Vague and Unspoken Part 1

The sixty-seventh year of Kunlun, autumn, the eighth month.

The night Ming Buxiang was born, his father, heating water, knocked over the oil pot by accident.

Ill timing did the rest. A spark fell into the oil. It was a thatched hut, and rain had fallen the day before, so the place was packed with freshly gathered rice straw; in an instant a tongue of flame sealed the doorway. The midwife panicked. She never cut the cord—she hauled the infant out of the womb still joined to the afterbirth, clutched the lot to her chest, and clambered for the window. But she was a heavy, fleshy woman, and she managed only to wedge her upper half through before her lower half jammed fast and would not budge. That blockage doomed them: Ming Buxiang's parents could no longer escape, and the one opening that might have let in air was stopped up. They were overcome by the smoke and collapsed senseless.

The fire spread with terrible speed, light and black smoke spurting through the gaps in the door. The midwife screamed for help, her hand slipped, and she dropped Ming Buxiang hard onto the muddy ground outside. Villagers came running at the noise. Some scrambled for water to fight the blaze; three or four strong men seized the midwife and hauled at her, but she was wedged so tightly she would not move a hair's breadth. She wailed and shrieked, a sound piteous beyond bearing, and then a fit took her—her eyes rolled back, froth ran from the corners of her mouth. Two of the men put their strength together and at last dragged her free of the window. But the little hut had been smoldering airless, and the moment that one vent was cleared and air rushed in, the whole thatched house roared up in flame. The crowd recoiled. When they turned back to the midwife, they saw that her upper body was whole, while everything below the waist had been roasted through, and the smell of cooked meat drifted off her.

The villagers fighting the fire took one look at the sight and were sick. For three months afterward, half the village turned queasy at the smell of lard.

In the confusion a sturdy young woman scooped the infant up from the mud and carried it clear of the disaster.

The little hamlet lay within Dengfeng, in Zhengzhou, under the direct jurisdiction of Shaolin. Two days later Liaoxin, a Shaolin proctor monk, arrived to examine the scene, and his brow furrowed despite himself. A fire so strange—and above all the dreadful manner of the midwife's death—was a rare thing indeed.

The villagers said the child had killed his own parents and the midwife the moment he was born; he was a star of calamity, and no one dared take him in. The Chan master Liaoxin took the infant into his arms. The boy's gaze was dull, lacking the bright quickness of ordinary babies. Unwrapping the swaddling, Liaoxin found a great bruise across the back of his head; asking after it, he learned the midwife had dropped him, and so he asked a few questions more. He was told the child was remarkably easy to keep—seldom cried, seldom fussed, ate when fed, soiled himself like any other—only that his parents had died young. His surname was Ming, and he had not yet been given a name.

Fearing the infant carried some hidden affliction, Liaoxin dared not place him with strangers, and instead carried him back to the temple and reported the matter to Juejian, the Chan master who presided over Right Action Hall. Juejian said only, "Since there is a karmic bond, then take him in. Has he a name?"

"He was born trailing calamity," Liaoxin said. "Perhaps that is his karma. Since we do not know his name, let him be called Buxiang—the Unspoken."

At first Liaoxin found a household in Buddha City to nurse him. Even when hungry, Ming Buxiang did not cry. The wet nurse, marveling at it, pinched him a few times; he would struggle a little, then go still. She tickled the corners of his eyes with a straw, and tears ran, but no wail came, and only then did she give him the breast. When Liaoxin came to see the boy, she told him the child must be simple, and would be of no use grown; Liaoxin only gave her silver and bade her care for him well.

After the Kunlun Council, the old dynasty had been supplanted by nine great sects, known together as the Nine Great Houses. The Nine Great Houses divided the realm among themselves, and one of their resolutions ran: "Whoever dares proclaim himself emperor, all under heaven shall strike him down." From then on there was no emperor in the world, and no government office. The Nine Great Houses each laid down their own statutes and ordinances, and each governed many lesser sects beneath them. These sects administered their own districts, taking the place of the old dynasty's magistrates and yamen, yet wielding the local gentry's knowledge of custom and their hold upon it. It was as though the world had returned to the Spring and Autumn and Warring States era of a thousand years past, the Nine Great Houses standing like nine feudal lords, each leading still lesser lords beneath them, together keeping order within the pass.

