13. HIRO

 

“One cannot oblige a being to do good if his pleasure is to do evil”

Thus HIRO returned to himself the dream of the night come after the race close to the brook which went down from the mountain.

He had tossed and turned all night. Beset by the images of the past.

“It is the son of the ROSHI!”

That, he had understood it immediately. This young body radiated a force which made his hackles rise. It was the Force of the Truth. Definitely. He knew it so well to have met it so often near the ROSHI, this very great Master of the Truth. It was like a naked saber. He was liked because he cut the lie and that one guessed that this lie there was his demon. But one was upset with him of this possibility there. One was upset with him of the cut which did good. That one knew to be one’s good!

 

Because one liked the lie and to do evil. This pleasure there was the one of the man who seeks to take his power on the others. On the life. Quite simply. And then, it is easy to do evil. It produces an immediate satisfaction by the movement of the wound at the other. There is immediate satisfaction of his force.

“Quite small, this force!”

HIRO had not say “petty” anymore since years. The ROSHI has cured in him this manner of looking at the World. This one there is never the one that one believes. ” It is only the kind of look that you carry on it " the Master said to him.

Then HIRO tried to modify his breathing according to the instructions of the Master. He tried. He was able to do it. But one day he had a grudge against the Master to be there. To exist. The ROSHI looked at him in his effort. The ROSHI then kept a silence of The One who cannot make more some other way than not to intervene anymore.

However HIRO believed to see at the bottom of the eyes of the Master that the origin was not there. That he deluded himself. But it was necessary that he discovers it himself and that took time.

 

But what offended him, this is to feel that the Master, the ROSHI, his old companion, continued his road as if his sufferings at him were non-existent. He was not concerned with him!

The Master continued the movement of his Practice. HIRO, suddenly, was excluded from it. He did not find that fair.

He took him time, much of time, to realize that the old Master could not make another way without perverting the Truth. It is him HIRO who left the true movement.

Because there is truth and there is false.

He took a long time to discover it. Years of suffering and interrogation to know that there is a right position. Only one.

“It is the one of the Religious Spirit”, my friend, told him the ROSHI when he spoke the evening in summer on the bench of the veranda of the pavilion of the Master.

He did not understand. Then the Master said to him that the religious spirit is only the ordinary spirit which becomes serious.

But that he did not understand it either. It has taken time, much of time.

And he has a grudge against him when he has understood.

Because he has then seen that what prevented the ordinary spirit from being serious, it was quite simply the pleasure of doing evil…. And to do evil to oneself!

Then he knew that he was the only and single person in charge of his isolation.

 

When he said his discovery to the ROSHI, this one observed him a long moment. Then he burst out laughing.

“My friend, your daily Practice shows what you are!”

HIRO frowned. The Master has then surrounded his shoulder with his arm and has whispered to him into the ear.

“Hey, you the killer Master, you do not know if the one who is in front of you is gripped by the fear?”

“Of course yes!” rose up HIRO who felt a direct attack on his knowledge of combatant.

“Then, me, as a Master of the Spirit, I know what contains yours”.

The truth made him the effect of a blow of saber on the head because he understood that he had never succeeded in misleading.

Only he deluded himself.

 

- The son of the Master is still worse!

Here what turned him on his bed. This young man there was still worse. Him, the Truth, he oozed it by all the pores of his skin. Because apart from the truth, he had no other food.

- That one there does not want anything else!

 

He was certain of that. His dreams of the night are the testimony in the sweat which bathes his sheets.

- That one there has the power to put the others in front of their lie!

Then, it is may be for that the men wanted to kill him! It will have to ask the ROSHI.

 

Yesterday, he came back from the torrent the lungs burning of the race. The noise of the ices which broke, fractured what was still on standby in his head and he did not suspect that there is still so much in it.

But it is the presence of this son of the Master who involved these reminiscences because those there continued to exist and to be working in the decisions of the Man. Then it must be brought to light so that the end is.

