Damn, It’s Good to See You! (1)
"Ah. I can finally breathe."
"Right? Who knew being able to sleep without your feet going numb would feel this good?"
"The North Sea really is no place for people to live."
Awakened by sunlight slipping through the tent, the Mount Hua disciples busied themselves tidying up their bedding and chattered among themselves.
"Back in the North Sea, I felt like my body was going to shatter the moment I woke up in the morning."
"It really drives home just how nice warmth is."
Everything in the world was relative.
What others would call a night on the grasslands cold enough to twist your jaw had felt, to those who had come through the North Sea, only a little cool.
"But where did Chung Myung go?"
"No idea. He’s been gone since a while ago."
At those words, Baek Cheon straightened his clothing and stepped outside to look around.
"Chung Myung?"
That was when he spotted Chung Myung’s profile by the pond.
The campfire had already gone out, leaving only a thin stream of white smoke curling upward. Chung Myung sat in front of it, staring blankly up at the sky.
"What are you doing?"
At Baek Cheon’s question, Chung Myung’s gaze moved slowly.
"Huh?"
Seeing that dazed expression on his face, Baek Cheon tilted his head.
"Did somebody steal your money or something? Why do you look like that?"
"Sasuk."
"Yeah?"
"Cut the crap and make breakfast."
"Ah, this little punk—"
With a long, exasperated sigh, Chung Myung turned his head slightly and looked toward the tent where the lama monks were staying. Judging by the sounds of sutras being recited from inside, they must have risen early too.
"...If I have to endure it, I’d rather just die."
That little child, the supposed reincarnation of the Great Buddha, had spouted some incomprehensible nonsense at Chung Myung the day before, then turned right back around with a face that looked as if he knew nothing at all.
He had tried to stop the Great Buddha on his way to the tent, but by then, the sanctity and pressure he had felt were already gone without a trace.
This is driving me crazy.
It wasn’t as if he could grab hold of a kid whose mind was flickering in and out and make a scene, and if he simply let it be, the words the child had said kept gnawing at him.
He had ended up spending the entire night torn between the two and not sleeping at all.
With another heavy sigh, Chung Myung spotted Hye Yeon emerging from the tent and crooked a finger at him.
"Hey, bald monk! Bald monk!"
"...Donor. My法名 is Hye Yeon."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Come here."
"...."
Hye Yeon came over with a sulky look on his face. Chung Myung glanced at him and asked casually,
"What do you think about what you heard yesterday?"
"If you don’t mind, which part do you mean?"
"That reincarnation nonsense, and how the Great Buddha was supposed to have come back to life and all that."
"Amitabha. Ah, yes, that."
Hye Yeon gave an awkward look and glanced toward the tent where the lama monks were staying.
"While the Buddhism of Tibet and that of the Central Plains both follow the teachings of Shakyamuni, the interpretations are not wholly the same."
"Oh?"
"What Lama Panchen said yesterday regarding reincarnation is not greatly different from Shaolin’s own teachings. However, the idea that a person can deliberately undergo reincarnation and remember their past is not something that aligns with our doctrine."
Hye Yeon gently shook his head.
"If someone could do that, then one could truly call them a Buddha."
"So you’re saying he’s a fraud."
"N-no! I did not mean it like that!"
Startled, Hye Yeon hurriedly glanced toward the tent as if afraid the lama monks might hear. Then, lowering his voice, he said,
"D-donor, please be careful. The Tibetan Buddhists’ reverence for the Great Buddha is greater than you may think."
"I know."
Chung Myung spoke indifferently.
He had already seen for himself how fanatical people could become when they worshipped another human being as a god. Of course, humans and Buddhas were different, and they were not the same as the Demonic Sect, but still.
Can people really be like that?
If this had been the old him, he would have laughed it off as nonsense. Chung Myung did not believe in anything he could not verify with his own eyes.
But this time, he could not simply brush it aside. More than anything, wasn’t Chung Myung himself proof enough?
Chung Myung looked up at the sky again with a blank expression.
Then the tent flap opened, and Lama Panchen and the other lama monks stepped out slowly with their hands joined in prayer. Chung Myung’s gaze locked immediately onto the child standing behind Lama Panchen.
Just looking at that innocent face that seemed to know nothing made something twist unpleasantly in his stomach.
"Did you rest comfortably through the night?"
Lama Panchen greeted them with a kindly smile. The Mount Hua disciples, who had just poured out of the tent, all returned the greeting with clasped fists.
"It’s been a while since I slept so well. We truly appreciate the lama’s consideration."
"Consideration? I simply provided a tent that was sitting empty. Please, think nothing of it."
Still smiling warmly with his hands together, Lama Panchen turned his gaze to Chung Myung.
"You seem deeply troubled."
"...."
"Would you care to walk a little?"
Chung Myung silently nodded.
Leaving the lama monks and the Mount Hua disciples behind, Lama Panchen and Chung Myung walked alone across the vast grassland.
The steppe was so wide that no end was in sight. It felt as though they could walk forever and never actually reach the edge of it.
It was Chung Myung who broke the long silence first.
"The Great Buddha... "
He paused, then asked in a deeper voice,
"Are you certain he really is the Great Buddha?"
"That would not be accurate."
Lama Panchen shook his head.
"Om mani padme hum. In essence, a Buddha is a being beyond man. Yet now one beyond man has been trapped once more within the human shell, so he cannot remain wholly himself. From this point onward, Dalai Lama will journey to Potala Palace and gradually recover his true self."
"So for now he’s just a child...?"
"That is not quite right, either."
Lama Panchen smiled faintly.