Liaoxin was a Shaolin proctor monk. By Shaolin's regulations, every sect and temple within its territory had resident administrative monks; a proctor's duty was to police all breaches of the law in his territory and arrest offenders. As a proctor, Liaoxin often had to travel far on his rounds. Ming Buxiang had only just been weaned, so when Liaoxin went out he left the boy in the care of a neighboring monk, Liaoxu.

For the first two years, no matter how Liaoxin tried to teach him, Ming Buxiang never spoke a word. There were times Liaoxin suspected he was mute, and times he believed the wet nurse had been right—that the boy was truly a simpleton.

In the fourth year, one day, Liaoxin was reciting his morning office. He had come to "Section Seven: No Attainment, No Teaching" of the Diamond Sutra, and paused for breath. As he was about to go on, Ming Buxiang, who had been listening at his side, suddenly opened his mouth and took up the recitation: "Subhuti! What do you think? Has the Tathagata attained Supreme Perfect Enlightenment? Has the Tathagata any Dharma he has taught..."

And so Ming Buxiang recited the whole passage from memory, then stared up at Liaoxin with wide eyes, as if waiting to see how he would react.

After that, Ming Buxiang could be said to have learned to speak.

Liaoxin was astonished and overjoyed. He was a proper monk—unlike the lay monks, he was a practitioner who kept the precepts in earnest. Convinced now that Ming Buxiang had a karmic bond to the Buddha, he reported the strange event to Juejian.

Juejian knit his brow. "Did this truly happen?"

"How would your disciple dare deceive you?" Liaoxin answered.

"This foster son of yours has a bond to the Buddha and ought to draw near the Dharma," Juejian said. "He should enter the temple and take up practice—is that your meaning?"

Liaoxin caught the implication and flushed red. "If the abbot does not believe me, I will bring Buxiang here."

Juejian waved a hand. "No need. You are diligent and hardworking; I have long meant to bring you into the halls. There is no call to push your foster son. Let the boy follow his own nature."

Liaoxin had been a proctor stationed outside the temple proper, dealing with breaches of the law in the districts. To enter the halls meant to pass into the four courts and eight halls, attached to the center, and to handle the affairs of Shaolin itself. He would still be a proctor, but his authority would be vastly greater; he would even take up residence inside Shaolin Temple, and after death his ashes might be enshrined and venerated by Shaolin. Many monks dreamed of nothing so much as a place within the halls, the proper monks most ardent of all, every one of them holding entry to the halls a high honor.

Liaoxin understood the abbot had misread him. He sighed, but offered no defense, and moved Ming Buxiang into a vacant two-room dwelling within Shaolin Temple. The lodging had a single front room that served both as the shrine for morning and evening recitation and as a sitting room; small as it was, it held two chairs, a tea table, and a few bookcases.

From then on Liaoxin handled his official duties at Right Action Hall.

By this time Ming Buxiang could speak, yet he rarely did. Liaoxin noticed that most of the time the boy simply watched—watched him, watched him chatting idly with other monks, watched other monks chatting among themselves. And besides watching, he listened: the evening drum and the morning bell, the morning and evening sutras, he listened to all of it. Worried the boy was bored, Liaoxin bought him some children's toys when he went out, but whether kite or diabolo, the nine-linked rings or the rattle-drum, Ming Buxiang did more turning-over-in-his-hands than playing. Liaoxin could not tell whether the child was clever or dull.

When he was seven, one day, Ming Buxiang listened quietly as ever while Liaoxin finished his morning office, then suddenly asked, "All that has form is illusion—what does that mean?"

Liaoxin felt a rush of excitement. Ever since Buxiang's fourth year he had been certain the child had a bond to the Buddha, and he had waited three years for the boy to ask his first question—and that it should be a line from the Diamond Sutra. He was glad, and at the same time anxious, afraid he would miss the heart of it and lead Buxiang's practice astray, so he thought it over carefully before he spoke.