He came back thus with the bubbling body. He passed the small door of the dry stones wall which separates from the interior courtyards of the monastery. He has almost run towards the doors of the temple. Their wood seemed to him now radiating. They appeared to breathe from the interior. Inside, in the wood, he saw today the force of the life which breathes everywhere. He saw it for the first time with this clearness of the look and he had tears in the eyes.

On the steps, he remained in front of the large doors. Alone they said the force of the World.

- It is The One who is inside!

This certainty had just stood out like a crash of rock on his skull and he bent the knees.

He knelt on the step in front of the painted wooden door. He bent the spine and his frontal gave a sound on the stage in front of the door. Just at the place where the Masters must put the foot.

The sound radiated in the skull, under the bones, with the crash of the knowledge which flowed on him. The tears were in the eyes and he did not retain them against the cheeks.

- Thus, That One there who is Inside is so strong!

Because it could be only the one who was now the son of the ROSHI who could obtain from the Gods a precision of the Force in the things. All of a sudden in front of the eyes the flames came back to him which left the orbits of the one who hardly breathed after the technique of the Exit of Death. These are those flames which have produced the race in the torrent and the breath of the mountain in his lungs on fire.

It is them which make in front of him breathe the heavy wooden door.

It is them which draw in him this blessing to exist and the certainty of his truth, this one which leads the tears to roll over his cheeks and he is not ashamed of it because they are drops of Knowledge such as all those who seek, dream to have one day only one of them.

 

Then, in front of the doors heavy of wood and painting, the one which one names HIRO, this son of the wild steppes, this Master killer, the one who directs the Monastery in the absence of the Master, the one who nourishes by the body and the plants and his needles of acupuncture, Te One who…. But that one there suddenly did not know anything anymore. This was like one fool who had forgotten his alphabet and who could not do anymore but smile gently to the movement of the air on his lips. This was like the madman who had forgotten until his name because only existed the colossal Force of the Knowledge which made him fold the knees and break his spine so that his forehead touches the wood in front of the door until his forehead becomes red.

Then, in front of this wood and these colors, the heat which filled up his body, this Knowledge which did not want to leave him to the point that he did not know anymore what to do, he had the vision of his future, of the only role which was now to be his.

“To look after and serve until the Death That One who Breathed again”.

 

There was nothing anymore to say or to think. The obviousness was in the fibers of hi s being and he knew that this Force of the Knowledge which was lingering on his shoulders like a radiant heat which gave him the desire for shouting out his love for the others, was there only for him. For him. So that he never loses the wire of his duty because the duty was now apparent for him without the movement of the spirit.

He knew that this Force was lingering because the gift of him will have to be extreme and that sometimes he will doubt.

He knew that this force caressed his forehead like a mother with her child would make it, to say to him that she is there, with the palm open on the soft skin, because the effort will be hard.

He knew that The One who started to breathe again was of the race of those which overthrow the mountains.

And he knew that his own life belonged now entirely to the future of That One there.

 

Then, him the noble son of the steppes burned by the winds, he struck the forehead on the wood so that his bones break because those there will have to open now so that finally the best of himself can be exerted.

When he raised, he had the smile on the lips and his eyes threw flashes as he did it a long time ago by charging the tanks with the saber on his mad horse.

 

- Ah! you are back.

The ROSHI has opened the mouth and these words passed his lips. He seemed to wait. A curious smile floated on his lips, one of those which cannot hook on because they are a caress of the soul and the man is too hard with them. Then they hide.

He was in the half-light of the temple and this darkness dressed his body. It radiated from him a quiet force which seemed to go up to the mists of time. This one, one could recognize it because it was still perceptible by the memory of the man. But one did not know how to make it come and settle in it. Except the Masters.

- Yes, HIRO blew.

He did not say anything else. He sat down. Just sitting on his heels and he has placed the hands on his thighs. Just that.

