The five colors
blind our eyes.
The five notes
deafen our ears.
The five flavors
dull our taste.

He hits me. A lot. And yells at me even more than he strikes. He’s abusive, abrasive, and a hypocrite.

Betcha didn’t think I knew those words, huh?

When he hits me, though, he doesn’t put as much force behind it as he could. I mean, sure, it stings when he knocks me upside the head or drags out that damn paper fan, but I remember not all that long ago when he never pulled his punches. Back when I was still ignorant about the world and didn’t have a bad thing to think about anyone. He used to pull me into the side garden of the temple at night and show me how to block hits and break out of holds, and every time I refused to get back up, and my eyes stung at the pain, he’d say, “If you can’t even take a hit from me, what makes you think you’ll ever be able to stand on your own two feet?”

I hated it every time he said that, because I didn’t understand that there were people and things a lot stronger than him in the world. People and things that could have plucked him up and broken him like a twig without half trying. I thought he was being a bully, got angry at him, considered leaving, and when that idea struck immediately took back every uncharitable thought about him — because it was at that time that I realized how small I was compared to the rest of the world. I didn’t know anything, not the names of cities besides the one I lived in, not the differences in dialects between the north and the south, not even how to tell an inn apart from a restaurant. How was I to survive in the world without him as a guide? But how was I supposed to use him as a guide when he kept pushing me away with such harsh words and actions?

I started taking the hits stoically. When I won a spar with him in less than a minute, without even losing breath, he just pulled out a cigarette and told me to go find something to eat. He never made me practice again, and always pulled his hits after that.

-

There are a lot of stupid people in the world — even I know that. If you peel a potato and cut towards yourself, you’re going to get hurt. If you put on shoes without tying the laces, you’re going to trip. If you walk behind a horse without letting it know you’re there, you’re going to get kicked. Everyone knows this, but still people go and do things that should be common sense not to do.

He doesn’t have any patience with stupid people. When they come to him asking for a blessing or a prayer or a miracle, he scoffs and tells them exactly what he thinks of them, and it usually isn’t pretty. I wondered, “Why not just give them a blessing? It won’t hurt anything, and it’ll just make them feel better.”

His reply was always, “One should never let two trees grow too close together, for fear that one will not be able to stand without the other.”

It took me a long time to get that — that he could say a blessing over a sick child, but words would do nothing to heal the kid. He could say a prayer over a grave, but it did nothing to heal the wounds in the family left behind. There was nothing he could do to help anyone by just saying a few words; everything anyone needed to help themselves was right in their own hands. By relying on him to give them a miracle, they were only further weakening themselves.

It was easier for me to pick out the stupid from the pitiful, to identify those who need a little heartfelt sympathy from those who didn’t want to fix their problems themselves, after that.

-

It’s true that I don’t usually do too much deep thinking. I always thought, why bother? It’s easier to live in the moment, to not plan ahead. Thinking usually ends up making mountains out of mole-hills, as Hakkai says, and what’s the use in worrying, anyways?

But sometimes the deep thinking just sneaks up on me, when it’s become all too obvious that we’re still mortal and could very easily die on this mission. Every time he gets hurt, every time he limps back from death just because he’s too stubborn to die gracefully, reminds me that one of these days I’ll be too slow and there won’t be any coming back, for me or for him or for anyone else. It kinda makes me wonder if I ever had any purpose besides fighting, because the gods know I sure can’t do anything else that’s useful.

If he catches sight of me moping, he usually smacks me in the back of the head and tells me to stop acting stupid, without even asking why I might have a frown on my face. Maybe he already knows what I’m thinking — it used to be creepy the way he does that, but I’ve long since gotten used to it — but it’s still so arrogant of him to say it’s stupid for me to worry. Why shouldn’t I worry about him dying? I can fight for myself and navigate around towns and find my way back to Chang’An if I wanted, but I still feel like he’s my guide in this world, and that I’d become inexplicably lost without him.

And then on rainy nights he locks himself up with his nightmares and his clouds of cigarette smoke, staring out the window or at the wall without even seeing what he’s looking at. Moping, just like he tells me not to do. It’s infuriating sometimes, when he gets so curt and angry just because the overcast sky makes him tense — and he won’t say why, either.

A long time ago he explained the core concept of Buddhism to me — that all life is suffering, that the source of all suffering comes from desire, and that the way to stop suffering is to stop all desire. ‘Not wanting,’ was the simple way he explained it to me, although I’ve heard him use a different term that I usually can’t remember. It’s a stupid idea, to me, because how can you not want food, want sleep, want shelter from a storm? You need those things just to survive. How can anyone get to nirvana by denying the things that keep you alive?

It’s that very idea that makes him a bad Buddhist, I think. Just look at all the things he wants — cigarettes, alcohol, a real bed instead of a futon, his master’s sutra. He says he follows this ‘not wanting’ rule, but I think he’s full of shit. Gojyo said that once too, and Hakkai as well, although of course he didn’t curse — he said something along the lines that “non-attachment only works when you can get away from the things you want.”

That’s why I know that when he says, “They’re not my friends,” he means just the opposite but can’t admit it, maybe not even to himself. That even though he hits me and calls me stupid, it’s his way of trying to help me — to force me to stand on my own without ever needing to lean on another. But all that harshness doesn’t make sense, because sometimes I’ll see him crack just the tiniest glimmer of a smile, or he’ll rest his hand on my head gently instead of hitting me, or he’ll let me beg for food and tug on his arm when he would shake off anyone else that touches him. He can be kind when he wants to be, really he can, but instead he doles it out in such pitiful amounts that even I sometimes forget the way he let me cry on his shoulder when I woke up screaming from nightmares of that cave.

He’s such an irritating contradiction. I don’t think I’ll ever understand him.

The wise soul
watches with the inner
not the outward eye,
letting that go,
keeping this.

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story archived at http://split-infinity.org/saiyuki/viewstory.php?sid=252