π Toua Koumyou SanzΕ Hoshi-sama the 30th γε
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genessia2016-11-19 07:26 am
its_dad_sanzo) wrote in genessia2016-11-19 07:26 am
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[Video] π if you can't see the sky there's too much artificial light
[Koumyou turns the camera on with a smile. The sun is briefly too bright behind him, until he adjusts how he's holding the phone.]
Hm, I suppose it's safe for me to make one of these videos now, right?
Let's see, here.
[He turns the phone around and shows a small and pretty edo-style building. The shrine has an outdoor bell which can be rung to pay homage to the spirits and/or make a wish. Behind it, there's some kind of garden or park with cherry and maples trees' leaves blowing in the breeze.]
I'm told this is on... ah, Thistle Avenue and 8th Street, of the main city. I am its... caretaker, now? Anyway, make use of it if you wish. I've cleaned up most of the mess left behind. Ah--
[The camera pans down quickly to show a Silvanshee from the recent ruins exploration. It butts its forehead against Koumyou's shin, through his pristine white robes.]
Be careful of Mr. Wiggles if you visit. She can be a little territorial! She accepts opened cans of fish as tribute.
[Yes, there's a demon cat living at the shrine. W H E L P . That's what they get for putting Koumyou in charge.]
Oh, and before I forget! Again...
[He pans the camera back up to himself with another smile, his brown eyes barely open.]
I am priest Koumyou Sanzo. It's nice to meet you all.
Hm, I suppose it's safe for me to make one of these videos now, right?
Let's see, here.
[He turns the phone around and shows a small and pretty edo-style building. The shrine has an outdoor bell which can be rung to pay homage to the spirits and/or make a wish. Behind it, there's some kind of garden or park with cherry and maples trees' leaves blowing in the breeze.]
I'm told this is on... ah, Thistle Avenue and 8th Street, of the main city. I am its... caretaker, now? Anyway, make use of it if you wish. I've cleaned up most of the mess left behind. Ah--
[The camera pans down quickly to show a Silvanshee from the recent ruins exploration. It butts its forehead against Koumyou's shin, through his pristine white robes.]
Be careful of Mr. Wiggles if you visit. She can be a little territorial! She accepts opened cans of fish as tribute.
[Yes, there's a demon cat living at the shrine. W H E L P . That's what they get for putting Koumyou in charge.]
Oh, and before I forget! Again...
[He pans the camera back up to himself with another smile, his brown eyes barely open.]
I am priest Koumyou Sanzo. It's nice to meet you all.
Re: [Video]
A name and position both, eh? All right, Koumyou Sanzo it is. [He pronounces it pretty well for a westerner, thanks to his teacher.]
Haha, oh that's the student's trouble, eh? A literalist! Goodness knows what he'd do with wilder metaphors. Suppose if someone told him to be as innocent as a dove, he might try and lay eggs. But I see the thrust of it; formula and spirit, imitation and becoming. Like trying to bottle a sunbeam. Though they've made some impressive bottles. Still, the path to enlightenment seems a trying one, if one must start over every time, looking for a novelty too novel to know. Giants' shoulders must be unbearably bare.
Well I'm glad for that, then. [He's not sure if 'finding your own path' is a very easy or a very hard thing. Maybe it's too vague to be either. Still, he's happy that the father is happy, if nothing else. His only issue, as it is for just about everything these days, is that they aren't as good as he'd like.]
Well Mr. Sanzo, you seem to be making out all right. Anything you need help with?
[Video]
Oh, everyone is a literalist at heart! That's why we must learn a different path. Well, those looking for Enlightenment, anyway... a Sanzo's duty is a little different than that. And also the same. But different.
Still, every apple that becomes something more must have bitter seeds within it. How else can it grow?
[Koumyou blows a smoke-ring up into the sky and offers the camera another of his smiles.]
I'm doing quite fine, thank you. Will you be making use of the shrine at some point? I'm not restricting it to Buddhists. I don't think it was ever meant to be so singular, even if I was so inclined.
Re: [Video]
Goodness, I don't much envy the Enlightenment of apples. If I know my horticulture, they must either rot or be eaten, before passing through a tract and coming out covered in-
[No Ted, not the poop]
-er, heh, suppose we have literalism to thank for checking metaphors. It'd explain a lot with such trials, at least.
