Chapter 17 Nothingness Yoshi meditated in the dilapidated shack. It is said in the Way of the Gateless Barrier: On the Great Way, there is no gate, yet a thousands paths to choose. Find the gate, and you may walk alone between Heaven and Earth. The shack had been built over a decade ago on a mountainside. Inside of it, Yoshi mediated, and outside the shack the bitter winds blew by, and bits of wooden debris scattered. Yoshi sat cross-legged. His hair had grown longer and he had combed it back, though it was scraggily and his bangs hung down. He sat with his palms on his lap, one atop the other, and he sat with his eyes closed, and he had sat thus for two days. His katana lay beside him. Yoshi meditated and the gap between his being and all else vibrated. That night, the hungry wolves crept near the shack and sniffed out his scent through the gaps in the rotted boards. There were three of them. Suddenly his eyes snapped open. All three wolves lunged at him, mouths open. He drew his katana and slashed one wolf in half from the spine to the gut, and he hacked the head from another wolf. He threw the katana fast through the air and it stabbed the last wolf in the throat. The wolf let out a whimper, then fell over, and died. The wolves and the parts of wolves lay in a heap on the rotted floorboards. Yoshi meditated. The glow of the gibbous moon illuminated the inside of the shack. Soon there were crunching sounds as more wolves came from out of the night to eat their dead. There were nine of them. They gnawed off the paws of the dead wolves and ate even the bones of them. Yoshi meditated. His eyes were closed, and if he heard the crunching of the bones, the gnawing of the organs, his face gave no indication. His eyes slowly opened. He took up his katana. “Is it possible to forget the self?” he asked aloud. “Until the subjective and the objective are as one? Can the self be but the emptiness of mu? Can I become but a facet of the all? Can I return all that I have acquired sense birth, all skill, all knowledge, all experience, to emptiness?” He studied his katana. He said, “Until I achieve that state, I shall not take up this Owazimono again!” He threw the katana across the room and it clattered on the rotted boards of the floor. He resumed his meditation. A silent and hungry wolf crept up on him from the shade and shadow. The wolf bared its teeth, opened its mouth, and lunged forward. Yoshi caught the animal by the neck with his arm and slammed it hard onto the ground. He punched the animal hard in the throat, killing it. “The wind stirs,” he said. “The blood lust stirs. My body stirs. Can I not attain mu?” “It is impossible,” the old man had said to him two days ago. “Give it up, sir. Jes’ give it up…you never, never kin…” Yoshi had been in the home of a peasant family, and there was the grandfather, the son, and the daughter. The daughter had prepared the fish, and all of them had sat on the floor in the only room of the hut and they had ate. “Why go someplace like Wolf Mountain?” the old man had asked. “There’re so many wolves on Wolf Mountain,” the son had said. “Some folk even say it is haunted by the ancestors of the wolves, sir. Not even horses can make it up there. There’s nothin’ to eat up there. The wolves are ravenous hungry, they are.” “Give it up, sir,” the old man had said. “Jes give it up…” And now, high above Wolf Mountain, the inner being of Yoshi soared. The blood inside him, the suicide inside him, the inner swordsman inside him, the killer. He floated above the mountain peak, legs crossed, hands palm up on his lap, eyes closed. He glided through the clouds, the forest, the rocks. He floated above the tiny, dilapidated shack, floated inside of the shack, floated back inside of his own being. Two wolves came out of the cobwebs and stalked toward him. They sniffed at him as if he were a rock, or a tree, and then they moved on. His eyes opened. He stood. He picked up his katana and stuck it into his sash and walked down the mountainside through the dense nether of trees. There were dozens of wolves watching him with glowing eyes from the trees and he stepped past them, stoic and calm. The wolves trotted around him and sniffed at him, but they did nothing else. Perhaps they were afraid of him. Perhaps they smelt within his blood some deep and primal kinship. But more than likely they did not. For he was kin to none. He hiked back down the mountain, back onto the dirt and rock paths, and he sought out the peasant family who had fed him, and he bowed to them and they to him, and he gave them his thanks and walked away. The grandfather held the young daughter’s hand. “Comin’ back from a stay on Wolf Mountain without nary a scratch?” the old man asked aloud. “A true samurai.” “Ye figure he can tame them wolves?” asked the son. Yoshi walked away from the peasant village, into the dense foliage where a rotted shrine with a thatch roof stood, beaten and browned with time, gnarled and weathered with neglect. He entered. Inside of it were many black stone statues. Figures of starved monks on the floor in poses of damnation or hunger. One