"To understand this line, you must first grasp what 'form' means," Liaoxin said. "Form is what our eyes see, our noses smell, our ears hear, our tongues taste, our bodies touch, our minds conceive. Every surface of the world is form."

"Every surface of the world?" When Ming Buxiang asked a question, no puzzlement would show on his face; only after a moment would he 'squeeze out' a puzzled look. Liaoxin had grown used to it. The boy's feelings always lagged a little, and his expressions were stiff, like a clumsy imitation.

"Just so," Liaoxin went on. "Everything you perceive is not real; it is illusion, false. And form includes more than that—your fixed attachments, your notions, are also form. For instance..." He picked up the wooden mallet he used in chanting and asked, "Is this mallet hard or soft?"

"Hard."

Liaoxin closed both palms around the mallet and quietly summoned the force of the Great Prajna Palm. Crushed under the enormous pressure, the mallet caved in until it bent like a rice spoon.

"I'd say it's soft," Liaoxin said.

Ming Buxiang nodded. "Hard and soft are relative. I think it's hard; you, Master, think it's soft."

"You think it hard, I think it soft—these are both notions. A notion is also a kind of form. A preconceived idea is mistaken."

"If all of these are false," Ming Buxiang asked, "what is real?"

"The moment you cling to real and false, you too have fallen into form. You have made a discriminating mind that divides the true from the false."

After a while Ming Buxiang squeezed out his puzzled look again.

"You needn't sort out true from false, real from empty. You are false, the rice is false—yet when you are hungry, you must still eat. Understand that all that has form is illusion, and a man will not grow proud in good fortune, nor rail against heaven and others in bad. To truly see through the real and the empty—that is another realm altogether, and your master still has a long way to go." With that, Liaoxin laughed aloud. After a moment Ming Buxiang smiled too, and asked, "Then who has reached that realm? Abbot Juejian?"

Liaoxin shook his head. "Abbot Juejian hasn't reached it either."

"What about Abbot Juekong, the Head Monk?"

"You remember Head Monk Juekong's name—when have you ever seen him?"

"I heard you mention it to others, Master."

Juekong was the Head Monk of the Samantabhadra Court, the senior court above Right Action Hall, lofty and revered in rank—yet Juekong was a lay monk, and Liaoxin held that, set beside a proper monk like himself, the man fell far short where the Dharma was concerned.

"He's beneath even Abbot Juejian."

"Then Abbot Juesheng?"

Ming Buxiang named several in a row, and Liaoxin could vouch for none of them, saying only, "There are many high monks of great virtue who have seen through life and death and illusion—that is a marvelous realm. But you cannot tell it from a man's outside; you must look to the heart. The world is full of false monks and counterfeit Buddhas, and you must learn to tell them apart. If you have a taste for the Dharma, I will begin teaching you the sutras tomorrow."

From the next day, Liaoxin began with the story of the World-Honored One, then taught Ming Buxiang the Treatise on the Middle Way; that done, the Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra. In the scriptures Ming Buxiang's grasp was superb—he drew three conclusions from one, his thought ranging without obstruction. At every examination his answers came smooth and ready. The blankness slowly left his eyes, replaced by a kindling light, and his face was no longer so dull as before; whenever Liaoxin spoke of something that delighted and moved him, Ming Buxiang too would let slip a knowing smile.

From the age of eight, Ming Buxiang began to train in the martial arts under Liaoxin, starting from the basic Horse Stance Bridge Hand and working step by step to the Arhat Fist and the inner-energy methods.

His aptitude for the martial arts seemed to surpass even his gift for the sutras: any technique, once demonstrated, he grasped at a glance. Inner cultivation prized a still mind and few cares, and once he entered meditative stillness, not a single thought strayed. Liaoxin understood now that what he had carried home was no simpleton at all, but a prodigy such as the world saw only once in a century.

On his twelfth birthday, Liaoxin called Ming Buxiang before him. "You are twelve this year. Though you've grown up in the temple, you've never gone out to play; you do nothing but train, and few visitors come to my lodging. I've told you some of the temple's rules—do you remember them?"

