Master Dorje Rashomon

Master Kal and his student Dorje walked a short distance away from the monastery, toward the sand garden. Master Kal liked the sand garden better than any other spot on the monastery grounds. He could usually be found sitting here, in meditation, or occasionally taking a mid-afternoon nap.

The master drew a circle, a square and a triangle in the sand with his staff. "Have you heard of flatland?" Said the master, and the student nodded. "It is a book to teach math." Said Dorje, proud he knew the answer. 

"They live in only two dimensions, length, and width, like these shapes I have drawn in the sand. Yet, when they look at each other, they see each other from edge to edge. From their perspective, they see only a line- not a shape at all. They can see that the line might go away from them, towards them, or curve at the edges, and from that, they can conceive of the full two-dimensional nature of their friends, but they can only see the one-dimensional line."

"We live in a three-dimensional world- our eyes can only see flat images of what is in front of us. You can see me sitting here, but you cannot see my back, or my inside. You cannot see all of my three dimensions, but you can conceive of them."

The master picked up a stone, and tossed it on the sand, among the shapes he drew there. "If a three-dimensional object were to enter flatland, what would the shapes there see? What would they conceive of? The flatlanders have no concept of "sphere", so to them, they saw a miraculous line indicating a circle appear, then grow, then shrink, and then disappear right before their eyes.

From the sphere's perspective, no such miracle occurred- he was just passing through, and remained his same size and shape over the whole trip."

"Now take a look at the flatlanders again- how would they know that they are flat shapes- just squares, circles, and triangles? Couldn't they be cubes, spheres, and pyramids? Cylinders, cones, and prisms? They can only perceive what they can perceive, so they assume reality is nothing more than the limit of their perceptions.

Now to our world- we are more than what we see. We extend far beyond our length, width, and height. Every individual, every tree, every stone, all extend into higher dimensions in ways we cannot see with our eyes, but an enlightened one can conceive of."

"Picture a hand, like this-" he took his hand, and placed the tips of his fingers in the Flatland. "They don't see one hand. They don't even see the fingers. They see many small curved lines, and from that can conceive of many small oval shapes. All separate things, not simply one thing. Do you understand?"

"Yes Master," said Dorje. "They understand the group of flat ovals only, not how those ovals extend up to form fingers, those fingers join to form a hand and an arm. That arm, along with the other arm, legs, and every other part of the body join to form one complete person."

"Yes, but not quite." said the master. "One person, but not complete. We may perceive of ourselves as individuals, like the fingers, but we are all connected at higher planes of existence, just as the fingers connect to form a palm. We think of ourselves as separate, but we are all one being that is not aware that we are more than we can perceive."

He picked up the rock he placed in flatland. "You and I are part of a whole. We and this rock are part of a whole. Everyone and everything are all part of one whole."

The master was interrupted by a loud noise coming from the monastery; screaming and clashing of metal. There were soldiers, wielding both swords and guns, attacking the monks. The Master turned to his pupil and shouted "run! hide!" but it was too late. The soldiers grabbed both of them. They took the master and pushed him down to his knees. The master looked as he was trying to remain calm and focused, but could not keep up the charade. He was crying, and screamed as the solder took the first whack at his neck with his sword. The first stroke silenced his screams, but it took three for his head to separate from his body and fall to the ground. Dorje was forced to watch every bit of it, as another soldier held his arms behind his back with one hand, and held his eyelids open with the other.

The soldier who held Dorje whispered in his ear, "I'm going to have fun with you," then he licked his earlobe. Next, he dragged Dorje around to the side of the monastery. The soldier ripped the boy's robe from his trembling body, and tossed him, naked and shaking, onto the dirt.

The soldier then unbuckled and pulled down his own pants. He attempted to rape the boy, but Dorje struggled and tried to crawl away.

"Stop that!" Said the soldier. "I can make you lie still!" While standing firmly on one of Dorje's feet, the soldier grabbed his sword and a torch. He chopped off each of Dorje's arms. Dorje's thin arms were not like his master's tough neck- it only took one clean stroke to separate each one. Dorje screamed at the top of his lungs the whole time, but the screaming from all over the monastery drowned out his own. He then put the torch to the stumps, burning the flesh so the boy would not bleed out and die too soon. The soldier chopped off his legs and burnt their stumps as well, while being careful not to harm the genitals and anus. The pain Dorje felt was so extreme he passed out and remained unconscious while the soldier repeatedly violated him, leaving his anus raw and bloody.

