Before them, in a hay-covered pen, lay a beautiful waist-height serow from the woods. The animal blinked as they entered, tied to a stake by a single coiled rope: a lithe, agile body, mottled brown-gray fur, a gentle face with wide, goat-like eyes, long ears, two small horns on its head.
“This animal must die,” Jobo said. “It is up to us to do it.”
Sen balked. “I can’t do that…”
“No? You hunt.”
He thought of the royal men, who killed that serow in the hills: “They’resacred.”
“You want me to teach you about war. You hunt but you don’t butcher what you catch. Would you let the lowborn do this work, that you look down on, and then enjoy the flesh? This is life. All things are sacred. And in the earthly world of animals and beasts… you must kill. A life must be taken if a life is to eat.”
He left Sen to kill the animal alone.
The stench, the pale knife in his hand, the fear in the serow’s eyes. Itknew. It bucked against the stall, squealing, kicking at him, and Sen cut poorly, because he’d never killed an animal, not like this, not a creature with no way to escape. His hands shook, the knife went out of true, and the serow rammed and scampered off, leaving specks of blood on the hay.Enough of this.Sen thought of those men from the royal city once again, the so-called monks who’d killed a sacred serow for its hide, its skull to mount in trophy. He fumed at Jobo, at his lessons.Let him kill this if it’s so important.
He threw the knife into the dirt.
But when he went back, declared he wouldn’t kill an animal just to complete his lesson, Jobo shook his head. “You’re a good person, Sen Hoshiakari. But sometimes, I have fears.”
He went to the pen, prepared a cleansing barrier with salt, and found the knife on the hay where Sen had left it. Speaking in low tones, he calmed the serow, eventually getting it to come to him. “You beautiful soul,” he said. “What a wise animal. He hurt you…”
He sang, softly, a song of forgotten love. Then, in one move, he cut across the serow’s throat so quickly that Sen only realized it was done when the body jerked, and a spray of bright red spewed across the stall.
It died in moments.
It died before it even knew.
Jobo didn’t look at Sen. He cleaned the knife; no’in tanners chuffed in, offered a bow, and when he’d washed his hands, Jobo took the no’ins’ in his own. The man and his brawny son hauled the body to their cart.
Later, Sen asked, “I thought it was against the gods for you to take a life.”
“Are you afraid of suffering, Hoshiakari?” Jobo asked. “This world is the middle path between heaven and hell. We are blessed with life. And we are cursed to suffer. I’m no different, though I am a monk.”
Before he left, he handed Sen the knife, now clean. “You are no different either,” he said. “Though you may be born of kings.”
Time passed slowly after that. Sen lost himself in the routine of it, waking before dawn to morning bells and a breakfast of rice or millet gruel and weak twig-tea. Then Jobo would take him to the woods. “What’re we even doing?” he asked one morning, as Jobo started their meditations. He could barely sit still, let alone concentrate his spirit.
“Don’t concentrate,” Jobo said. “Just sit.”
“You’re trying to look like a fool. You do it on purpose.”
“Everything has purpose. Oh, that sounds very wise. I must be a genius!”
Sen rolled his eyes.
“Sit,” said Jobo. “The purpose is not to grasp for truth. The purpose is to awaken. But, like falling asleep, the harder you try, the harder to get there. One day you’ll awaken unconsciously, without thought, and see the illusion of your life, and the truth will alreadybe. There is no ‘finding’. What is truth? Truth of what? There is no self. There is no other. It is an illusion.”
“You know this is why people make fun of you, right?” Sen said. “You’re just trying to sound mysterious.”
“But it is mysterious. Better they make fun of the teachers than follow them blindly. Sit.”
“I don’t like sitting.”
“I don’t like scrubbing my teeth. Sit.”
“We’re not doing anything.”
“The goal is formlessness,” Jobo said.