The ROSHI did not look at him. At least his eyes went through the body of the man of the wild steppes. He seemed to listen. He had the neck gently tended. HIRO knew this position. It comes with a push from the vertebra joining together the force of the arms to the cranial pump. The ROSHI was feeling the life with his hands. The funny smile widened on his lips.

The Master cook let his body calm down in this silence there. He was of those who know how it is so rare. It is a blessing of being able to mix with his skin and to feel it shivering gently. This caress there, it still has the memory of it. From the Time not yet so far where the thought of the man had not yet taken possession of him.

Thus he closed the eyes.

 

He wanted to keep printed in the deepest of his being this picture which was in front of him.

There was the ROSHI. Sitting in lotus at the foot of the wooden statue.

There was also the other, the future Master, the son of the ROSHI. His back was leaning against the thigh of the Divinity.

He had the same smile as the ROSHI. HIRO felt the force which bound them beyond time and he did not know who the instructor of the other was.

Then he felt dizzy in the tepidity of these two mouths stretched on the lips and he closed the eyes because he was now time to spend some moments in silent and to lower the head in front of the obviousness.

 

- The ROSHI had said “You are back”. These were the words which went out of his mouth.

But HIRO knew that these words there were addressed to a being beyond the appearance of the body. These words there were going to speak with the one who agreed to come back home and he was moved by it that one needed this young man coming from so far for revealing it to him.

He knew then what his old friend said to him, when they spoke a little in the summer nights, the buttocks on the wooden bench against the palisades. He asked for news of his “other” to him. HIRO did not understand and he wrinkled the eyebrows. Then the ROSHI let come a small laughter like a noise of wooden balls which are banging against one another. He tried to frown like the man of the steppes, by bringing them closer as long as there was no more space between them except a deep bar in the flesh. Then, he laughed and HIRO frowned even more strongly because he did not understand.

He had perceived the Illumination under the control of the ROSHI. He had seen the Force of the Life beyond the form and appearances.

Then why he asked to him news of “the other”. He had never seen one “other” in this perception.

And now, he knows that there is another one and that him, he can strike his forehead against the wood of the parquet because he is stupid and that he has always been so.

 

- Come now!

The order crossed the room and came to strike HIRO head-on. “Come!” He knew this order was imperative. He had thus received it head-on the times where a capital decision was taken for him. It is thus that his old friend, the ROSHI, told him his integration in the Wheel of the Life.

Then he raised the eyelid. They rubbed on the painful globes to have run in the coldness of the mountain.

There was the ROSHI. There was his son. His Son.

Now, they were two and the “double” of HIRO saw it.

 

They were there sitting against the painted wooden statue. Him, the Old man, the back upright on his folded thighs. Him, the Young, the shoulder leaning against the thigh. Between the two, there was nothing except vacuum. But this vacuum had a gilded blue coloring.

Then HIRO bent. He could not do anything else, suddenly, only to strike his forehead on the floor. It is the gesture of the Man in front of the Incommensurable one.

 

He said to him “Come now”. Because it was time to rise as a man who is held upright because he had finally seen “the other”. Then, now he knows WHO walks. “Now” is the word which takes its importance. Insane that he was to have believed that the Illumination had taught everything to him!

There was the Son and now it was his task that to keep it at the life. To make the vigour in this body. He was supported only by the eyes.

He was out of the Death. It is them which have extracted him from the beak of the Eagle. Now it is there. Now.

Then there is his body to make be alive again. “Come!” Now, it is at him to do.

He stood up and advanced towards the young man who looked at him while smiling. But HIRO perceived a burning flame at the bottom of the hollow orbits. This flame there was going to be its adversary. It is it which….

- Go!

The Old Master had just spoken. HE cut short to the anguish which went up in the belly of the Master cook.

- Yes, the old wild of the steppes blew.

