User:Yuanchosaan/A Life of Contemplation\Reflection/Two

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First Station - Psalm
The first shrine is located on a bare plateau. When Noa manages to crest the edge, he is nearly knocked off by the sudden thrashing of the wind across the exposed mesa. He slides down several feet in a rush of gravel and dust before he manages to catch a grip with one hand, screeching slowly to a stop. Even through the thick leather of his gauntlets, he can feel the heat of a graze, at its centre a cool trickle of blood.

For a moment, he simply clings to the side of the mountain and breathes, offering silent thanks. If he wasn’t too busy holding on for dear life, he would cross himself. Noa can think of no life that is more blessed than his one in the peaks of Ilocas, but sometimes, he has to be reminded that those blessings come with a risk. A reminder not to take them for granted.

More cautiously, he clambers back to the top of the mountain.

At its summit, he swings himself over, but does not allow himself to stand. A gust throws dust in his eyes, brought from some distant desert to sting them, tugs menacingly at his clothes. He is conscious of the threat: that the wind is sharp enough to flay him, fierce enough to send him spinning into the void. And so he bows his head, not in obsequiousness, but in respect.

In answer, the wind dies down – not entirely, not enough to let Noa risk standing, but just sufficient to let him move around on hands and knees. Slowly, he begins to shuffle his way around the edge of the plateau. It’s surprisingly comfortable; the air is sharp with cold, but the sun beats down in an unblemished sky and warms the back of his neck, and there is no gravel to bite into his knees. Only dust.

At first, he tries to use his gloved hands to clear the grit away, but it’s no use – as soon as he clears it, a breeze stirs it back into place. Without a sigh, Noa removes his gauntlets and tucks them safely into his belt. He spares a second to look at the scrape on his palm before placing both hands palms down on the dusty plateau.

Against his bare skin, the dust feels soft, almost filmy, as if it is coating his palm in a comforting layer. Tenderly, Noa begins to sweep the dust away with his bare hands, letting the breeze catch it, carrying it away to other peaks and other shrines. As inexorably as the sun tracing its path across the sky, the boy makes his way around the plateau.

When he finishes, what is revealed is a simple circle, carved into the stone of the mountain. It has no adornments, no flourishes, nothing at all to indicate that it is something special. Just two circles, one within the other. Only the precision of their curves indicates that it was made by a hand other than nature.

Noa allows himself the satisfaction of dusting his hands off. Then, slowly, he dares to stand.

The wind holds its breath.

He is trembling slightly as he makes his way to the centre of the summit. It is a nameless peak, no different to any other; from it, all the world is spread out beneath him with its valleys and green pastures and rivers, or the surrounding mountains cradle him in a bowl, protecting him with their staggering heights, or they are all the same, nothing but walls of mountains as far as the eye can see. He can’t tell.

He can see everything, from the nameless peak that is the roof of the world.

Suddenly, a wordless, inexplicable desire fills him, and instead of whispering his prayer, Noa shouts it into the sky.


 * ''“The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
 * ''He makes me lie down in green pastures,
 * ''He leads me beside quiet waters,
 * ''He refreshes my soul.
 * ''He guides me along the right paths
 * ''for His name’s sake.
 * ''Even though I walk
 * ''through the darkest valley,
 * ''I will fear no evil,
 * ''for You are with me;
 * ''Your rod and Your staff,
 * ''they comfort me.”

And the wind whips his words away to the heavens. {|width="45%" align="right"
 * }

First Sutra - Tanha
“Your Highness. Please pay attention.”

Despite his tutor’s gentle tone, the use of his title made Sonthi curse himself internally. Somdej only addresses him formally when they both know that Sonthi has erred. It was a way of distancing themselves from human error, reminding each of their roles. The personal slips away when the title was used.

And it was true that Sonthi was distracted. His meditation had become only a reverie, then a daydream, constantly being drawn into the thoughtstream. For the last ten minutes, he’d even given up correcting his course and detaching himself again.

Sonthi bowed his head. “I apologise, Bhikkhu. I am much distracted.”

