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The goddess of the river left her pillow, but the prince was gifted. If you allow your heart to bloom with the spring flowers, an inch of love's flame is an inch of ashes. *** The would-be warrior wants to be led. He wants to be taught. The course of things dictates that he seek a monastery perched atop a mountain, where the eagles circle in perpetual want of flesh, where the monks are bronzed and their gazes burn, as they have been forged by thin air and sun. Here one will undergo trials, apply bone and muscle, sharpen the mind until its very composition is steel and justice, and by the end of it all one will be a wanderer everywhere one 
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goes, and yet indescribably rooted to the earth, the rivers, the skies. Yet he has been directed to this local temple in the woods, depressingly close to his home village (within a day by horse), where the walls are caked with soot, where roots and scrubs sprout unchecked from between the flagstones, where Master Lau lounges on a mat, resting his bad back and blackened toenails. You must repeat everything you say to him, for his hearing has worsened with age, and the salty bristle on his cheeks and chin fall far short of a beard, and even further short of dignity. And so the would-be warrior is almost relieved when the old master rolls his eyes, lips thrust forward, and says No. The old master wants for nothing but a cup of tea in the afternoon, and a jug of wine at  |
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