Seeking the Way, Searching for the Buddha

Autumn of the eighty-third year of Kunlun, the eighth month.

Juekong returned to Shaolin, and the farce came to an end. Word had it that five of the lay monks' leaders, Zide among them, were given a severe dressing-down.

Yet Shaolin's troubles did not end with that farce. If anything, the strife between proper monks and lay monks, begun with the brawl in the refectory, had hardened by now into a quiet, ceaseless struggle waged in the dark.

And Shaolin's other trouble—

......

Juesheng knew he would not outlast the coming winter.

Life and death were small matters; he met the prospect with composure. He only thought back to twenty-two years ago, when he had taken up the abbot's seat, and to the parting charge his predecessor had pressed on him, the whole of it distilled into a single line:

"Hold down the lay monks. Lift up the proper monks."

But he had never seen it that way. The cautionary example of the quarrel between Shaolin and Songshan was not so far in the past; without lay monks to handle the administration, he feared Shaolin would only wither year by year. The proper monks did not lack capable men—Juejian, Jueru, and the like—but a man who both delved deep into the Dharma and possessed the wit and skill to govern was hardly easy to find. Take Jueyun: for all that he sat as head of Manjushri Court, kept the precepts in full, and never slackened in his practice, the man was rigid as a ruled line, clever enough but blind to the ways of the world. Beyond minding the scriptures and martial manuals of Manjushri Court, send him to Ksitigarbha Court and he would likely botch even the ordinary duties of a hall monk.

And so, after succeeding to the abbacy, Juesheng had done the opposite—he had pushed hard to promote the lay monks, striving for fairness between proper and lay, believing he might thereby dissolve the rift between them. He had never imagined that the strife would not be smoothed over in his hands but would instead sharpen by the year. After Liaoxin vanished, in the span of only a few years, it had grown past all controlling.

Where had he gone wrong?

He sighed. A lifetime of compassion lay behind this monk of seventy years, and now, with his end drawing near and his body wasting on the sickbed, his thoughts were still bent on Shaolin's future.

It was time to name an abbot. Among the four courts and eight minor halls, who was the best choice?

Juekong's ability was beyond question; it was on him that the uneasy peace between proper and lay had rested all these years. Juekong held Shaolin in his heart—but he was a lay monk, and his grasp of the Dharma likely fell short of even a hall monk in Manjushri Court. Juesheng had already broken rules enough. If he shattered even the rule that the abbacy passed to the proper and never the lay, and set a monk who was no monk in the abbot's seat, what right would Shaolin have left to call itself the orthodox seat of the Buddha?

If the lay monks were out of the question, then the choice lay among the six proper monks.

By seniority, by standing, by depth of practice, Jueguan was the strongest candidate—but that man was a knife turned inward. Raise him to abbot and the strife would only burn hotter. He seemed, moreover, to have made the suppression of the lay monks his life's calling; last month's uproar had been his doing. A man like that—

Juesheng shook his head. Jueguan was impossible. Next was Jueyun—but Jueyun was no good at worldly affairs. Jueming was too irresolute. Jueguang—with the Tongue-Plucking Bodhisattva's cold sneers and barbed wit, were he ever made abbot, who knew how many sects he would offend at the next Kunlun Council—

Since none of the three monks of Manjushri Court would serve, that left only Juejian and Liaozheng. Liaozheng was junior in standing, without the breadth of spirit to shoulder great matters; a steamed bun could bear Shaolin's burden as well as he. So only Juejian remained. Juejian—

Juejian was prejudiced against the lay monks, true, but he had always put the larger picture first. When the lay monks' renaming was proposed, only he and Jueming, two proper monks, had opposed it. Set against Jueming's dithering, Juejian was no schemer, but he could decide; and if he and Juekong could work together well—

At the thought, Juesheng's chest tightened, and he could not help coughing a few times.

Juejian and Juekong had never gotten along. That, too, he knew.

If only Jueru were still here. If only Jueru were still here. Juesheng sighed inwardly. Had Jueru not championed the renaming of the lay monks, had he not been exiled over the Liaojing affair, that smooth and capable proper monk might well have been the finest successor of all.