Ming Buxiang nodded. From earliest childhood the one constant in him had been his dislike of talking.

From his robe Liaoxin drew a little booklet, no larger than a palm and half a knuckle thick, with four characters brushed in small script on its cover: Buddhist Disciple Precepts. This was the code of discipline that every soul within Shaolin Temple, monk or layman, was bound to uphold. Within it were set down three hundred and sixteen precepts, all written in small regular script. Every disciple was to carry it on his person and never lose it, and to know its precepts cold; whenever an elder put a question to him about the temple, he could produce this booklet to answer.

"Keep it on you. Don't lose it." Liaoxin handed the Buddhist Disciple Precepts to Ming Buxiang. "A Shaolin disciple who turns twelve must serve as a laborer if he wishes to remain in the temple. They say that in the old days Shaolin Temple meant only the main hall where the abbot dwelt, with no dividing into proper monks and lay monks; though it touched the martial world, most of what it did was righteous and chivalrous work. The Shaolin Temple of today has grown to the size you see, proper monks and lay monks mingled together, and it is no longer the pure place it once was. There are no women here, and you..."

Liaoxin looked at Ming Buxiang's handsome, lovely face, the skin fair as a maiden's. He had heard of certain foul doings within the temple. "You must be careful in all things. If anyone forces you to do what you do not wish, you must resist, and your master will see justice done for you. You understand my meaning?"

"That sort of thing—is it very pleasant?"

Liaoxin had not expected such a question and was taken aback a moment before answering. "The great desire of human life—food and sex are part of our nature. But to give oneself over to lust does harm to one's practice."

"Have you done it, Master?"

Liaoxin laughed aloud. "Is that you teasing your master? Your master left home for the monastery as a child. I've never given it a thought."

"Then how do you know it harms one's practice, and how do you know what it is to sink into it?" Ming Buxiang concluded, "Master speaks of many principles, but has done few things."

Liaoxin had truly never considered the question. He had kept the precepts since boyhood, taking pride in being a proper monk; the things he had never done in this life were many indeed, and what a pity that was...

The moment that thought—what a pity—rose up, Liaoxin came sharply alert. To stir a thought is to make karma. His discipline ran deep, and he rose at once to his feet. "I must chant the sutras. From tomorrow you'll join the others in cleaning Right Action Hall."

From that day on, the words "Master speaks of many principles, but has done few things" lodged in Liaoxin's heart, surfacing now and then. It was a seed, fallen on barren ground, stirring to life.

......

Right Action Hall stood within the Samantabhadra Court, to the right of Shaolin Temple's main hall. After the fall of the old dynasty, Shaolin—like the other sects—had raised a great many pagodas and halls. Facing it head-on, a straight processional avenue ran clear to the main hall; to the left, in order, lay the Samantabhadra Court and the Manjushri Court, and to the right, the Avalokitesvara Court and the Ksitigarbha Court. Each court held two halls—one hall, four courts, eight minor halls. Such was the order of Shaolin Temple as it now stood.

Shaolin Temple was unlike the other sects. The Buddhist gate prized purity, and so it sat in no bustling, clamorous place; there were no shops or dwellings around it. The myriad monks and disciples, more than ten thousand, all lived within the temple, each court furnished with a thousand monks' quarters. Not until five li beyond the temple walls, at Buddha City, did one find any liveliness. There monks and townsfolk lived intermixed; it was the largest city in the Mount Song region, and within it lay several hundred more monks' dwellings for the monks who managed the Zhengzhou area from outside the halls. This place was called the Nameless Temple—for by rights every temple and sect that governed a district had a name, yet this one alone answered directly to Shaolin Temple while belonging to no hall, with no temple to call its own, and so was called the Nameless Temple. Ming Buxiang had lived there until he was four.

Ming Buxiang was assigned to clean Right Action Hall, the lowest of the menial tasks. More than twenty disciples worked alongside him, most of them monks of the Ben generation, one rank below Liaoxin, and among them some lay disciples like Ming Buxiang himself. The disciple in charge was named Benyue, his face thick with dark blotches; behind his back the monks of his own generation called him "Spotted Dog." The nickname had a source: a few years earlier a spotted dog had wandered into Right Action Hall and bitten Benyue on the calf, and they had snickered to themselves that here was one spotted dog biting another.