In the center of the monastery was a large, open prayer room, with a two-story tall wooden statue of the Buddha, painted in gold and saffron. It was a room meant for quiet reflection. The soldiers piled the corpses of the monks up in the center of the room. Then they set fire to the Buddha. The soldiers tossed Dorje's his limbless form on the pile with the rest, believing him to be dead. This monastery housed ten monks and four masters- now thirteen corpses, and Dorje. He woke up gasping over the stench of blood and fecal matter, face down in the pile of his dead brothers.

"I am more than I can perceive." Dorje concentrated, fighting against the pain. "I am more than I can perceive." Even though the soldier cauterized his stumps, he was still losing blood. He focused all of his attention on the open blood vessels, spilling out onto the pile of corpses beneath him. He used what he had learned about the power of the mind over the body to close off the blood vessels and stop the bleeding. He managed to do so, but it took some time and he exhausted his energy. He needed to sleep, but he knew he could not; without his concentration, his bleeding could resume.

Dorje arched his back and started to roll over, to face upwards. After three tries he accomplished it. There were some corpses lying on top of him, but his face was clear. He could see that the soldiers were gone, from this room at least. He tried to focus on his hearing, while not losing control of his bleeding. He could hear them still rummaging about, perhaps stealing what they could.

Dorje was adept at his Chi studies. He had never truly levitated himself before, but he had lifted himself slightly, so his body was applying less pressure on the soles of his feet. Without arms and legs, levitation was the only way he will be able to get out of the monastery before it burns down. He fought through the physical pain, he fought through the sadness, he fought through the anger. He imagined arms and legs where none are now, just as they were before. He forced himself to believe those limbs were real, and he could use them to stand up, and walk out of the monastery. because one's beliefs shape reality. The light was starting to dim, and the sun was beginning to set. The main source of light in the room was the fire coming from the statue of the great teacher. He spent so many years gazing on that magnificent form as if simply looking at the carved wood would give him enlightenment. Yet now, the paint was curling up and flaking off in cinders, exposing it as an illusion. It was nothing more than some dead trees bound together, carved and painted.

Dorje realized from where he was lying in the pile, he should not be able to see the statue the way he was seeing it now. He was standing up, to one side of the pile of bodies, facing the flaming idol.

With that realization, he fell to the ground. He fell on his side, looking at the pile of corpses and severed limbs. There was a severed arm on the pile, hanging down, it's hand right near his face. He recognized it as his own arm, his own hand. He was horrified, but he knew to stifle his screams, just in case any soldiers still lingered.

Dorje's motivation intensified, now that levitation was not just faith- he knew he could do it because he just did it. He focused, and he lifted himself from the ground. He headed towards the side gate, the opposite side of the building from the road where the soldiers would have entered and exited. He passed a wardrobe closet, and with his phantom arms he opened the closet, grabbed a long saffron robe and sash, and put them on. It was a master's robe. The student's robes were shorter, with shorter sleeves. He needed the robe to cover where his arms and legs would have been. He headed to the southwest.

He reached a small isolated mountain village. The village had a rice house. It had lights on inside so he entered. He made his robe undulate as if knees were moving it as he "walked". The sleeves of his robe hung long, beyond where his hands would have been visible.

He sat at the counter. An old woman approached him and looked at him with compassion as if she knew what he had just gone through.

"Monks need not pay. Monks eat free." She said and brought him a cup of tea, and two bowls- one of plain rice, and one of a vegetable soup.

They had a radio. It was playing music, which was interrupted for a news announcement. "The Zhonghua Government is pleased to announce that the former nation of Tsang was 'peacefully liberated' and was now part of the People's Republic of Zhonghua. They ask all the people of Zhonghua to welcome their new fellow citizens by helping them report to government offices for documentation."

The old woman refilled his cup of tea and ladled more soup into his bowl. "You have nothing to fear from me." She gave him a smile and a slight bow of her head.

Dorje ate his food and drank his tea. He felt someone was looking at him. He looked up and turned- sitting at the counter a few feet away was a man also dressed in an orange robe- but he was not a Tsangan Buddhist monk, he was a Punjab Hindu guru.

He smiled and bowed his head slightly.

The guru said, "You are more than you can perceive", and he did so without moving his lips. "We are fingers of the same hand. Would you like to join the palm?"

Dorje smiled and nodded.