In truth there was yet another man, and perhaps he was the best choice of all—Juewen, who had served alongside Jueru in Avalokitesvara Court. Juewen was a lay monk, but diligent in his practice; Juekong would not only refrain from obstructing him, he would scheme and plan on his behalf. Juewen did not stake out clear positions the way Juekong did; he kept to himself and had formed no faction among the lay monks. Against the opposition Juekong was sure to draw, the only man likely to resent Juewen's elevation would be Jueguan.

But Juewen was mild by temperament. Made abbot, he would inevitably become Juekong's puppet. That was a small matter—perhaps even a good thing.

A pity. In the end, Juewen too was a lay monk.

It was time to decide. Juesheng called for his attendant monk to prepare brush and ink and a sheet of crimson paper gilded for the seal, and summoned the heads of the four courts before him.

"After I die, Juejian succeeds me as abbot," Juesheng said, his voice gone thin and faint by now. "Have the four heads any objection?"

Jueguan had known from the first that he himself was no candidate. He had hoped Jueru would succeed to the abbacy, only for Jueru to be banished over the Liaojing case—a thing that had galled him beyond measure, which was why he had hounded Liaoping. Still, Juejian was a proper monk, and one long at odds with Juekong; Juejian as abbot was a choice he could accept.

Jueyun had no wish whatsoever to leave Manjushri Court. So long as the successor was not a lay monk, he was glad to see it done.

Zide was a yes-man through and through; so long as Juekong said it was good, he would say so too.

As for Juekong—

Juekong understood the abbot's reasoning. Juejian's rise to the abbacy was something he had foreseen long ago. Not a good choice, not too poor a one either; it would change nothing of Shaolin's predicament, and it would not stir up anything worse. Juekong did not care. The man who solved Shaolin's predicament had always been himself, and after him it would be his heir—not any abbot, whoever sat the seat.

So he merely gave a slight nod. Seeing him nod, Zide voiced his assent as well.

Juesheng wrote down Juejian's name, pressed the abbot's seal into the gilt, and handed the sheet to Jueyun, head of Manjushri Court, to be kept safe in the Abbot's Court and brought out and proclaimed only after his own passing.

Jueyun departed first. Jueguan said a few words about the abbot taking care of himself, then he and Zide took their leave one after the other, until only Juekong remained. Seeing that Juekong had not gone, Juesheng knew he had something to say, and asked, "Has Head Juekong anything more he wishes to say?"

"If you would not kill Jueru, you should not have exiled him," Juekong said. "You laid every charge on Liaojing and shielded Jueru with all your strength. Had you not, we would not be in such straits today."

Juesheng lay on the bed, gazing at the ceiling, and said mildly, "Had I not exiled Jueru, the lay monks would not have stood for it."

Juekong's voice went cold. "And do the lay monks stand for it now? Do the proper monks? This nature of yours, currying favor with both sides—decades on, and you have not changed it."

Juesheng sighed. "Not every man is as decisive as you. Beyond right and wrong, there is the threshold in the heart one cannot cross."

"And your threshold," said Juekong, "is it the Buddha, or is it Shaolin?"

"Both," said Juesheng. "Even now, you would argue with me?"

Juekong looked quietly at the man before him. Juesheng was fourteen years his senior; the two had known each other well even before he took the tonsure. In those days Juesheng was head of Avalokitesvara Court, and he himself was a resident layman of Right Action Hall, and whenever Juesheng met with some thorny matter of governance he came to him for counsel. After Juekong entered the hall, Juesheng, far from holding his lay status against him, had raised him step by step to head of Samantabhadra Court. They had weathered decades of storms side by side; the bond ran deep. He was no proper monk, and could not face death with such serenity; in that moment his ever-upright back wavered, just slightly. Even so, he said what had to be said. "You should have chosen Juewen. Even Jueguan would have been better."

"If you truly disapproved," Juesheng said, "why did you not object just now?"

"If I could ever have talked you around, Jueru would have died long ago." Juekong let his brows fall, and said only, "Take care of yourself, Abbot." Then he rose to leave.

Juesheng said suddenly, "It's time you found yourself an heir as well."

Juekong stopped, as if turning it over in his mind.

"You have always known what to do," Juesheng said.

Juekong nodded, lifted his head, and went out.

Juesheng watched his receding back, and sighed once more.

Elsewhere, Jueyun carried the gilt-and-crimson sheet to the Abbot's Court, the place where the abbot conducted official business. He shut the door, looked about, and once he was certain no one was there, went to a small statue of Maitreya on the writing desk and pulled at it. A hidden compartment rose up from the desk—the place where the Sinew-Changing Classic was kept, a mechanism known to no one in all Shaolin but the abbot and the head of Manjushri Court. Jueyun laid the gilded sheet inside, gave the statue another pull, and the compartment closed, its surface once more as it had been.