Out of compassion, Abbot Juejian had only driven the creature beyond the temple walls. Some said Benyue slipped out of his room by night, lured the dog with rat meat, and beat it to death, leaving the carcass in the woods outside the temple; others said he ate it. Benyue's teacher was Liaowu, and Liaowu was a lay monk, so naturally Benyue belonged to the lay monks' faction as well—and the lay monks' observance of the precepts was always in doubt. In any case, no one believed Benyue would let the matter rest.

The first time he laid eyes on Ming Buxiang, Benyue knit his brow and asked, "You're the proctor Liaoxin's foster son?"

Ming Buxiang nodded.

Benyue spat and reached out to stroke Ming Buxiang's cheek, his manner thick with lechery. "No wonder—pretty as this, Liaoxin must dote on you no end. Doesn't he?"

The moment the words were out, several of the monks beside him burst into laughter, and Ming Buxiang, of all people, laughed along with them. Benyue snarled, "What are you laughing at?" and shoved him. He was nearing twenty, far taller and bigger than Ming Buxiang, and as a tonsured monk he was permitted to study the temple's deeper arts; the shove carried real force, and it knocked Ming Buxiang to the ground.

Ming Buxiang showed no anger and got back to his feet. Benyue demanded again, "What are you laughing at?"

Ming Buxiang said nothing. Benyue raised his voice and cursed again. "Can't you speak?"

Ming Buxiang shook his head. "I can."

"Then what were you laughing at? Speak!"

Again Ming Buxiang gave no answer.

In a fury, Benyue struck him a blow that sent him staggering. "What are you laughing at—speak!"

The monks who had gathered to watch took fright and hurried forward to stop him, but Benyue would not let it go. "What are you laughing at? Do you look down on me?"

A crisp crack, and another red palm-print bloomed on Ming Buxiang's face.

The others rushed to pull Benyue off, pleading, "He's just a child, and a simple one at that. Don't hold it against him."

"Simpleton—then it serves you right to haul the night soil! Fu Yingcong, from now on he works with you!"

A youth of fifteen or sixteen stepped forward at once with an ingratiating smile. "Yes, yes! Newcomer, come with me, quick—no dawdling!" He snatched up a slop bucket and pulled Ming Buxiang away.

Seeing the others still standing about, Benyue snapped, "What are you all gawking at? Back to work!"

Fu Yingcong led Ming Buxiang off, glanced back to see the others dispersing, and said, "Why'd you go and offend that Spotted Dog your very first day?"

"How did I offend him?" Ming Buxiang asked.

"What were you laughing at just now?"

"You all didn't find it funny—so why did you laugh?"

Hearing the answer, Fu Yingcong shook his head, thinking, sure enough, an idiot. "Here." He shoved the slop bucket into Ming Buxiang's hands. "There are more than a thousand people in Right Action Hall, top to bottom, and if nobody clears it, the filth would pile up clear to Mahavira Hall. Don't turn up your nose at this work for being foul and heavy—it's important."

Then he asked, "Your master is the monk Liaoxin. So do you mean to take vows yourself one day?"

Ming Buxiang shook his head, and Fu Yingcong could not tell whether that meant 'I don't know' or 'no.'

"With that dazed look of yours, if you don't take vows, you'll just get bullied staying on at Shaolin. Didn't the monk Liaoxin tell you?"

Again Ming Buxiang shook his head. Though he could speak, he seemed to love only shaking and nodding his head.

Seeing the boy didn't understand, Fu Yingcong began at once to show off. "What makes Spotted Dog so high and mighty? Just those few precept scars on his scalp. Let me teach you how things work. Shaolin doesn't strictly require its disciples to take vows—but of the one hall, four courts, and eight minor halls, which abbot or head monk isn't bald-headed? A Daoist temple might hold more than just Daoists, but a Buddhist temple is sure to be all monks. Don't take vows, and the most a lay disciple can ever rise to is a resident layman in the halls, assisting with the paperwork—like me, lorded over by monks day in and day out. Damn it, the day I leave Shaolin, I'll pour a bucket of night soil over Spotted Dog's head and teach him some manners!"

