Heavenly Creatures

I didn’t see the old man again for weeks. During that time, I learned how to keep the apartment quite clean. I felt sure that the old man would have been proud of me.

I did pray daily with the scroll the old man had left me, but it didn’t seem to do much good. I couldn’t understand most of it, and I invariably nodded off in the middle of prayer. I decided that I should also visit the Buddhist temple every day to keep from going stir crazy, and also in the hopes of learning what the scroll was about. But no one I met there spoke English, and the monk’s sermons were in Korean.

I often thought back to the dreams I had had before mother had left and on the day the old man had given me the scroll. They seemed to haunt me as awful and ethereal visions. On some days, I could hear the ghostly echoes of the woman weeping, in the moments before my mind drifted into sleep. I eventually recognized that the feeling that kept me coming back to the dreams was guilt.

How could I ever hope to be forgiven for what I had done?

Weeks passed, and my mind stabilized in prayer. One day, while I was reading the scroll, I had a flash of insight. A great man had once said, ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.’ Tears began rolling down my cheeks as I felt something like a celestial waterfall wash through me, making me feel lighter than I had in weeks.

At the end of my prayer, the old man was waiting for me at the dining table.

“Tara,” he nodded, smiling. “How have you been?”

I ripped a handful of tissues out of a box and buried my face in them. “How do you think?”

The old man hummed. “I would say you’re doing quite well.”

I laughed harshly. “Oh really? What gives you that impression?”

“You’re going through purification,” the old man said. “And you’ve just gone through some dense karma on your own.”

Anger rose up within me. “And where were you?” I asked. “I had so much to ask you.”

“I’m here now,” the old man said calmly. “So ask me.”

That stopped me, and I sat down at the table in defeat. “I’ve forgotten,” I said.

“Then I’ll tell you,” the old man said. “Those dreams are indeed memories. Some people are easily able to see their past life memories, and you seem to be one of them. But seeing is not necessary for purification, and if you get too focused on the memories, seeing may even become a hindrance.”

I sat with this piece of information, digesting it. When I spoke again, I had a different question. “What does this Heart Sutra mean?”

The old man smiled. “I could tell you, but you won’t understand until you understand.”

“That’s helpful,” I said drily.

“It is,” the old man said. “Because I can only show you the path; you are the one who has to walk it.”

“Are you pulling from some Sage Advice column in your heavenly newspapers?” I asked. I was feeling threatened and sarcastic again.

The old man laughed. The joke seemed to genuinely tickle him. “That’s very good Tara,” he said. “You have a good sense of humor.”

My anger dissipated in the face of the old man’s good humor. The old man smiled beatifically at me, reminding me of a cherub. It struck me suddenly how old and young he looked at the same time. It was vaguely disconcerting.

“Did you know that your father, who found you in the woods, went on to become the man humans know as the Buddha?” the old man asked.

I shook my head. No, I hadn’t known that at all.

“In the life after he was your father, he was born as a rabbit and lived in the mountains,” he continued. “One day, a monk was wandering through the woods in those mountains. The monk ran out of food to eat. So, the rabbit ran around trying to find the monk some food.

“Unfortunately, it was the middle of winter, and there was nothing to be found. The rabbit came back to the monk, where the man had lit a fire to keep himself warm. He said, ‘Dear monk, if you were to attain enlightenment, then no sacrifice of mine is too great.’ And he threw himself into the fire to give of his own meat.”

I sat silently, thinking it over. “That’s an incredible story.”

“There’s a word for this in Korean,” the old man said. “It’s called inyun. We are all connected in mysterious ways. The Buddha had countless lives of good karma, which enabled him to become who he was. And you see, I was that monk that the rabbit sacrificed itself for. And I did indeed go on to attain enlightenment. So, your father’s faith and sacrifice were not wasted.”

“Is that why you’re here now?” I asked. “Teaching me?”

“Good deeds, as well as bad, ripple out in unintended ways,” the old man said. “But who knows? I am here because the universe and six realms are as they are.”

I nodded, intuitively understanding him.

“I’ll be back every day now,” the old man said. “So, keep cleaning and praying!”

“What about being happy?” I asked.

“That you cannot do on your own,” the old man said. “I tricked you when I said that before. Which is why I’ll be back.”