2/05/24: Waylaid on the Path to Enlightenment
The monk walked back to the temple. He took the same road every day, but each time was different. This time a bandit was blocking the path.
“Pardon me,” the monk said with a small bow. “I would greatly appreciate it if you were to kindly step aside.”
“I’m robbing you,” the bandit said, brandishing a large club.
“I do not have any money,” the monk said.
“You were out collecting alms, were you not?” the bandit said. “Hand over the alms.”
“I spent them on food and supplies for the temple. I have eaten the food and now the only possessions I have is this bundle of soap. If you had only caught me a few hours earlier, I would still have had some coinage,” the monk said.
“Very well then,” the bandit said, letting the monk through, although not before taking a bar of soap for himself.
The monk walked back to the temple. He took the same road every day, but each time was different. This time, the bandit stopped him while he was still in the village.
“Pardon me,” the monk said with a smile, bowing slightly.
“I’ve caught you earlier in the day,” the bandit said. “You still have the alms, no? Hand them over.”
“You smell much better than yesterday,” the monk said. “I am very glad that you used the soap that you took from me. It has a pleasant smell.”
“Listen, old man, you have five seconds to hand over the coins, or I’m going to hit you over the - “
The bandit wasn’t quite sure what happened next, but there was a blur of movement, and then he was on the ground. There was no pain; in fact, it had felt like someone had quickly but gently lowered him into the dirt.
“Many apologies,” the monk said again. It might have been the bandit’s imagination, but it seemed like there was a small gustnado around him. “Perhaps I shall see you tomorrow?”
The bandit lay there, eyes closed. He remembered an old phrase his father had told him back when he had first taken up banditing; “Do not act incautiously when confronting a little bald wrinkly smiling man.”
The monk walked back to the temple. He took the same road every day, but each time was different. This time, the bandit stopped him in the middle of the town square.
The bandit was holding a turtle.
“Toss over your money, or this turtle gets it!” the bandit said.
“You have remarkable perseverance,” the monk said. “That is truly an admirable quality.”
“You have five seconds before I snap this turtle’s neck!” the bandit said. The poor turtle was wiggling his feet in the air.
“Oh dear,” the monk said.
“Five!”
“That turtle is the reincarnation of your father,” the monk said.
“Sorry?”
“Your father died fourteen years ago in a boating accident. He was a strong swimmer, but those that drown often are. He came back as a turtle. The one that you’re holding. Which I presume you took from your backyard.”
“You’re lying,” the bandit said. Nonetheless, he withdrew his hand quickly from around the turtle’s neck.
“I do not lie,” the monk said. “See you tomorrow?”
The monk walked back to the temple. He took the same road every day, but each time was different.
“No bandit today,” the monk observed. “Very curious.”
He had a pleasant rest of his day, and bought a small plum pastry for Brother Lun, who had a sweet tooth despite never admitting as such.
The monk walked back to the temple. He took the same road every day, but each time was different.
“Good morning,” he said to the bandit who blocked his path.
“Good morning old man.”
“I see that you’re holding a bag full of grasshoppers. Will you blackmail me using them today? An excellent plan.”
“Yesterday, I traveled back to my home village and confirmed that my mother is alive and well. I have no siblings, and no others in this world I care about. So within this bag are the reincarnated souls of a dozen humans,” the bandit said. “I’ll crush them in an instant, if you don’t hand over your alms.”
“A grievous threat,” the monk said.
“Indeed,” the bandit said.
“Unfortunately, you are one of the grasshoppers inside of that bag,” the monk said.
“I’m sorry?”
“Reincarnation does not respect unidirectional temporal vectorage. When we die, we are equally likely to be reincarnated in the past, present, or future. One of the grasshoppers inside of that bag is you, four lifetimes ago.”
“That’s nonsense. You expect me to believe that when we reincarnate, we travel through time? And that out of all the animals I could have grabbed, I just so happened to grab a bag that included myself?”
“There are two principles at play here. The first is that of Resonance. Souls tend to gravitate towards those they have met in other lifetimes, including themselves. The second is that the world is filled disproportionately with those who take longer to reach Nirvana. Some souls may take a mere hundred lifetimes. Others, a billion. You’re currently attempting to rob a monk right now. It does not bode well for your karmic balance. Which do you think you are - the soul that takes a hundred lifetimes, or the soul that takes a billion?”
“I don’t believe in any of that mumbo jumbo.”
“That is perfectly alright,” the monk said, turning away.
“I’m going to kill these grasshoppers! Their deaths will be on your head!” the bandit said.
“No you won’t,” the monk said. And the bandit didn’t.