He knelt close to the shoulder of the Son and took the arm along the body. The arm did not resist when he passed it around his neck. He held it firm.

Then he sat up straight taking along with him the body of the other who let it happen. In this body there, there was no more flesh.

It was not heavy for the giant of the steppes. The body slipped on his shoulder and he rounded the back to receive it.

This body there had the weight of the feather because this body did not want to live anymore among the men.

But HIRO kept holding firm an extreme attention because this body there had a force moreover. The one of the look. And this look there was like an ignited lance.

 

The ROSHI placed a cover on the back of the one who was now his son. The young man stared at him. It was a look of a curious fixity. Like motionless. But at the bottom of the deep orbits there was a lively flame and the old man was not mistaken by it. This one there was going to give him wire to twist because this man there was not of those who one misleads. Because that one there had death for partner and he was his exit door beyond the imagination of the men.

“Then the men are afraid of you”

- What do you say old man?

The sound had gone raucous out of the half-opened lips of the young man. Just a vibration which had slipped into the throat. But the old man knew that this sound there had come from the belly. HIRO had also felt. He stiffened under the weight of the body which had become heavy suddenly. He braced the thighs on the knees and he screwed the feet on the floor by blocking the ankles. He stopped his walk one moment. Just one moment. One instant.

- Nothing, my son… Hey, I folded the cover on your head. You should not get cold while leaving the temple. You know, here, it is the mountain and it has not left the winter yet.

The dark eyes, about deep brown like the lakes of summer which gleamed with the sun but which never let see the bottom, followed the gestures of the ROSHI. The wrinkled hands unrolled the cover on the shoulders then they pulled towards the face that they covered with the rough fabric.

The young man did not do anything. He let the movement be held. He agreed to it by pressing his cheek on the shoulder of HIRO who waited in front of the closed door of the temple.

The big sheet covered the body of the young man. The face and the hands were hidden to the look of the monks whom one heard in the courtyard.

- It is good, said the ROSHI.

Then HIRO went forwards again with one pace and the ROSHI turned swiftly around him. It is him which lowered the latch. He let it fall down heavily. Voluntarily. This noise of the future Master who leaves the presentation to the Divinities was in the secret texts of the transmission.

The two old men waited for the sound to enter the gilded metal and wooden statues. They let the sound vibrate in the temple, then to diminish gently.

Then, in the thickness of silence, the ROSHI braced himself on the right door and pushed. The day outside cut the half-light like a way of light. HIRO took a step on the side and was placed inside. Then he advanced behind the Master.

 

Silence was done in the courtyard when they heard the deaf noise of the latch which one dropped. The eyes swiveled in the orbits because the heads did not dare to move. Not to look at openly. The arms and the foreheads continued their work of cleaning.

The door opened. It did not make any noise. But there was now a force which came from there. They knew it. It was the one of the Master that he left like a trace in the air.

Behind him, there was HIRO who carried on his shoulders the one that they had carried in the temple. A cover recovered him.

HIRO went down the wooden steps with precaution. He bent the back and his two strong hands clutched the clothing of the son of the Master and maintained him high on his shoulders.

The two men crossed the courtyard in East-West diagonal. They went with small paces towards the wall of the bottom which opens on the pavilions of the guests and of the Master by a low door in the dry stones wall.

They were at semi way, almost in the middle of the courtyard. The body moved on the HIRO’s back. It is a head which seemed to be raised of the shoulder of the Master cook. It was hooded. It was raised thus and drew up such the one of a falcon under its hood.

The monks had now raised the forehead. This hooded head had a force which pulled them suddenly from themselves and the youngest took in reflex a pace backward. The old ones did quickly a sacred mudra with their hands. They recognized this force there. It was the one of the Knowledge which brings death. It was this force there that they tried to master since decades that they followed the secret trainings of the monastery.

And this head there has this Knowledge! Under the heavy sheet, it radiated its Force. They had the impression to see the brilliant eyes projecting these flames of the Death since all what lives must be destroyed in any case.