......

Juekong left the Mahavira Hall. He understood Juesheng's worries and his hopes. Juejian, the incoming abbot, was fifty-seven this year; he would be the last monk of the Jue generation to hold Shaolin's high seat. After him would come the monks of the Liao generation. Liaoping was crisp and capable in his work, but he lacked watchfulness and was short on cunning—which was how Jueguan had come to play him like a piece on a board.

This coming trip to Diancang—Diancang always passed its mantle to the eldest, never to the worthiest, a rarity among the Nine Great Houses. Qingcheng and Huashan passed to the worthiest among their direct line; the Tang Clan chose the worthiest among nephews and sons; Shaolin, Wudang, and the Beggars' Sect all had their leaders hand-pick a successor; Hengshan had its leader nominate and the elders consent; Kongtong's sixteen council seats raised one up by common vote. Only Diancang still kept to the old rule. The new lord of Diancang was Zhuge Yan, the late lord's eldest son, and Juekong had seen at a glance that the man was all flash and bluster, hungry for grand achievements. It was his younger brother, Zhuge Ran, who would prove the formidable one.

The choosing of an heir was not a thing to take lightly. When the abbot bade him find a successor, plainly he did not mean one to stand for the lay monks—indeed, he meant a monk who stood for neither side, or rather, one who could stand for both proper and lay at once.

To cultivate a proper-monk disciple, to raise him as Ziqiu had once raised Juekong himself, and pass into his keeping everything he was.

A man who could win the trust of the proper monks, yet wield enough skill to keep the lay monks in hand.

Liaojing had been a man of talent. A pity—Jueru had ruined him.

Another such talent—

His thoughts turned to Ming Buxiang.

......

Juekong summoned Ming Buxiang. Their conversation was a simple one. After a few words of greeting, Juekong asked, "What is your view of your master Liaoxin's affair?"

"I think Master may not return," said Ming Buxiang.

Juekong asked again, "Do you think the temple handled your master fittingly?"

He meant, of course, Samantabhadra Court's final ruling: death in a brawl, doubts pending inquiry.

Ming Buxiang shook his head. "Not fittingly."

"Then what would be fitting?"

"Liaoxin killed a man. Issue a warrant for his arrest."

"That is your own master," said Juekong. "Before the truth is known, you would say he killed a man?"

"Master would not wish to see Shaolin torn by proper-and-lay strife on his account," said Ming Buxiang. "A warrant for arrest says nothing of execution on the spot. Find Master, and you find the truth. And even if he stays vanished as he is now, it counts only as a case unsolved."

Juekong nodded, satisfied with the answer, and asked, "Have you decided to take the tonsure?"

"Not yet," said Ming Buxiang. "I wish to leave Shaolin."

......

Before the Mid-Autumn Festival, Ming Buxiang called on Juejian. It was the first time he had ever sought the man out of his own accord.

"You mean to leave Shaolin?"

"Yes."

"You are alone in the world. Where will you go?"

"Do the masters not often say—go where the heart leads, follow where the Buddha leads?"

"You have only just turned sixteen. It is too soon to leave Shaolin," said Juejian. "The Supernatural Power Vault holds many treatises of martial arts, a great many scriptures. You have yet to master them all."

"Set against this wide world, the holdings of Manjushri Court are few," said Ming Buxiang. "Read ten thousand scrolls, walk ten thousand li—knowing and doing made one."

Juejian recalled that Juekong had once summoned Ming Buxiang, and asked, suspicion stirring, "Did Head Juekong say something to you?"

"The Head only asked whether I wished to take the tonsure."

"And what did you say?"

"I too said I wished to leave Shaolin."

Juejian sighed. "I had thought you would stay in the temple and take vows."

"I have grown up in Shaolin since childhood; Shaolin is my home," said Ming Buxiang. "To take the tonsure at Shaolin—is that leaving home, or staying in it?"

Juejian caught the double meaning in his words and laughed. "You mean—until you have seen this world, taking vows holds no savor for you?"

"When the World-Honored One won enlightenment," said Ming Buxiang, "he too had to pass through the demon-host's torments."