The monk walked back to the temple. He took the same road every day, but each time was different. This time, the bandit was with a crew of ten people.
“Good morning, bandit,” the monk said. “Hello, friends of the bandit.”
“Shut up,” the bandit said. “I brought help.”
“I can see that. They all have matching bandanas and clubs,” the monk said, eyes twinkling.
“I don’t like this,” one of the men said. “My papa always said that one should never confront a small bald wrinkly man with twinkling eyes.”
“We outnumber him ten to one,” the bandit said.
“That makes it worse,” the man said. “Why are you so fixated on this monk anyway? You’re spending all this energy on him, when you could have robbed five caravans or some helpless merchant by now.”
“Shut up,” the bandit said. “It’s the principle of the thing.”
“You all seem very tense. Can I tell you a joke?” the monk said.
“No,” the bandit said. “We’re robbing you.”
“It’s a short joke. And then you can get back to robbing me.”
“I’ve never heard a monk tell a joke before,” one of the men said. “Let’s hear the joke, and then we can beat him up and take his money.”
“The Zen monk asks his master, ‘What are honest words?’” the monk said.
“And?”
“The master replies, ‘Your mother is ugly.’”
There was some silence, as the bandits all considered this.
“I don’t get it,” the bandit said.
“It’s a juxtaposition of the perceived seriousness of monks, and the - “
“No no, don’t explain it, you’re making it worse,” the bandit said. “Alright boys, on three, we’re all attacking, alright? One…”
And then a moment later, all of them were lying down in the dust. The air smelled faintly of soap, and there was the sound of sandals against dirt as the monk walked away.
“Give it a lifetime or two,” the monk said. “It’ll hit you when you’re least expecting it. It did for me, after I first heard it.”
The monk walked back to the temple. He took the same road every day, but each time was different.
“I figured it out,” the bandit said.
“Good morning, bandit,” the monk said.
“Good morning, future me,” the bandit said.
“Aha,” the monk said. “Very good! What gave it away?”
“Well, we keep on meeting back here, again and again. I couldn’t figure out why I was so drawn towards mugging you. But what you said about Resonance - it makes sense. You’re a more enlightened me from many lifetimes from now, aren’t you?”
“A good one billion lifetimes or so,” the monk said. “It takes us a while to get to this point. We spend a surprising amount of time as a sea cucumber. Very humbling, being a sea cucumber.”
“And you just… remember them all? All those lifetimes?”
“More or less. You become enlightened enough and your memory gets good enough that you start remembering things from before you were born. Although the lifetime you’re living right now is distant enough that I have some trouble.”
“Teach me,” the bandit said. “I want to be better.”
The monk raised his eyebrow.
“No more threatening to kill turtles for profit?”
“No.”
“You know that it’ll create a paradox. If you come with me to the temple, that is.”
“Sorry, a paradox?”
“If you become more enlightened now and give up your life of crime, the karmic balance tips in your favor. It may only take you a thousand lifetimes to achieve enlightenment, not a billion. Which means that I would never reach this current lifetime, in which I’m here speaking to you and taking you to the temple.”
“Oh.”
“But then if I’m never here, you live your original life, and it takes us a billion lifetimes to achieve enlightenment again. And then I’m back here again. So I suppose time travels in alternating cycles; ones in which I’m here and then ones in which I’m not. Perhaps that is what Nirvana is; the collapse of the sine wave; existing and not existing at the same time. I shall have to ask Sister Liao.”
“Um. Is this what being a monk is like?”
“Hardly. Come, let’s walk to the temple. Brother Lun is making this splendid date pudding tonight. Before you’re enlightened, it tastes very good. And then after you’re enlightened, it tastes very good.”
The two of them walked to the temple, where the bandit received some robes that were too big for him and a bed that was too soft. Thereafter, his two selves both took the same road each day to town, although each time was different from the last.
Author’s note: This story was originally inspired by Pascal’s Mugging, which always really tickled me. There was a version of this that was going to take place in modern-day times, and actually use the threat of holding simulated people hostage… but this somehow felt way less interesting. If I hadn’t written Main Character Energy, there’s a version of this where the bandit also threatens to not come back whereupon both of them will die because the story will end. There was yet another version involving all of this from the turtle’s perspective, but it turns out its hard to write short stories from the perspective of turtles.
I whipped this up because I had writer’s block for something else I’m working on; it’s a bit sillier than usual, so thanks for reading!
Recently found this website and im enjoying all the stories, seems you haven't update in a while, i hope everything is going well
\(￣︶￣*\))
Very meditative 😊