The Cherry Tree

Today… well, tonight, I meet the tutors of dharma. I persist in saying and thinking today, rather than tonight. When I rise and bathe and eat I think of it as morning. If I had companionship of any kind, when I lay down to sleep at dawn I would tell them good night. I know that the sun would slay me and that as it rises, it forces me into slumber, but I can’t shake the old way of thinking of it.

I drink blood again and I smile. Irony follows my pride and I chuckle at myself ruefully – so proud for drinking blood. I don’t think that I will ever forget that I am no longer a natural creature. I know that I cannot partake of the omnipresent chi of the universe through eating, drinking, and breathing, but suddenly I crave real food.

The room here is stocked with the plain, simple gray kimonos that I have come to be familiar with. I bathe and wash away the taste of blood, then dress. There is a note waiting for me outside, an invitation to a small garden to meet with representatives of the five dharmas. My dead heart manages a few beats in excitement. I have come as far as I can without mounting one of the five roads back. Tonight I will be introduced to their mysteries.

The meeting is not set until moonrise, which I guess to be about an hour away. I’m impatient to begin, so I think about what I know of the dharmas so far. The books that Swallow’s Song brought to me were helpful, but limited, with no true insights. I read each in turn, but none filled me with a sense of purpose, none showed me which of the paths before me I was meant for.

But one thing was made very clear to me. Dharma is not something to be experimented with. It cannot be tried on casually, like a new coat, just to see if it fits, then discarded. Following a dharma is a commitment to my own soul. I know that mistakes occur, that sometimes one might venture down a path for a while and not discover that the way is blocked for some time. But I will not have the luxury to try out each dharma in turn.

So, with nothing to do but wait, I think about what I have seen of the dharmas so far. Seeing those who walk the path has shown me far more than the simple books I have read.

Zhizhu, Sweet Swallow’s Song, and Terrible Thunder Talons all cry the Howl of the Devil Tiger. It was their rituals that opened the way for my Wind Soul to return, their methods that broke my demon so I could face it. That there is truth in their dogma is something that I have felt.

Keeper of Forgotten Temples walks the Path of a Thousand Whispers. My books refer to their philosophy as the Broken Mask technique. One by one they live different lives, and when they have learned all of the lessons it will offer up, they kill that life and move on. This is a strange path to me and what I have seen of it in the form of Keeper-san, does not reveal much.

Unveiled Mirror Shard sings the Song of Shadows. It seems like a song with the meaning hidden in the melody and the lyrics. I know that they cultivate the Yin aspect and I’m a little turned off. I’ve been dead. In my life I may as well have been dead. Somehow, going back to that seems a step backwards, not forward. But at the same time I can see what they have to offer. I still hunger for knowledge and the Shadow Songs seem to share that need. If I take that path, that craving will never go unsated.

The last of the dharmas that I have any personal experience with is the Dance of the Thrashing Dragon and Flaring Grin is a student of their philosophy. Of the dharmas that I have met, the Dance seems the most…well…fun. Flaring Grin laughs a lot and seems to find humor in everything. If I didn’t know any better, I would believe that Grin-san was still alive.

Which leaves only the Way of the Resplendent Crane a mystery to me. I know only what I have read in the books I was given, and I learned only stereotypes and generalizations. Of course there is much to be learned from them, such as how they earned that stereotype, but I must try to remain open. If I had to guess from what I know of their moral uprightness and instinct for virtue I would say the venerable Fujiko-san was a Crane. She is proper in every way and what’s more she makes it look attractive and easy. I see how she holds herself and it makes me think that if I only tried just a little bit, that I could be as graceful, and as proper as she. It’s like she plays the role heaven meant for all of us, though everyone else fails.

I pace as I think about the dharmas laid out before me. I have to struggle to maintain impartiality and fight the preconceptions as well as the unknowns. I would be a poor scientist indeed if I did not keep an open mind and let the truth be revealed rather than trying to guess the truth before seeing the evidence.

The moon hasn’t quite risen yet, so I choose to find the garden early. They will likely assume that I am the eager pupil, and at worst they will know the whole truth that I was getting bored.

The garden is tiny, just large enough for a small and grassy hill topped by a single cherry tree. The season for best viewing cherry blossoms is past, but there is still a quiet beauty here. I’m a little surprised to find that I didn’t beat the tutors here. Five gaki sit on the grass, each of them holding a manila folder filled with papers like some kind of medical chart. I catch a glimpse of one page – covered in charts with what look like astrological symbols – before they each close them and set them aside. One of the teachers is an old man with empty sockets for eyes and I wonder how he could have been reading the chart, but I can’t think of anything that could possibly be more rude to ask, so I bow to them deeply.