"No matter how much of oneself is lost, the depth of one’s enlightenment does not simply vanish. He is a child, and yet Buddha; Buddha, and yet a child."
Chung Myung could not make sense of it.
Of course, taken literally, the answer was not difficult. But there seemed to be something in Lama Panchen’s words that went beyond what language could neatly contain.
Something different from the occasional mystic or deeply disciplined Buddhist monk one might meet, something beyond that.
"Then..."
As Chung Myung was about to say something, Lama Panchen shook his head first.
"I cannot answer that question."
"...."
His calm, serene eyes regarded Chung Myung.
"You wish to ask about what Dalai Lama said yesterday, yes?"
"Yes."
Chung Myung nodded readily. He had handled it in his own way, but those ears of theirs could not possibly have been shut by that flimsy tent wall.
"I am still lacking in many respects, but in the Dharma I believe I have gained some measure of understanding. That is what allows me to teach and guide the lamas of Potala Palace."
"Yes."
Anyone who had met Lama Panchen would never dare call those words arrogant or deny them.
"But I am still merely a human body bound by delusion and karma. I cannot understand every word spoken by a Buddha. To understand is to know, and to know is to awaken. If that were so simple, would I not already have become a Buddha myself?"
Watching Lama Panchen laugh heartily, Chung Myung silently nodded.
"Dalai Lama is an incarnation of Avalokiteshvara. For now, he is still bound by the human frame and cannot yet be aware of himself, but by the time he reaches adulthood, he will fully recover who he is."
"By the time he reaches adulthood, huh..."
Chung Myung turned his head slightly and looked toward the tent, now a little farther away. But he soon turned back.
So he doesn’t even understand what he himself said yet.
It must mean that the body could not bear the lofty enlightenment of the Great Buddha. So even if he spoke with the Great Buddha again, it was highly likely Chung Myung still wouldn’t get what he wanted from it.
The reason Lama Panchen had pulled him away to speak privately must have been because of that.
"Daoist Chung Myung."
"Yes."
"I would not dare claim to know Dalai Lama’s true intent."
"...."
"But even I, one too lacking to follow his profound enlightenment, can see that you are no ordinary man."
Lama Panchen’s grave gaze fixed on him.
"Not ordinary?"
"I have spent my whole life sharpening my Dharma Eye in order to confirm Dalai Lama’s reincarnation. To me, your difference is visible. I cannot define it, but you are certainly not like ordinary people."
Chung Myung stopped walking. Then he looked at the old monk standing quietly beside him and said,
"Lama."
"Yes, Daoist."
"According to Buddhist teachings, human beings undergo reincarnation in order to cultivate through long ages and attain enlightenment, yes?"
"Indeed."
"Could there be another reason for reincarnation?"
Lama Panchen shook his head.
"I do not know."
"...."
"The flow of the world is vast beyond measure. Within it, anything can happen. How could I possibly presume to know the sacred will of Amitabha."
Chung Myung nodded quietly again.
"There is only one thing I wish to tell you, Daoist."
When Chung Myung looked at him with questioning eyes, Lama Panchen joined his hands and softly recited a sutra.
"All human beings endure suffering as they live. That is because delusion always exists within humanity."
"Delusion..."
"Om mani padme hum."
Lama Panchen wore the gentlest of smiles as he spoke.
"Those who walk the path of Buddha study the Dharma in order to overcome their karma and transcend delusion. Even if what you are experiencing now is pain, that pain will not be meaningless."
It was the sort of thing people said while reaching for clouds.
And yet, strangely enough, hearing those cloud-reaching words made his heart feel a little lighter.
"In the end, I guess I have to do it myself."
"Isn’t the same true of the Dao?"
"...."
"Those who awaken become immortals. But no one can forcibly awaken another who has not yet done so. One must understand and realize it on one’s own."
"...You know Daoist teachings too?"
"Hoho. Of course I do. If one were to think on it, hasn’t the Daoism of the Central Plains been greatly influenced by Tibetan Buddhism? And the Amitabha worshipped in the Central Plains Daoist tradition was originally the Amitabha Tathagata of Buddhism, was he not?"
"Oi, this old man..."
Chung Myung glared at him at the casual slight to the Dao, but then he snorted and laughed anyway.
"You really did seem like a heartless bastard, but now you’re starting to sound like a human being."
"Hahaha."
Lama Panchen laughed freely, his eyes warm as he looked at Chung Myung.
"Daoist."
"Yes."
"There is no answer outside oneself."
"...."
"When the time comes for you to desperately seek an answer, simply look within yourself. All answers will lie inside you."
Facing him, Chung Myung slowly brought both hands together in prayer.
"Immeasurable Life Buddha."
Chung Myung was not the sort to readily utter honorific titles, but with Lama Panchen he made an exception. This was the highest respect Chung Myung could offer.
"Thank you, Lama."
"Think nothing of it."
After their conversation ended, Lama Panchen turned to look toward the tents.
"I would like to speak with you longer, but as a Buddhist I must take Dalai Lama back to Potala Palace as soon as possible."
"Yes. I’m sorry to have taken your time."
Lama Panchen shook his head.
"All connections carry meaning. My meeting you here was surely no mere coincidence."
"...."
"May you overcome your delusion."
With his hands together and his head bowed deeply, Lama Panchen left Chung Myung behind and walked back toward the tents.
Watching his receding figure, Chung Myung finally plopped down on the spot without care.
"Connection, huh..."
Then he gave a faint laugh.
"You really do say things to a Daoist that you’d never say to anyone else, don’t you?"
He closed his eyes quietly, and the sound of the wind brushed softly past his ears.