Juejian laughed. "So you mean to go let the demon-host put you to the test?"

"Who's to say," said Ming Buxiang, "that it won't be your disciple putting others to the test, as the demon-host."

Juejian laughed aloud. He looked at the youth before him, more upright and fair than at their first meeting three years ago. Ming Buxiang was pure of nature, keen of wit, and deep in his grasp of the Dharma; could he be kept in the temple, it would be a blessing for the proper monks. Juejian had meant to temper him well—but as the boy said, stay in Shaolin and he would see too little of the world, and even taking vows he would very likely end up a proper monk hidebound to dead doctrine.

Better, then, to let him learn the perils of the martial world and the fathomless turns of the human heart. If he came back to Shaolin one day worldlier than before, perhaps he could grow into a pillar for the proper monks who followed. In the end, the straits Shaolin found itself in today came down to this: the proper monks had no man as shrewd and capable as Juekong.

"There is a great deal out there of the ways of people that no temple can match. The road of the world is a treacherous one—take care."

"Your disciple understands," said Ming Buxiang.

"When do you go?" Juejian asked.

"Perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps in a few years. I'll go where the heart leads."

Juejian nodded—his consent, in effect—and asked, "Is there anything else you wish to say?"

"Your disciple has one more question," said Ming Buxiang.

"What question?" Juejian smiled.

"What does the abbot believe will finally dissolve the strife between proper and lay?"

"Why ask this so suddenly?" The question caught Juejian off guard. He thought a moment, then answered, "Let proper and lay each keep to their proper station, and it will be smoothed away."

"And what is the proper station of each?" Ming Buxiang asked.

"It is the lay monks' station to assist the proper monks; it is the proper monks' station to devote themselves to practice." And then Juejian added, "Yet 'keeping to one's station' is no easy thing. Why do you ask this?" he said again.

"It is only that the strife within the temple weighs on me," answered Ming Buxiang, "and I am at a loss before it, and thought the abbot might have some insight."

Juejian laughed. "If I had any insight, the temple would not be so beset with troubles."

"The abbot speaks of stations," said Ming Buxiang, "yet the sutras say all sentient beings possess the Buddha-nature. If all possess it, then all may practice. Why, then, may the lay monks not practice?"

"It is not that the lay monks may not practice," Juejian answered. "Abbot Juewen is a lay monk who keeps to his station—diligent in temple duties, and never neglecting his practice. But such men are rare as phoenix feathers, hard come by indeed."

"Practice makes all men equal," said Ming Buxiang. "Should the proper monks not, all the more, help the lay monks practice?"

Juejian laughed aloud. "If they were willing to practice, do you think Shaolin would want for teachers? When has Head Zide ever asked after the matter of practice? Since taking vows he's fathered who knows how many children. They are the ones unwilling to practice—who is there to blame but themselves?"

"Can it truly be that the Buddha and Shaolin cannot be parted?" said Ming Buxiang. "Name and form are empty, Shaolin is empty, the Buddha too is empty. To ferry the empty across by means of the empty—is that not clinging and delusion?"

Juejian started. "Xiang'er, this is muddled talk indeed. Shaolin was founded upon the Buddha; it is the refuge of all the Buddha's followers across the land. If, on account of the lay monks, we proper monks were to withdraw from Shaolin, then one day Hengshan would do the same, and the day after, the monks of every ancient temple and famous monastery would yield in their turn—and where then would the land find its temples, where its Jewel of the Sangha? Mark this: name and form may be empty, but the Jewel of the Sangha is real. Without the Three Jewels the Dharma perishes, and when the Dharma perishes, when will sentient beings ever find release?"

He spoke sternly, yet Ming Buxiang showed no alarm. He only bowed to the ground and said, "I thank the abbot for his teaching. Your disciple understands."

Juejian nodded. "You are young, and gaps in your thinking are only natural—a small matter. Abbot Jueming thinks highly of you. You swept and tended in Right View Hall for some years, and served as a resident layman under him; before you go, you ought to let him know."

Ming Buxiang assented, bowed, took his leave, and went straight off to Right View Hall.

When Jueming learned that Ming Buxiang meant to leave Shaolin, he too was much surprised, and asked, "Have you thought it through? You've only just turned sixteen."

"Your disciple has weighed it deeply," said Ming Buxiang.

