Heavenly Creatures

Tara looked at the board in mild surprise. She noticed that she had won by half a point and smiled.

“I finally beat you,” she said.

“Congratulations,” the old man said.

Tara bowed her head and gathered her hands together in respect. “Thank you, teacher.”

The old man smiled and nodded. “I consider myself a guide, rather than a teacher,” he said. “And I will leave you with a final bit of wisdom. Life is the ultimate guru. If I have been like a mountain, you are like a sequoia tree. Your branches reach to heaven, but your roots are firmly in the earth. When you feel weak, ask heaven for help and remember to water your roots.”

Tara bowed again. “Thank you. Will you send me home now?”

“I don’t need to,” Tara’s guide said. “You already know how to find your way back home.”

Tara and the guide bowed to each other, and then he was gone.

Tara sat in the jungja and looked off at the river, where two white cranes were bathing. She sensed an enormous reservoir of energy stirring within her. The energy within her and the birds were connected, and she felt the waves moving through her like water.

She thought deeply about what the guide had said. Did she know how to find her way back home? She had often thought about this concept of home before. Some days, she had felt a deep longing to go back home, but she had never known how—there was an impassably large distance between where she was and where she conceived home to be. But she knew now that it was her concepts that had held her back—her thoughts. Throughout her life, she had believed in many different thoughts, little lies, that collectively fragmented her energy. Now, it seemed that there were few thoughts left, allowing for a space to open up within her. In that space, she sensed the universe flowing like a river. She also sensed that she could direct that current to enact miracles.

She held up her fingers, as Sun and the old man had done, and snapped.