Hard to say. I should be very disappointed if I did not contradict Buddhism as largely as a man possibly could, given what I know of it. If I went to that shrine, I might succumb to sleep, or perhaps to the temptation of burning it to cinders. What does one use such a shrine for, anyway?
[Video]
[Koumyou taps the ashes out of his pipe in an elegant flick, and tucks it away back into his sleeve.]
You wish to contradict what you do not even know? Some would call that Buddhism. But I'm afraid I'm the only Buddhist thing about this shrine; perhaps you are tempted to light me aflame?
[Rather than looking offended, the Sanzo priest just puts a hand to his chin, contemplative.]
There is a tradition of Buddhist self-immolation in public protest to atrocities...
Re: [Video]
Haha, rats, I might practice Buddhism and not even know it! If it didn't go clean against your nature I'd seek your vigilance to make sure I stay pure. Or impure, in your view. I confess, the Asiatic terms and stories--may you tell me more of those--are alien, but I'm familiar with the beliefs, and it's those that require full enmity. Hah, but you needn't worry. If you find the glory of martyrdom, it won't be by my hands. In all likelihood I'll beat you to the pyre.
[Despite this, or maybe because of the talk of heathenism and persecution and flames, Ted looks chipper as ever. He loves having people to talk to about anything, especially when they're impossible to offend.]
Well, if it's not a pagan shrine, what kind of shrine is it? What's its telos?
[Video]
[He's also supposed to offer spiritual guidance, but... come on. He's Buddhist. Koumyou is more likely to throw orange paper airplanes at someone than offer them actual guidance. Figure your own shit out! That's a direct quote from Buddha, as far as he's concerned.]
You know, it's the living who have to deal with what the dead leave behind, speaking from experience.
[So, so much experience. From both sides of the equation.]
What are these beliefs you think you know enough of to declare enmity? I admit, I slept through most of the classes.
Re: [Video]
Heh, it'd be strange if the dead had to deal with the living, eh? Indeed, a refusal to bear the living any more must account for a lot of deaths.
Oh no! Don't tell me the shrine means nothing? Prefer churches, myself, though even that stirs sorrow. Even Buddhism is not so empty as that!
[He put a hand to his eyes and laughed, with mixed joy, derision, and fatigue] Oh, another priest who hardly cares to be priestly! When will it stop? Will Genessia ever stop telling that joke? The humor has moved from the organ of novelty to the organ of sheer, incredulous repetition. God, where have you gone?
[Once he's done with the comedy] Mm...there's much to denounce. Take, say, the way it views birth. The way I've heard it, the Buddhists are very sorry about being born. They confess then to live at all is to enter into a world of illusion and foolish desire, and if they could only leave behind their personality or ego or will, they should have escaped their wretched state, crawling back into some eternal womb.
A lie, baked with half the truth, per usual. I'm rather fond of living in a world of division and desire and drama and all the lovely, horribly irreconcilable individuals moving about in it. Causes no end of grief, of course, but no end of adoration either. I could never conceive why a Buddhist, if he were human, should desire to return to some melted whole where everything matters and particulars don't.
[Video]
The shrine predates my being on this world, I simply don't know its original purpose. I won't ascribe Buddhism to it simply for it having a Buddhist caretaker. What is so wrong with a place that can be many things to many people?
[Koumyou tilts his head a little to one side at the rest, putting his hand on his chin again.]
Because I slept through the mantras? You have a very shallow view of what makes a priest a priest. And absolutely no grasp of what makes a Sanzo a Sanzo in particular. I'll give you a hint; it's not memorization.
...And an even more shallow view of what you do not understand. If I viewed birth with such disdain, surely I would have drowned my son rather than raise and cherish him. We do not all seek enlightenment, or even find it valuable to seek. Those that do... well, I imagine they would follow the empty path no matter what religion they chose to follow.
I have never shaved my head, given up identity. Even in Sanzo training. It's true they didn't let me have sake or tobacco during my training, except what was donated... but that was more about discipline than a revocation of the self.
Rather, it takes a lot of 'self' to become a Sanzo. Those with a weak spirit could never endure the job.
But then, for all you pretend to understand, you didn't even know that wasn't a name!
[Koumyou laughs, melodic and gentle.]
You seem to be filled with quite a lot of disdain for no particular reason! Reminds me of another young man I met once...
Re: [Video]
[He put his hand to his chin, then rested on his fist, looking down for a little]
"'Reverses death'. Yes, at the start, I suppose. But afterwards...God, I wish that were the case. Death goes faster than a bullet train here. It's so bloodless and efficient that we don't even have bodies for funerals. Not that we have the time for funerals, else there'd be one every day. Just once I wish I could beat death back.