Jueming nodded. "Just as well, just as well. Causes and conditions come together; when the cause arrives they gather, when it dissolves they part. Bear this in mind: do no evil, and uphold all good."

"What is evil," asked Ming Buxiang, "and what is good?"

Jueming smiled. "Sharp as you are, how could you not know how to tell good from evil?"

"With the wisdom of the World-Honored One," Ming Buxiang asked again, "how does one tell good from evil?"

"Three deeds of the body, four of the mouth, three of the mind," said Jueming. "These ten deeds are the evil that bears bitter fruit."

He meant the ten evils set forth in the sutras: killing, taking what is not given, and unchaste conduct—the three deeds of the body; false speech, divisive speech, harsh speech, and idle speech—the four deeds of the mouth; covetousness, malice, and wrong view—the three deeds of the mind.

"Seen with the wisdom of the World-Honored One, sentient beings are no different from grains of dust," said Ming Buxiang. "What we call good and evil is no more than a quarrel among mayflies. A man pays no mind to the living and dying of mayflies—does the World-Honored One mind the good and evil of sentient beings?"

"Were the World-Honored One indifferent," said Jueming, "why would he have left the Dharma to the world? The Buddha's compassion minds even a single mayfly."

"Practice spans countless kalpas," Ming Buxiang pressed on. "For a bodhisattva to become a buddha takes three immeasurable kalpas. Across so vast a span of time, a human life is as the snap of a finger. Does the good and evil of that finger-snap matter?"

"Even a single thought matters," said Jueming. "How much more a whole life?"

"And if that single thought is beyond a man's holding," said Ming Buxiang, "is that too the fruit of his own deeds?"

Jueming smiled. "That, of course."

Ming Buxiang bowed. "Your disciple is instructed."

Ming Buxiang returned to Right Speech Hall to see to his odd tasks, just as on any other day, in no apparent hurry to leave.

......

Liaoping, abbot of Right Speech Hall, did his name—the Stone—proud: even with a leg broken, he carried on his duties as before. Yet a lingering fear haunted him; he started at his own shadow, forever on guard against some scheme of Jueguan's. But whether it was that the everlasting lamp before the Buddha had gone out, or that he feared to worsen the abbot's illness, Jueguan had been quiet this month.

One day after Mid-Autumn, Ming Buxiang reported on the state of the temple's lamp oil—where it needed topping up, where it ran short. Liaoping took out a box of mooncakes and said, "Take these mooncakes."

By long custom, at the great festivals the four courts and eight minor halls of Shaolin received many gifts—from the leading families of the region and the great sects of the martial world, and from wealthy merchants too, all of them merely currying goodwill. How each gift was handled depended on the abbot's temperament. Liaoping, newly come to Right Speech Hall, had suffered no end over matters of social favor, and so he gave out the whole of the Mid-Autumn gifts to the hall monks, the better to win their hearts.

But Ming Buxiang did not take them. He shook his head. "My master said gifts are debts. They cannot be accepted."

"How so?" Liaoping asked, surprised.

"A gift comes, most often, because something is wanted in return," said Ming Buxiang. "What isn't repaid today must be repaid tomorrow. That makes it a debt, not a gift."

Liaoping laughed aloud. "The give-and-take of human dealings—you help me up, I pull you along—comes down to just such reasons. I hear your Uncle Juejian of Right Action Hall takes no gifts; I daresay he thinks as you do."

"Does the abbot think it ill-judged?" Ming Buxiang asked.

"There's more in these gifts than cause and effect—there's the door of expedient means," said Liaoping. "Shut a man out, and tomorrow when he has trouble he won't dare come to you, and when you have trouble there'll be no one to come to. Isn't that a bother?"

"Abbot Juejian never asks anyone for help," said Ming Buxiang.

"He is a proper monk. Right Action Hall presides over punishment; what it prizes is an iron face that bends to no one, so of course he can refuse gifts. Right Speech Hall must deal and consort with people. It is a wholly different matter."

Ming Buxiang nodded, then turned the talk abruptly. "Why did the abbot come to Shaolin?"

"What do you mean?" Liaoping said, puzzled.

"With the abbot's gifts, you could have made a place for yourself without taking the tonsure at Shaolin."

"So that's what you're asking." Liaoping smiled. "I'm a Shanxi man, and my own master was a Shaolin monk, so naturally I came to Shaolin."

Ming Buxiang nodded, then asked, "I had a friend once, Fu Yingcong, also a Shanxi man. Must a Shanxi man join Shaolin and no other?"

