beans here and rice from the lower terraces. Doesn’t look like it was ever a large temple, more a retreat for a single monk and, it seems, an apprentice.

  Heavy breathing tells me Genda has caught up. “Hey, Master, where’s the treasure?”

  “What is treasure?”

  “You know, at least a golden Buddha, or... ah, I get it. You’re saying my Zen treasure is in me, aren’t you?”

  “Am I? It is enough today for you to find us sufficient shelter, and prepare our supper while I start work. Look for flags to flutter and wheels to rotate.”

  “Ah, they are for prayer. Master, give me a koan to recite.”

  “I’ve been giving you those all day.”

  By sundown I find a rush mat and a porch with an ornate roof with its tiles intact and I initiate a focus into the ground. I keep the amethyst pendant on a thong around my neck, but I have doubts about its effectiveness. The strata under the temple seems stable. Most of the upper groundwater is still frozen after winter. Even so I need to conc –

  “Master, how do I cook?”

  ***

  Perspiration in the mind.

  After two weeks – according to Genda’s digital watch he isn’t supposed to possess – my head throbs. I was told I’d be able to manage without proper sleep and it is true. That I’ll be able to sit still all day, and it is true. I don’t know how Genda copes. I detect his approaches, sounds, as if asking his questions, my burblings on automatic followed by his goings away. Like the irritations of a temple fly: I am aware of his existence but my task overwhelms the external.

  A niggle creeps in. I anticipated self-doubts but success so far pushed them aside. Maybe I have relaxed a little. I notice the sound of boiling rice, the amber colour of the wind, the aroma of snowmelt... and I shouldn’t. Consequently there is slippage. Beads of sweat worry from my brain, and salts my eyes. In spite of my efforts I feel tremors beneath me. There’s danger in the retreat below and this pinnacle will slide down, gather a rock avalanche and crush hundreds of believers. The humiliation would shame me for all existence. I feel a burning in my chest and realize it is the amethyst calling me to pay attention.

  I reach into my robe and withdraw the warm crystal. The violet stone has been cut only a little, and remains unpolished to concentrate its raw energy. My rock stability mantra is chanted again and again but focussed through the crystal this time.

  “At one

  Through two.

  In true spirit

  In harmony.”

  After three hours I begin to feel part of the mountain, much quicker than without the crystal. I shuffle my lotus to settle for the night in meditation.

  “Master? Master, are you receiving me? I know you are working but I’m worried. The mountain keeps rumbling and to be honest, they needed steel pins drilled into the foundations and concrete rather than sending you up here. I’m afraid... off when it’s... you listening?”

  Patience is a test. Even so, I stop hearing the boy. Not entirely pejoratively: my task has priority. Without opening my eyes I raise an arm. Alarmingly, I feel his robe brush my face. “Don’t bite my finger, see where I am pointing.”

  Genda laughs as if embarrassed.

  “I wasn’t going to bite your finger. I was checking—”

  I urge to tell him it is a classic koan, but I wave him away. Clearly, me plus the amethyst isn’t sufficiently strong to shield my mission from outside influences. As if in agreement a red tile slithers off the roof and shatters on the remains of a flagged patio. More tiles dance. Dust rises as a ground mist. A twisted mountain oak slides over the cliff edge. Its roots are the last to go but stick up in the air, hesitating, as if reluctant to leave its birthplace. Perhaps it is meditating on its life and universe. How it might have been different.

  The crystal heats and at last I receive its signal. Like all magick, it will only work if a price is paid. Meditation isn’t enough, a sacrifice is required. The problem is, no one is reborn to the next level by killing, no matter how high the purpose or how many other lives are saved in this existence. My hands twitch as panic sets in with indecision. I could end this life of Genda painlessly and without him knowing it is coming – the gim is not just for wolves. But no, how could I take his life when he is looking up to me, mistakenly, as his master? Yet, The Enlightened One must have known this would happen. He gave me the crystal knowing it has no power but a catalyst and only with a high price up here.