Then, the old ones moved back themselves of a step. But it was not fear. This Force there was the friend of the man who seeks to stand up. They knew it. But this force there had the Power and it was good to take a pace of respect.

The head seemed to turn under the hood. It was now as an eagle which observes its territory.

The monks knew that it was this control which proceeded at present. The eyes burning with Power stared, stared and stared again at the things of the life of the men who were in this place.

Then, the monks could not make some other way than to place the knees on the ground. Not possible to make some other way. Obliged. The gesture came all alone because there had only that in front of this look there which controls the mandala of the Life Present.

And this look there was under a heavy and dark sheet. A big homespun which is used by them to make the covers and the coat of work for the garden the days of great colds. They knew the thickness of it.

But the eyes crossed this sheet there and they knew it well since they were stirred up until the bottom of their belly and that they wanted suddenly to cry.

But these tears there, this blazing look did not want it. Because these tears are only one manner of crying over oneself. He said it behind his sheet. He said it by the slow movement of the head which swiveled gently. Slowly. This head belonged to the body of HIRO which had stopped. For him also there was not means to make some other way. It was for him also an obligation to let the Force discover the territory of the Men which was now the one in which it was going to have to run out its power.

- If you arrive at living, hey, me I told you that!

The old Mongol of the wild steppes had left these hard words as he often spoke with his insane horse to have heard and saw the flames of the burning weapons of the men and to have felt them in his painful body. He spoke to him thus, with this sound of violence. Right before rushing in the combat. At one against hundred. Against the tanks and the armored cars. The broad saber in the hand, laced at the wrist when it was necessary to release it quickly and to seize the taken the pin out of grenade held between his tight teeth.

He howled thus the mouth large open on the squared metal. The insane horse rushed beyond its forces towards the howling metal. It knew it howling. It knew it in its memory and the pain of its body. Because now it could not anymore see and hear. HIRO had blindfolded it and its ears were filled with linen. Otherwise it would have fled.

- Do not talk and advances right.

The old Mongol was speechless about it. His right hand was about to release the fabric. He felt suddenly that his numb fingers could not to obey him anymore.

- Do thus like your horse! Bandage your eyes and close your ears.

By all the demons, how that one knows? Because it was the body on his back that had just spoken. He had felt the vibration of it when the sounds had been born from the belly. Then the vibration went up along his back and he felt it on his nape of the neck when the words said what they said.

- Go, pig-headed individual. Hey, the one-eyed ones which carry out blind men!

HIRO rolled furious eyes. He was about to release everything and to take a stick. He had the vision of his violence and at this same time, it is a chuckled laughter which answered him on his back.

-Hey, you are not better than those that you judge.

HIRO savagely clutched the clothing on his back and rolled the eyes towards the Master who observed at three paces in front. Him also he had stopped. But he did not turn over. Just a rotation of his long thin neck.

The eyes of the ROSHI were masked by the eyelids almost lowered on the cheeks. HIRO did not manage to perceive his breathing. All of a sudden his old companion, The one whom he has served like a mother since decades, remained as it should be that the Master be. Outside.

Then HIRO was found alone with the weight of the one who was on his back and who now did not say anything anymore. He had seemed to him to hear to slip along his ears « Was necessary to leave me where I went! » But it is not certain. May be that he had dreamed.

 

But these sounds made going up the force of the earth in his twisted legs. He felt the force of the Earth in his belly. There, it was at his disposal.

- Thank you, he whispered.

He did not know to whom he spoke. He did not know anything anymore. Except that he must redo the paces in the courtyard. One movement after the other. He had suddenly the vision that the death was not other thing. The stop of these paces. The stop of pace. A step that one cannot finish anymore. There. Here and now.

The ROSHI had taken again his walk in front of him and went straight to the low door in the dry stones wall.

 

 

 

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