"Not at all," said Liaoping. "It's only better than joining Huashan. Huashan's name is poor, and its leadership passes by blood—never the equal of Shaolin. And Wudang is farther still."

"Is there not also Songshan?" Ming Buxiang asked.

"Being a Daoist is much the same as being a monk," said Liaoping. "Besides, Songshan still sits beneath Shaolin's shadow."

Ming Buxiang sighed. "If one could join Shaolin without taking the tonsure—how fine that would be."

Liaoping let out a sigh of his own. "Aye. If only there were no tonsure. My wife and children are still in Hebei, waiting for me to bring them to Buddha City."

"In that case," Ming Buxiang went on, "would renaming the lay monks not be a good thing? Once the line between proper and lay is drawn, each will have its own answering precepts; and perhaps, years on, one might enter a hall without taking the tonsure at all."

Liaoping laughed aloud. "Hard, that. The proper monks already look down on the lay monks as it is. Change our Dharma-names, and at best it means proper and lay are set apart—at worst, the lay monks might end up sunk to the standing of resident laymen. If the rules are truly to change, why not first do away with the rule that none but a monk may enter a hall? What they want is this: in the end, whoever lives in the temple must be a monk."

Ming Buxiang nodded. "I see. In the end, whoever lives in the temple must be a monk."

"Why do you ask after all this?" said Liaoping.

"Your disciple only thought," said Ming Buxiang, "that proper and lay might perhaps live together in peace."

Set the lay monks to the labor and let the proper monks hold the high seats, Liaoping thought—if those two could live together in peace, that would be a wonder indeed.

For all that he had grown close to Ming Buxiang these past months, and knew that Head Juekong had summoned the boy alone, this was not a thing he could well say aloud. He could only answer, "Let us hope so."

......

On the afternoon of the tenth of the ninth month, perhaps in a last flaring of the lamp before it gutters, Juesheng felt his spirits strong and rose to walk about. He went first to the Mahavira Hall, paid his respects to the Buddha, recited the Diamond Sutra through once, then strolled in the central courtyard. With his end so near, the temple troubled him with no worldly business; each court saw to its own affairs, and the four courts' council had not convened in three months. Finding himself at leisure, he suddenly remembered the everlasting lamp before the Buddha going out two months before, and rounded behind the Mahavira Hall to see whether its oil was sufficient.

No sooner had he come round the corner of the hall than he saw a youth perched on a ladder, peering into the oil tank, a fall of black hair loose about his shoulders. Seeing how young he was, Juesheng asked, curious, "Who are you?"

The youth, catching sight of Juesheng, scrambled down at once from the tank and joined his palms. "Your disciple Ming Buxiang greets the abbot."

"You are Ming Buxiang?" Juesheng had heard of him already—not yet sixteen and he had passed the trial of skill, and had lasted thirty moves against Head Juekong, and had served as resident layman in both Right View and Right Speech Halls; a young man of true promise. Seeing too how clean and bright his features were, Juesheng took a liking to him, and asked, "What are you doing?"

"Your disciple is the resident layman of Right Speech Hall, charged with overseeing the temple's oil supply. I came especially to make my rounds."

"You come every day?" said Juesheng. "Fill that tank and the everlasting lamp will burn two months without going out. A look every half-month is enough."

"The everlasting lamp went out once before, and it left me uneasy," said Ming Buxiang. "So I come round every day to check."

Juesheng smiled. "You've patience, then."

Ming Buxiang smiled, and his smile was like a flower newly opened, like warm sun after snow. "Your disciple has always had patience," he said. "I keep waiting, and the chance always comes in the end."

"What chance?" said Juesheng.

"When the oil runs dry and the lamp gutters," said Ming Buxiang, "then there will be work for your disciple's hands."

Juesheng knew he spoke of the lamp oil, yet it seemed somehow to glance at himself, and something in him sat uneasy. But he was a kindly old man and a monk of true attainment, and Ming Buxiang was a boy besides; a slip of the tongue could hardly be held against him. So he let it pass, and only said, "Juejian has spoken of you to me—a young man with a gift for the Buddha's wisdom."

Ming Buxiang shook his head. "There is a great deal your disciple cannot work out. I asked Abbot Juejian; he answered, and still I had my doubts."

"What is it you doubt?" Juesheng asked. "Speak."