“I can see that.” In another man’s voice, that could be mocking, But Bhikkhu Somdej always spoke in the same dry, calm tones. Everything about Sonthi’s tutor was dry, desiccated even – a tightness with fine lines in his nut-brown skin, stretched over a thin frame and thinner lips, narrow, dark eyes which peer at Sonthi over glasses, cool hands that sketched the different gestures in Somdejals and meditations. The monk had been Sonthi’s tutor since he was a boy, and seemed not to have aged at all the entire time.

Once, his father had off-handedly mentioned that Somdej had tutored his younger brother as a child. Which meant that Somdej must be older than Sonthi’s father, yet he showed no sign of it, sitting effortlessly in the lotus position on the bare wooden floor across from Sonthi. In deference to his status, Sonthi was afforded a bamboo mat to rest on. Between them lay a single candle.

“Let us end our meditation.”

Again, Sonthi bowed his head, but he could not help but feel a stab of mingled shame, relief and frustration. It was a familiar turmoil of emotions that he experienced whenever he attended Somdej’s teachings (four times a week, for two hours each time, for years beyond remembrance). It seemed absurd to part of Sonthi, perhaps the part that came from his mother, that as a scientist, a prince groomed in part for leadership, he was forced to spend eight precious hours a week learning a religion with vanishingly less relevance to a modern world – a world in which the mysteries of the soul were being exposed by science and the Rorqual.

“We will discuss a teaching instead.” Somdej clasped his hands together and met Sonthi’s eyes. “Sonthi, will you tell me what ails you?” he asked.

Sonthi wasn’t even sure if he believed in Buddhism. And yet, and yet…when Somdej spoke, always with such gentleness and serenity, using Sonthi’s name, the utter sincerity in which he asked if something ailed him. He could not help but envy the man his tranquillity, which came from a faith that even after _ years of study, reading and meditation, Sonthi could not access.

“To name the distraction allows one to combat it. Do not let it be formless,” Somdej advised.

He could not bow his head any lower. “Envy,” Sonthi muttered.

Somdej remained silent, until Sonthi was forced to continue, the words rushing out of him to fill the void. “I feel as if I envy everyone. My brothers, my mother’s projects, my father’s crown, any who are worthy of responsibility. I even envy you.

“I don’t understand why. We have spoken about it before, and I try the exercises you have taught me: filling my heart with loving-kindness towards that person to experience joy in their achievements, understanding how we each fit in an interacting web with our roles, reflecting on the transience of what I desire-”

“Desire is the correct word,” Somdej interjected. “Envy is simply another form of attachment, linked to your pride.”

“I know that.” He failed to bite back the sharpness of that retort and winced. “My mind knows that,” he corrected himself. “But my heart continues to feel that until my mind consciously convinces me otherwise. I think of the verse you taught me:
 * ''“The body is a bodhi tree
 * ''The mind a mirror bright
 * ''Hour by hour we polish the glass
 * ''And let no dust alight”

“No matter what I do, the dust not cease collecting. Perhaps it is my nature.” Again, the sharpness had crept back into his tone with that last confession, the one that filled him with both relief and shame. But there was no disappointment in Somdej’s expression.

“I would not say that,” he replied mildly. “Buddha nature is in all of us. Instead, I would say:
 * ''“The bodhi tree does not exist
 * ''There is no stand for the mirror bright
 * ''Fundamentally there is not a single thing
 * ''So how then can the dust alight?”

But as Somdej recited the poem, his figure shifted, twisted into youthfulness, a shock of black hair emerging from his bald head, the inexpressive face creasing open into a broad smile. It was the smile that Sonthi had first seen, so easy, carefree, so sincerely happy that the face had stood out to him in a crowd of its siblings. Later, he could not help but feel a stab of dislike towards that smile every time he saw it, the way it symbolised a man who knew no responsibility. And yet, his siblings smiled around him still, with love.

Seungchul Song’s voice laughed at him. “Shall we meditate on emptiness, Sonthi? Replace envy with emptiness, Sonthi. It’s all empty here now, Sonthi. Sonthi. Sonthi.”
 * }