  This is distracting yet part of me remains on task. I could not have done that four years ago. The ground quakes again. I fear I am letting The Enlightened One down on this mission, so to my equivocal dilemma. I sacrifice my apprentice and save the community below, or let him live but doom the others. It isn’t Zen, this problem. No Buddhist kills in this situation, so another solution has to be found. Can I sacrifice Genda without killing him? Ah, but I have already killed – the wolf. Even that is a sacrifice to my karma, as it was a life. And it saved Genda, so allowed, but what for? The non-focussed part of me knows I can’t harm the boy no matter what. There seems only one option considering the avalanche to come.

  I unfold my legs and stand. I don’t see him and have to call. “Genda, we are abandoning the retreat. Come along.”

  No reply. Perhaps his worries over the mountain’s instability has already propelled him on the return path. He may have been an irritation but his petulance was appealing in a way. However, he may have felt unsafe from the gim as well as the mountain.

  I speed walk around the temple in case the boy is hiding or asleep but after ten minutes I cross the rock field, now ice-free, and begin my descent. All the time I focus energy into keeping the pinnacle from destabilising further.

  Half an hour later I turn the corner of the valley and see the path twisting far below but with no sign of Genda. Has he fallen over the edge? Poor boy. Self-recrimination for my paucity of supervision stabs at me. I wonder for how many years a novice monk has been ordered up here and whether the pinnacle is really as unstable as we are told. It is a test, on several levels. Yes, I felt and still feel the minor tremors but supposing that too has been happening every spring thaw for generations? It would be very bad karma for The Enlightened One as well as for me if Genda has fallen and hurt himself, or worse.

  Life is fluid, beyond the present. Even so.

  In the background of my mind, the mantra continues:

  “At one

  Through two.

  In true spirit

  In harmony.”

  In spite of my ruminations that the mission is a test, a ruse, I worry that the pinnacle with the temple may be tumbling down the other side of this cliff, out of sight. How would I know? Of course I would hear and feel the vibrations, and I don’t. Yet, small stones dance across my path. I must hurry, while worrying about Genda.

  As night falls I have to divert some of my energy from protecting the pinnacle to sensing the periphery of the path. Curses, I skid on a loose stone and teeter on the edge. I get back by flinging out my arms as if I’m a tightrope walker. I nearly lose my Zen composure. I’d be forgiven considering I’m risking all to warn the community below but then I’m probably about to be shown the exit.

  Another near plummet makes me sto
p and sit in the middle of the agitated grit. The damp night air brings me the rich aroma of jasmine, and the calls of two competing crickets. My hold on the pinnacle must attenuate with distance – no quantum mechanics entanglement for Buddhists, or is there? Does being so far away create an attenuating diminishing of my power? Maybe not with the use of the amethyst. Ah, I can leave it here on the edge of the path as a kind of relay booster. The idea appeals more than an alternative use as a torch. I say this because it glows, but insufficient to see through the ground mist. I wedge the jewel into a crevice in the cliff wall.

  I feel my way down the twisting mountain track, the cool cliff clammy to my left hand while I send hold mantras to the amethyst and beyond. I believe I’ve not eaten anything for twenty-four hours, but the hunger is shunted out of the way. The deprivation may be in vain considering my mission and now I hear rumbling as if tons of rubble are cascading down on my destination, a half hour and a bluff away.

  With heavy heart I turn the corner of that rock shoulder. So, the mission may have been a test, but the need up there was real. A dust cloud obscures the monastery, or its ruins. There are shouts and screams amidst the echoes. Even Buddhists bleed and break. I expect to hear sirens but not yet: this monastery is thirty miles from the nearest town. I should adjust my robe to cover my mouth and nose but I don’t deserve such protection.

  Into the debris cloud I stumble half blind, heading towards the outlying residence of the master. Maybe at least it remains intact.

  His voice appears beside me. “Tiromiso Sen, I didn’t anticipate seeing you here.”

  “You expected me to be running to the West.”

  He stands, arms folded and tucked into his robe. “Not really. Our people worried you stayed at your post...” he turns to the settling dust, “... and tumbled down with it.”

  “Master, I am devastated at my failure to keep the integrity of the mountain.”

  “We are not infallible.”

  “I thought with the amethyst, infallibility was possible.”

  “Umm.”

  It is unlike the master to utter vagueness. Does it imply the amethyst isn’t the magickal catalyst he portrayed before the mission?