"I work at my duties in Right Speech Hall, and when the everlasting lamp went out, I knew it was Head Jueguan making trouble on purpose. I go to the refectory—all of us Shaolin monks alike—and yet the seating is split into two rows. The temple sees to its business, and each side has its own people. Abbot Juejian told me: that is the divide between proper and lay."

Juesheng sighed. "It is so."

"I often wonder why proper and lay are set so utterly against each other," said Ming Buxiang. "Forgive me, Abbot—I had thought at first it was because the abbot was unfair, and so proper and lay stood opposed. But I asked ten of my elder brothers, and all ten said the abbot dealt fairly in all things. If he is fair, then whence the resentment? I pondered it a long while, and at last I understood."

"Understood what?" Juesheng asked.

"The abbot's fairness is in the handling of matters; what the monks find unequal is in the heart," said Ming Buxiang. "Settle the matter and the heart goes unsettled, and that can never be filled—instead both sides breed fresh resentment."

A fine saying—"settle the matter, but not the heart." What Ming Buxiang said was the very thing Juekong had said.

Ming Buxiang went on, "So I asked Abbot Juejian again: can the Buddha and Shaolin truly not be parted? Name and form are empty, Shaolin is empty, the Buddha too is empty. To ferry the empty across by means of the empty—is that not clinging and delusion?"

"What did Abbot Juejian answer?" Juesheng asked.

"Abbot Juejian said Shaolin was founded upon the Buddha; name and form may be empty, but the Jewel of the Sangha is real. Without the Three Jewels the Dharma perishes, and when the Dharma perishes, when will sentient beings ever find release?"

Juesheng nodded. In the end, the proper monks looked down on the lay monks because the lay monks so often broke the precepts. To Buddhism, the Jewel of the Sangha was one of the Three Jewels—the renunciant monks who took refuge in the Buddha's teaching and practiced it as it truly was.

Deeper still: the Three Jewels were Buddhism's very refuge. A renunciant was to guide sentient beings toward the good and toward reverence for the Buddha; but the lay monks wore the renunciant's form without the substance of the Three Jewels, which was a profound desecration of the teaching. That, more than anything, was why the proper monks would not tolerate the lay monks. Yet to ask the lay monks to keep the proper monks' precepts—how many among them could practice with the diligence and austerity of Juewen?

"Abbot Juejian's words have reason in them," Juesheng said. "Where is it you fail to understand?"

"Without the Buddha, Shaolin is no Shaolin," said Ming Buxiang. "But without Shaolin, is the Buddha no longer the Buddha?"

Juesheng was struck silent.

Ming Buxiang pressed on, "To insist that Shaolin must be the orthodox seat of the Buddha across the land—is that not the mind of arrogant self-regard?"

"That is arrogance, true enough," said Juesheng. "And what is your own view? Speak it."

"Shaolin may be without the Buddha, and the Buddha may be without Shaolin," said Ming Buxiang. "The Buddha is the Buddha, and Shaolin is Shaolin. The Dharma does not flourish because Shaolin flourishes, nor perish because Shaolin perishes."

"For you to see so much at sixteen is a rare gift indeed," said Juesheng. "To call you Heaven's favored son would be no exaggeration."

"Your disciple's greatest gift is not talent," said Ming Buxiang. "It is luck."

"Oh?" Juesheng asked, surprised. "How so?"

"These past months of your convalescence, the abbot has never set foot beyond the Mahavira Hall," said Ming Buxiang. "Had your disciple not been lucky, how could he ever have met the abbot?"

Juesheng smiled. "There's reason in that too. As for the question you raised just now—since Shaolin was born of the Buddha, how could it cast him off at will? The Dharma abides in Shaolin, and so Shaolin must spread the Dharma. Shaolin may hold the Dharma, and the Dharma may abide in Shaolin."

"If the Buddha and Shaolin cannot abide together," said Ming Buxiang, "is it better to be without the Buddha, or without Shaolin?"

"Neither is good," said Juesheng.

"Abbot," Ming Buxiang asked again, "in the fifty years to come, will it be the Buddha that destroys Shaolin, or Shaolin that destroys the Buddha? Or will both, Buddha and Shaolin, perish together?"

At last Juesheng understood his meaning. He said Shaolin, but not Shaolin Temple; Shaolin meant the sect—that is, the lay monks—while the Buddha meant the proper monks. Was it the proper monks who would destroy the lay, or the lay who would destroy the proper—or would the two abide together, or perish together?