with a raised hand, as if about to speak. Another clutching his bald head as if he had gone mad. One with his head turned up in a curse to the heavens with his hands in prayer. Before them stood a statue of Buddha, covered by cobwebs where spiders slept, lost in the shadow where none have perceived it for many a year. Yoshi regarded this stone Buddha, then turned sharply and drew his Owazimono and hacked at the stone statues beneath it. A stone head flew into the air. A stone arm did, too. So did a stone hand, with part of a head severed in the middle of the nose, with part of a head cut long way from the crown to the chin. Then these pieces clattered to the floor. There was a statue of Shiva with her many arms and Yoshi slashed it sideways and it fell apart diagonally at the waist, some of the arms left on it. Yoshi tromped barefoot over the severed stone limbs and he stood before the stone statue of Buddha. He leapt into the air, sliced down as he fell, and landed. The stone Buddha split in half down the center. “May I ask you to kill a living Buddha?” the samurai Lord had asked Yoshi many days ago. “A difficult feat, something few if any could accomplish, but perhaps you, good sir, perhaps you…” Now, this day, beneath the burning sun, the multitudes of peasants came to follow the Buddhist priest. The priest sat on a wooden pedestal, carried by four samurai at the end of each pole. They carried him to a castle of the daimyo of that province. The thousands followed him. Inside the castle, the priest sat on a elevated part of the floor, and the many samurai in the chamber bowed to him. One samurai rose. He said, “No matter how often you ask, Otaki Sama, we cannot lower this years tax. Yet we are prepared to eliminate various miscellaneous levies, from time to time, for the space of three years. Please, persuade the peasantry.” “Castle Warden!” the priest shouted. “You never learn! The peasants are tortured by famine, so desperate that they sell their own daughters and kill their newborn to survive! The people are the country! Remember again that without the peasants, there is no samurai!” “But--” the Castle Warden stammered. “But Otaki Sama! Our han is infamous for its poverty. We already owe the rice merchants our next year’s worth of tax revenues. We are doing everything we can, even cultivating the salt flats, to find a way out of these desperate strains. Please, convince them one more time.” “The peasants will understand your efforts,” the priest said. “That is why there have been no revolts in this han as there have been in others, even in the midst of this great famine. Yet no man can wait passively for death. Your most urgent matter is to suspend this years taxes, and to save the people of your han.” “But if we do that our politics cannot stand!” the Castle Warden protested. “Fool!” shouted the priest. What politics are there without the people? Wake up!” The samurai all bowed again, sweating and nervous. “We will consult with our Lord in Edo and reach a conclusion,” the Castle Warden said. “Give us just a little more time.” Again the two wooden castle gates creaked open, and four samurai carried the priest out on the wooden pedestal. The multitudes of peasants bowed with their heads to the earth. They scooted aside, making a part in the crowd for the priest to pass, and when he had been carried passed, they followed him. The four samurai carried him onward. Yoshi stepped toward the priest. The priest saw Yoshi and knew him and his expression did not change. Yoshi stepped closer as the samurai carried the priest onward. “There are only two things out of balance in our han,” the Lord had said to Yoshi many days ago. “One is poverty. The other is the Zen priest, a man revered across the land.” Yoshi had sat before the Lord in a small room. The paper of the screens had muted the sunlight. A flower had stood in a vase. The daimyo had set an empty clay bowl onto the mat in front of him. He had said, “Kato Otaki is a man of the highest morals, and the deepest compassion. So much so that he is worshiped by our people a living Buddha. Even all of our samurai respect him with all their hearts. It is only because of the efforts of Kato Otaki that this impoverished han has not been devastated by peasant revolts. No one knows that better than we of the castle. Come. Do partake of this tea.” “Do not worry about me,” Yoshi had said. “Please confine the discussion to the assassination.” “Politics are politics,” the daimyo had said. “It is not our job to preach the Way of the Buddha. If we did everything that Otaki asks, the peasants would gain a moments respite. Yet if we cannot pay our debts to the rice merchants, our han will lose all face. We will be the laughing stock of the nation. Indeed, the people are the country. Yet for a samurai face is more important than death. Otaki Sama urges us to live for the good of the people, even if we must abandon our face as samurai. Yet that is the Way of the Buddha, not the way of politics.” “So you ask me to kill the Buddha?” The Lord’s face had snapped to shock. He had said, “I cannot believe that those were