When Ming Buxiang again said nothing, Fu Yingcong scolded, "Why've you gone quiet again?"

Ming Buxiang shook his head, meaning he had nothing to say.

"Stay quiet and people will bully you. Say something!"

"Say what?" Ming Buxiang asked.

"Whatever comes to mind!"

"Are you going to take vows?"

Wasn't that the very question Fu Yingcong had just put to him?

"What's so good about taking vows? Can't eat meat, can't play with women. If it weren't to learn a craft and get a Hero's Warrant so I could go out and make my way in the world, who'd want to stay in this cursed place!" Still, Fu Yingcong answered. "Damn it, I just blame being born in the wrong spot. If I'd been born in Shandong, the Songshan Sect wouldn't have half these rules!"

"The Songshan Sect?" Ming Buxiang asked. "And what's a Hero's Warrant?"

"You don't know?" Fu Yingcong put on a show of great surprise, glad of the rare chance to flaunt the little knowledge he had. "The Songshan Sect actually answers to Shaolin Temple too—but they're like brothers about to split the household. No wonder, really; they're Daoists, not the same family as us. Still, mention Mount Song and everyone thinks first of Shaolin Temple—and over that one sore point, forty-odd years back they were clamoring to rename themselves the Songyang Sect. There was a great to-do, the so-called Shao-Song Dispute, but in the end Shaolin Temple thrashed them soundly and they crept meekly back under the name Songshan—they just moved their Daoist temple over into Shandong."

He went on, "As for a Hero's Warrant, it's like an ordination certificate, but for a man of the wandering world. Master your craft and petition your own sect for a Hero's Warrant, and you're a hero. The sect pays you a monthly stipend; you can hire on as a bodyguard or house guard, or join the sect, take up a post, help one of the great houses govern a district, and do the work only a hero can do. Only, once you hold a Hero's Warrant you have to keep to the rules—your own sect's rules above all... ah, never mind that. Cursed luck, being born in Shanxi, ah..."

Ming Buxiang listened closely. His master, Liaoxin, was a man of few words, devoted heart and soul to the Buddha; on an ordinary day, apart from chanting, teaching, and instructing in the martial arts, there were days he spoke barely two sentences to his disciple. Still less, having decided Ming Buxiang had the seed of wisdom and was destined to take vows at Shaolin as a proper monk, had he troubled to mention these tales of the wandering world or the rules of the martial fraternity.

And so it was that only now did Ming Buxiang's words gradually begin to come more freely.

......

A few nights later, asleep in his own room, Ming Buxiang suddenly heard a low growl, or perhaps a sigh. He rose and gently pushed the door open a crack. The window was unshuttered, and moonlight slanted in; by it he could faintly make out a figure pacing back and forth—his master, Liaoxin. Liaoxin's steps were quick and urgent, yet so light he seemed barely to touch the floor, as though something troubled him. A single oil lamp burned in the room, its feeble flame wavering before the Buddha-image, looking as if at any moment his stride might snuff it out.

After he had paced like this for a time, Ming Buxiang again heard the heavy rasp of Liaoxin's breathing as he sighed, and saw him push open the door and go out—where, in the dead of night, there was no knowing. Ming Buxiang waited quietly. Most of an hour later, Liaoxin came back inside. He was soaked through, his monk's robe tied off at the waist, his upper body bare, baring muscle long honed firm and powerful, the water beads bright and clear in the moonlight. Ming Buxiang watched him enter, and once inside he did not come out again.

Ming Buxiang did not ask Liaoxin what had happened. And whenever such a thing occurred again after that, Ming Buxiang never asked.

Several more months passed. One evening, master and disciple had finished their night recitation and were about to retire when Ming Buxiang suddenly said, "Wait, Master." He stepped quickly into his room, and when he came out, he held a longevity peach bun in his hands.

"Where did this come from?" Liaoxin asked, surprised.