Juesheng sighed. "Perhaps in fifty years it will be just as it is today, Buddha and Shaolin both abiding."

"Perhaps Shaolin's abbot of fifty years ago thought the very same," said Ming Buxiang.

The words were lightly spoken, but as Juesheng heard them, a flash of insight struck him like a thunderbolt.

The Shaolin of fifty years hence—would it still be the Shaolin of today?

He had labored with all his heart, dealt fairly in all things, striven to let proper and lay abide together—and yet the hearts of men stayed unequal, and in the end it had all been for nothing. Fifty years ago the lay monks entered the halls; fifty years on— A wave of dizziness took him, and a stifling pressure surged up from his chest. The question was not one he had never faced, but he had deliberately fled it all along, and now, at the very point of the lamp's guttering, Ming Buxiang's words had stirred his old affliction afresh.

Ming Buxiang asked quickly, "Abbot, what is the matter?"

"It is nothing," said Juesheng.

He dragged his heavy steps back to his own room, weary to the bone, and lay on the bed in deep thought.

He had long known the strife between proper and lay was not past mending. Hengshan had managed to let proper and lay abide together; Shaolin could do the same. Let Shaolin only cease to set itself up as the orthodox seat of the Buddha, and it would be like any other sect—the practitioners left to their practice, the administrators to their administration.

And yet, every year on the Buddha's birthday, were not the tens of thousands of pilgrims who came drawn by the fame of this holy ground of the faith? He knew well it was an empty name, but he dared not lay it down. He was only one of the scores of abbots in Shaolin's long line; how could he shake a foundation so hard-won?

That none but the tonsured might enter the halls—this rule was not beyond changing. Let lay disciples abide alongside the practitioners, and the lay-monk problem would vanish. So long as the lay monks did not wear the monastic robe, there would be no harm done to the Jewel of the Sangha.

He had thought of it. But it was a precept a thousand years old, and he had not the power to change it.

At last he understood Juekong's hesitation that day, his silence.

He had believed he had changed enough—yet he had never once shaken the foundation, and it was not that he had not known, only that he had not dared to move it.

Juesheng's heart heaved like a churning sea, wracked over and over. Twenty-two years he had served as abbot, and all he had left Shaolin was a deeper rift between proper and lay.

He thought of Juejian.

The problem he himself faced, Juejian would be no more able to move. No proper monk could change Shaolin—their devotion to the Buddha at its very root, and their submission to Shaolin's rule, decreed as much.

In all the present world, only one man could do it.

"Summon the four courts and eight minor halls. I will hold the four courts' council," he said to his attendant monk. The monk said, startled, "Abbot, your health—"

"Go—quickly!" he charged him again.

The attendant monk hurried off down the steps. He rose to his feet and made for the Abbot's Court.

Only Juekong could do it. Only he had the power.

The most right thing he could do for Shaolin was to set Juekong in the abbot's seat, and let Juekong reform Shaolin to its very roots—whether to shine as a holy ground of the faith, or to grow mighty as a sect of the martial world.

He must persuade every proper monk of the four courts and eight minor halls, and make Juekong abbot.

He hurried to the front of the Abbot's Court, meaning to take back the gilt-and-crimson sheet—when all at once a wringing pain seized his chest. He lurched, and crashed to the ground.

From there he never rose again.

The death knell tolled through Shaolin Temple. Every monk thrust his head out, joined his palms, and chanted the Buddha's name.

That night, while all the monks gathered on the posting road before the Mahavira Hall to pray for the abbot, fire broke out without warning in the Sutra Repository. The monks rushed to fight it, but every martial treatise and every scripture stored within was reduced to ash all the same.

No one knew how the fire had started.

That same night, Ming Buxiang slipped quietly out of Shaolin and made his way west, toward Gansu. He had heard that Kongtong excelled in the forging arts; he meant to have a weapon made, and to see something of the north besides.

Word of the Shaolin abbot's passing spread swiftly, and the leaders of the Nine Great Houses came each to pay their respects.

On the road, Ming Buxiang heard that Juejian had succeeded to the abbacy. He lifted his face to the sky, where a bright full moon hung high.

He looked up at the heavens, and smiled—a faint smile, lovely as peach and plum blossom, warm as the morning sun.