The old man points his sightless gaze at me and says that the tiger who pounces too early eats seldom. As I’m sifting that for meaning, one of the others, a young man, says that the early bird catches the worm. He tilts his head back and laughs at the night. I think that I have just met the teachers of the Song of Shadows and the Dance of the Thrashing Dragon.

The first is Known to the Ravens, the blind old man. I bow to him regardless, certain that he would know if I did not. I quickly learn that the Song of Shadows is the quest to reach the Black Metal Egg – a concept of total stillness and intellectual clarity. I have questions for him, though each of his answers are riddles. I feel that I understood my fair share of them, but after a few hours he holds up his hand and says “Fire and ice. Ice must melt or else the fire must be quenched.” It will take me some time to figure out all that meant, but I think we both know that the Song of Shadows is not my path.

I expect that the youth who’d bantered with Known to the Ravens-san would speak next, but it is not. The woman who steps up to me is without a doubt the sensei of the young Tigers. She introduces herself as Blackfire Tempest. She’s clad in black leather studded with spikes and wrapped with more straps than could ever be necessary to keep the outfit on. Though of course I will never say so. She speaks of pain and torment and the negligent kings of hell. The Devil Tigers fight the Lords of Yomi by stealing their abandoned jobs. I don’t have to look very deeply into myself to realize that I didn’t come back to be a demon.

The next to speak is an old woman wearing formal kimonos. The way she sits in perfect control of herself reminds me of Fujiko-san. I bow as properly as I know how as she gives me her name: Nightingale Silence. She tells me about the rules that were lain down by the August Personage of Jade, the rules which create and maintain harmony in all things. Obviously in these dark times, when those rules are not adhered to the world suffers. Nightingale Silence-san explains that the Cranes seek to restore that harmony, both in the world, and in themselves by following the tenets of their dharma and a special set of rules called the Eight Lotus Path. It is fascinating indeed, but I am hesitant. I want more life than the Way of the Resplendent Crane teaches. I struggle against growing certainty, trying to remain blank and receptive.

Through Sands Like Stars is just a child in appearance. He sits on his crossed legs smiling at me with the moonlight shining in his dark eyes and the jewel on his brow. Keeper-san practices the Broken Mask technique, but he has only begun his journey. Through Sands Like Stars-san has worn and shattered hundreds of masks. I smile as he tells me of his lives. Some are amusing and I cannot help but laugh along with him, while some are sad and I struggle not to weep. But this is not just storytelling. He is trying to teach me, and to open the Path of a Thousand Whispers for me to walk if I choose. When his time is done, I realize that though he has learned many lessons from his lives, a life has more than one lesson to offer. Having bungled my own life so badly, I don’t think I can bear to begin one properly only to abandon it.

When I turn to the last teacher and bow, he is smiling. Kyo is the opposite of Known to the Ravens in every way. Where Ravens-san is old, Kyo-san is young. Where the Bone Flower is weathered and lined, the Dragon is smooth and supple. Where one sits stiffly, the other relaxes, a smile playing about his lips. He asks me if I want to live. I do.

While Kyo-san laughs, Ravens-san places a gnarled hand atop the manila folder by his knee and remarks that shuttered lanterns cast bright light on the unknown. Nightingale Silence explains to me that when I was first brought to the Court my horoscope was cast. Shuttered Lantern, the foremost seer of the Court predicted that I would be drawn to Dance of the Thrashing Dragon. As I flip through the complex charts I see the other dharmas arranged around the Dance. I smile to see that the Howl of the Devil Tiger was predicted with high likelihood as well.

As a scientist I don’t believe in astrology. The thought that spheres of rock and gas orbiting the same sun as our world influencing the lives of human beings is patently ridiculous. However, as a scientist I must also accept the evidence I have seen no matter how skeptical I am. I have seen the Yang spirits dancing in the air. Given this new data I accept that if something were to happen to those playful spirits of the air, that the weather would be affected. It is possible that the spirits of the planets do affect us here in the Middle Kingdom then. It bears more thought.

Nightingale Silence-san calls my attention to the chart once again. It would take years of study to fully understand the indicators, but I listen eagerly to the explanations as the Crane sensei tells me that my horoscope faces East.

Direction is an important concept in Asian thought and tradition, and the books I have read so far all refer to direction with great frequency. The Dance of the Thrashing Dragon is said to be that dharma that walks the Eastern road. Kyo-san helps me to understand that not all Dragons face East, though many do. It is the direction in tune with the living, mortal world. When I think about the things I wish to do when I have proven myself and been made a Disciple it seems that I will be touching the mortal world often. Another piece of evidence to shed new light on astrology.
Kyo smiles and looks at me searchingly. After a brief pause he muses that I will need a female sensei. Tomorrow my real training will begin.