Ah, well I can't really mind a slack Buddhist priest, and I certainly won't judge you for sleeping through your coursework. There's definitely an air of drowsiness in the art it produces. Do you know, you look very much the picture of some of their saints, or their version of a saint? Sleek and harmonious and eyes preternaturally shut.
Mm...if something's different for everyone, it tends to be a mirror or a shapeshifter, which tend towards mischief. I'd far prefer something to mean itself, and let everyone enjoy it for that. Say, that's a good question to ask about this Buddhism which seems to be both more elusive yet less particular than I supposed. Does it mean something, have a definite shape, or does it merely mean something to you?
[Video]
[Koumyou leans his head back, sighing.]
Let's see, how did I put it as a trainee? Ah, yes... "If the title means watching your friends get killed... then being a 'Sanzo' is worthless." But I became one anyway, even after attacking an instructor who was trying to drown my friend. And still, I watched every friend I had get killed, one after another. Even Genkai-chan, and Momo-chan, in the end...
So, to remain sane, purely as a defense, I hid myself behind the stricter interpretations of muchi mutso... do you know it? It means 'hold nothing'. It's the pinnacle of that emptiness that some Buddhists cling to. "If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha. If you meet your father, kill your father. Free of everything, bound by nothing, live your life just as it is."
This is what I taught my son... before I died protecting him. I could not hold to muchi mutso, in regards to him; I could not 'hold nothing'. It was always a lie I told myself, trying to make myself as hollow as Enlightenment itself. Not to reach for a goal... but to retreat from the deaths of so many friends who I could not save.
That is also part of why I do not teach Buddhism. I'm not actually very good at it! Though some would say that in itself makes me ideal for it. But it's not the duty of a Sanzo to teach, except perhaps our successors. And even that, in my time, was handled by other monks... not us. I wasn't taught by a Sanzo. I don't know how to teach a Sanzo to be a Sanzo...
[He lifts his head with another of his signature, squinty smiles.]
As for the mantras I slept through, I simply didn't need them. They're meant to create focus, to channel will. I've never lacked focus, or will, or needed to chant a single verse. So... I slept. They didn't give us much time for sleep in training, so I thought it a better use of my time. I never expected to gain the Sanzo rank anyway.
Re: [Video]
[Ted listened, expression quiet and tender. He had a strange knack for seemingly getting everything out of people the day they met. He wondered if that wasn't life's desperation in the face of too-swift death; an urgency to tell all before all was lost. What strikes him even stranger than that were the parallels. They shared so much. Not fatherhood, of course. Ted's too young. But powerlessness and dead friends and oblivion and the way their respective creeds protected, guided, and disappointed them all at once. By the end of it all, he lightly laughed.]
"Heh...sorry, it's just, for a Buddhist we have far too much in common, as if you damn pantheists might have a point. If only to defy them and proclaim division, I might have to reconsider your immolation. It's...very poetic, romantic even, how fatherhood looks to have saved you from an oriental abyss.
A life bound by nothing...sounds more like death. Seems neither of us can quite help living bounded lives, eh?
You know, I think I just thought of a use for that shrine: speaking to you in person. Some talk is too good to have over the phone, don't you think? It's strange; You're the first priest I've met whose failures made me happy."
[Video]
As for pantheists... not accurate either.
[That blood-red dot on his forehead is not paint, after all. Nor is it flat, glued on, or removable. The divine mark would break a scalpel, though it wouldn't protect the flesh around it, and there's nothing beneath it but bone and then brain. So, no prying it loose, either.]
I suggest if you visit, you leave the torch at home, hm? It would make for a short conversation otherwise.
Re: [Video]
Eheh, I feel like a chiseler, finding something only by picking away at everything else. At this rate you'll tell me Buddhism is Christianity. Well, let's talk again another day, face-to-face, and see if you can say what it is, instead of, or in addition to, what it isn't.
But even over the network, it's been lovely chatting with you, Koumyou. Go under the Omnipotence.
[Video]
[Koumyou smiles, inclining his head a little.]
Ah-- Koumyou Sanzo, if you please. It's important! And it will be easier to explain that, than any of the rest.
[It's not just a pulling of rank, Sanzos are Sanzos. He's simply not Koumyou without it.]