the words of the renowned Desolate Wolf. There is no man alive who can kill the Buddha, nor have I uttered even one such word. Although I suppose that a man may kill a mortal who acts like a Buddha.” He gestured with his hand to a black box. “We have prepared one thousand ryo right here.” Yoshi had walked up the stone steps of the temple where the priest had meditated. He had entered and found the man knelt with his eyes closed before the statue of Buddha. “Assassin,” Yoshi had said. “Desolate Wolf.” He had drawn his katana. He had said, “I come for your life.” “Gate, gate,” the priest had said. “Gate, gate.” Yoshi had raised his katana. He had seen the priest’s reflection on the polished floorboards, and he had seen the reflection of the stone Buddha reflected there, too, and the reflections had merged or they had seemed to. Yoshi could not make the cut. “You cannot kill that which does not exist,” the priest had said. He had said, “You cannot kill one who had merged with mu, with nothingness. One who has forgotten the self and is but a facet of mu.” Yoshi had sheathed his katana and composed himself down on the floor and set his katana beside him. The priest had sat in front of him. The priest had said, “To kill, one must project blood lust. If your opponent meets blood lust with blood lust, or with fear, then one is able to complete the kill. Yet with mu, emptiness is only emptiness. Mu has no energy. There is no movement. The blood lust you project can only rebound on yourself, so you could only cut yourself.” “It is my foolishness!” Yoshi had shouted. He had drawn his katana, wrapped the blade of it in white cloth, parted his kimono, and held the point to his bare belly. He had said, “One who lives in hell can spill his bowels before the Buddha himself. Forgive me.” “Abandon your assassin’s road!” “I cannot.” “Then…” the priest had said. “If you truly cannot abandon your assassin’s road, then you must go through the Gateless Barrier, and attain mu.” “Mu?” “Indeed. If you can kill me, then truly you will have become a limitless assassin. I will die by non-resistance to violence, and the blood you spill will stain the soul of countless. The cycle will continue.” “The Gateless Barrier…” Yoshi had said. Now Yoshi stood before the priest as the four samurai carried him on the wooden pedestal before the multitudes of peasants. He drew his katana and ran and leapt up into the air before the priest. He slashed down. He landed. “Is this not good?” asked the priest. “To die by non-resistance to violence?” A very thin cut divided his face and neck in half. Then the top of his bald head, too. He said, “Is this not good, he who perfects his path?” His entire body split in half to his to the chest, and the inside of each of half was a flawless replica of the other. Gallons of blood began to hose out of him. The samurai who carried the platform scurried around, and the priest plummeted off and hit the dirt and blood splattered everywhere. The thousands of peasants screamed and sobbed. Yoshi turned his back and walked away. “Kill him,” the peasants screamed, and, “Get him! Get him!” And “What a terrible crime!” And “Buddha will punish him!” And “Kill him!” And “If we don’t kill him, Buddha will punish us too!” And, “But Otaki Sama said it was good!” And “What did he mean?” And “Get that guy!” And “Kill him!” And “Arrrggghhh!” Many of the peasants began to charge forward with their hoes and their scythes and their pitch-forks. Yoshi walked calmly away, and he did not turn around. When the charging mob of peasantry were a yard away from him, they froze in their tracks. They could not attack. Yoshi walked on. From the hill, the Lord who had hired Yoshi watched him walk away. A group of his samurai stood by him. “He is terrifying,” the Lord said. “The rumors were true indeed. If we can kill him now, then we can win back the trust of the peasants, and we will never have to worry about the truth getting out. Two birds with one stone. Kill him!” The samurai charged down the hill and drew their katanas. They surrounded Yoshi. “Halt!” they shouted. And “Monster!” And “Murderer of Kato Otaki!” And “Taste the wrath of Buddha!” “If I return your blood lust will you strike?” asked Yoshi. All of the samurai charged him as a group. They all died. The Lord of these samurai had fallen to his knees atop the hill, praying to Buddha for his life. Yoshi picked up a katana from the ground and threw it up at him and impaled him through the breast bone and he died. The killing had ceased as quickly as it had began. Yoshi slashed his katana to the side, flecking the blood from the blade, and he twirled it around three times fast then ran the flat of the blade down along his scabbard, angled the tip inside it, eased the length of the katana in, paused at the yellow iron bit before the guard, stood a moment frozen in that stance, then clicked the katana in entirely and tucked the handle deeper into his sash. And he walked away. And Hell followed with him.
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 21:38:57 +0000
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