"I did Fu Yingcong's share of the work," Ming Buxiang answered, "and he bought it for me outside the temple." He raised it in both hands, motioning for Liaoxin to take it.

"What's this for?"

"Today is your fortieth birthday."

Liaoxin was deeply moved. His eyes and nose stung; he drew a small breath to master it.

"You're thoughtful. How did you know?"

"When I was cleaning the room, I saw your ordination certificate, and that Hero's Warrant—both have your birthday written on them."

"I mean the giving of a gift," Liaoxin said, putting on a stern face. "Where did you learn that?"

"A few days ago I saw someone bring a gift to Abbot Juejian. I asked about it and learned it was the abbot's birthday."

The powerful and exalted within the temple never lacked for flatterers bearing rich gifts on their birthdays and feast days, and Liaoxin held the custom a base one. Of course, Ming Buxiang's filial heart was not to be spoken of in the same breath as theirs. He took the peach bun—and saw a light seem to shine in Ming Buxiang's eyes, the boy looking rather excited.

"Eat it, Master."

"Your master takes no food after noon, as you know," Liaoxin replied.

"Then how is it I may eat my evening meal?" Ming Buxiang asked. Every child has an endless supply of questions.

"You're at the age for growing bone and flesh, and you've taken no vows or precepts, so you needn't be bound by this rule."

"If a man were about to starve, and the hour had passed, could he still not eat?"

"To break a precept for the sake of survival—the moment that thought stirs, you have opened a convenient gate for yourself. The flesh is suffering; if one truly starves to death, that too is release." Liaoxin thought, saying it this way, there was no telling whether the boy would understand.

"Master, you often say to let go of attachment to self," Ming Buxiang said. "Isn't this an attachment too?"

Liaoxin was startled.

Ming Buxiang went on, "You taught me that a man is illusion and rice is illusion, but when a man is hungry he must eat. We eat in order to practice. If every infant saw through the real and the empty at birth, they'd all starve—how then would they practice?"

"Without practice," Liaoxin said, "how does one see through the real and the empty?"

"Without eating," Ming Buxiang said, "how does one practice?"

"Unless one reaches the stage of Grain Abstention," Liaoxin said, "one must eat. Taking no food after noon is to honor the precepts."

"But then you said one mustn't break a precept even to keep from starving."

"To keep the precepts and practice is to put the precepts first."

"And clinging to the precepts—isn't that an attachment?"

Liaoxin wanted to answer 'no' but felt it wrong; wanted to answer 'yes' but felt that wrong too. After a moment he said, "It is a matter of the heart. Reach the realm of non-attachment, and naturally you will not cling even to the precepts."

"How does one know he has reached that realm?"

"Your master hasn't reached it yet. Reach it, and you'll know of yourself."

"Does Master know who has reached it?"

That, Liaoxin could not answer. Seeing him hesitate, Ming Buxiang said, "Master, have you never thought—that you must first try to let go of attachment before you can truly let it go?"

Again Liaoxin was startled.

"This peach bun will spoil by tomorrow," Ming Buxiang said. "Let me throw it away."

"Eat it yourself," said Liaoxin. "The thought is enough. Don't trouble with such empty courtesies hereafter."

Ming Buxiang shook his head. "This is Master's peach bun, not mine. Your disciple is clinging to it right now."

Liaoxin laughed. Then, seeing Ming Buxiang's face fall as he took back the bun and turned to leave, he could not bear it and called out, "Wait."

Ming Buxiang turned. Liaoxin hesitated, then shook his head and said, "It's nothing." Ming Buxiang turned to go, and Liaoxin called him back again; after a long moment's hesitation, he said, "Come here."

Ming Buxiang walked back before him. Liaoxin looked at the peach bun, brooding a long while.

At last he reached out, broke off a small piece, and put it in his mouth. He ate nothing after noon, and it was deep night now; the habit was old, yet this one small bite tasted sweet and fresh beyond all measure, wholly unlike anything he had eaten before.

"This one bite—let it fulfill your filial heart," Liaoxin said. "That way your master isn't clinging, is he?"