I kneel in an untidy garden with a stone in my hand. My new sensei is rearranging the rocks carefully. It’s probably not what most people have in mind when they think about learning the tenets of a dharma, and almost certainly not what the think of when imagining the studies of the Thrashing Dragons.
My first impression of Seven Beasts was much closer to my expectations. She is probably the curviest Japanese woman I have ever seen, with flaring hips and full breasts that most Japanese just weren’t put together with. So far as I could tell, it was all natural too. She met me wearing a long winding wrap that left more skin exposed than it hid, though it was sheer enough that you couldn’t really say it hid anything at all.
But the first thing she told me after introducing herself was to get changed and meet her in the garden. So here I am in dirt jeans and a t-shirt, holding a rock while Seven Beasts wears jeans and a flannel and examines the garden for the best place to put it.
Many Dragons, especially those who belong to what is called the Ten Seasons sect, carefully cultivate gardens of what they call “the second sort.” The first sort being the weedy place I kneel now, and the second sort being…a broader concept. A garden of the second sort includes businesses and families, generations of them and the Dragons tend them like a master gardener with an ancient bonsai. They trim and prune them, carefully directing its growth.
Interesting. But a normal garden has its lessons to teach as well, and so I help Seven Beasts-san move rocks. She takes the stone from my hand and places it on top of a clump of weeds. I ask her why and she tells me that there is something to be learned from how the weeds either prosper or die beneath the stone.
She tells me that gardens of both sorts have a much more spiritual purpose as well. You see, gaki are dead creatures, no longer a part of the ebb and flow of creation. We take to fuel our selves, but we cannot return anything to the world. Dragons often grow their own gardens in order to give a little something back. Each Dragon’s garden is like a mediation. The garden I work in tonight belongs to all the Dragons of the Court, a sort of practice garden for the young like me.
I don’t know much about gardening, and I don’t feel very confident of what I do, but Seven Beasts-san is patient and lets me fumble. My first instinct is to get rid of the weeds and leave the flowers, so I grab a handful of scraggly stalks, but Seven Beasts grabs my arm, her nails pressing into my flesh. She says that the weeds are as much a part of the garden as the flowers.
So when I see the rabbit parting the stalks and nibbling one of the weeds, I pounce. I barely catch hold of the rabbit, a single ear in my hand. I roll towards the struggling creature and pull it against my body so I can get a better grip. I tighten my fingers around its throat feeling the hurried beat of its heart at its neck. I squeeze.
Seven Beasts asks me what I am doing. I pause and lower my head. The rabbit is screaming. I was trying to protect the garden I tell her, though I can feel that somehow I have already made a mistake. But the rabbit is a part of the garden as well, the plants it eats, even the waste it drops. Killing the rabbit is just another form of weeding, and it makes the garden artificial. As she tells me this I can see the logic in it. How can I learn from life if I control its variables too strictly? Every scientist knows that controlled studies taint the experiment, even as they allow you to control the variables. Experimentation must be balanced by careful field study.
The rabbit jerks in my still hands, kicking out and scratching through my shirt. I feel the warmth of blood on my skin. I have felt far worse agonies than such a minor scratch, but I let the rabbit drop. It is running nearly before its furry feet touch the ground and in moments it is gone. Seven Beasts-san asks me why the rabbit attacked me. I grin when I answer her: I threatened the rabbit. Of course it was going to fight back until it could escape.
I look at the garden and see the tiny nibbled stalk of the weed the rabbit ate. Behind me is a swath of trampled flowers, and disturbed stones, all flattened as I leapt for the animal. I must be like the rabbit, acting naturally, without disturbing creation around me, doing only that which is natural under heaven. I kneel and bow and express my resolve to Seven Beasts who smiles.
But she reminds me, calling me rabbit, that hares do not become bodhisattvas. I must be more. I thank her and bow, not understanding. Not yet anyways.
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