by Dan H Kind
Chapter 23
Vast Emptiness, Nothing Holy
Huck encouraged caution as they approached the Olde Eden Brewery, but the headstrong Zen master would have none of it, and boldly floated across the empty parking lot, around the cordoned-off Taphouse, and right on up the loading dock steps to the back door of the place. Huck and Sitting Lotus followed with nervous glances all around.
So far, all was clear. Since the fire, traffic of any kind in the area of the brewery was low. Huck had figured it would be just the opposite, with fire marshals and paparazzi all over the place, but apparently “Farmer John” had powerful friends.
“You see this here?” said Master Mirbodi. He bent and picked up a few grains of a sandy substance spread in a thin line across the threshold of the door.
“Yeah, but what is it?” said Huck, and reached out a hand to touch the powder on Master Mirbodi's fingers. When he made contact, a searing electric pain shot through him, and he jerked his hand back. “Ow-oocch!” he said through a mouthful of fingers. “Say, that's the same thing I felt earlier when I tried to jump in the window. Is that stuff some kinda magic powder?”
Master Mirbodi grinned. “It cornmeal.”
“Cornmeal?! You mean like what people make cornbread and tortillas outta?”
“One and same,” said the monk, chuckling. “But this special cornmeal. Yeah, it kenned-up good. It ancient Hopi custom to spread lines of enchanted cornmeal like this around houses and villages on nights when evil kachina spirits emerge from dark places to walk Earth and haunt men. It believed unholy spirits cannot pass over magic cornmeal.” He shrugged. “Obviously, legends true.”
“But I ain't no evil spirit! I'm one of the good guys here!”
Master Mirbodi raised a cornmeal-covered finger. “Yes, but this Masaaw's doing. He make magical cornmeal so no mythological being can pass over. Powerful stuff, this. Of course, it have no effect on human beings.”
“But what are we s'posed to do now?” asked Huck, staring entranced at Master Mirbodi's dusty digit. “I can't let you two go in there alone!”
“Oh, that easy,” said Master Mirbodi. From within his patchwork robes he produced a whisk broom like a baseball umpire uses to sweep off home plate between innings, and proceeded to brush aside the cornmeal spread before the door in precise, unhurried motions. “We all go inside and check up on skeleton man.”
And the old monk ripped down the fire tape and strolled into the darkness that congregated inside the Olde Eden Brewery. An excited Huck Finn and a jittery Sitting Lotus followed suit.
The brewery's interior was lit by an unearthly azure glow that glinted off the dark, silent brewing machines. The wan phosphorescence seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere; it did not come from the halogen lights in the ceiling, which were off. Stacked in one corner of the warehouse-sized building was a ceiling-high pyramid of boxes of Olde Eden beer.
“Hm,” said Master Mirbodi. “Nobody home, I guess.”
A deep, guttural laughter rumbled upwards from the floor of the brewery, shaking the walls and rattling the brewing machines. The temperature dropped by numberless degrees, and the sourceless light flickered and grew dim, as if they had entered another, darker world—a Spirit World, perhaps.
Masaaw appeared out of thin air in the center of the brewery in skeleton form, bonfires raging within the hollows of his eye-sockets. “I have been expecting you, monk.” He clacked his teeth. “I have been eagerly awaiting a rematch.”
Master Mirbodi shrugged and indicated his companions to stand aside. They grabbed impromptu seats on boxes of beer. Huck wanted desperately to help Master Mirbodi, but he did not wish to upset the monk's plan in any way, shape, or form. Sitting Lotus was more than content to remain out of the way, but he was worried for his master, evidenced by his unsettled eyes.
Master Mirbodi clasped his hands together and bowed to the skeleton man, who swung a foot at the monk's unprotected head. But the kick never reached its destination. Without seeming to move, Master Mirbodi ducked and smacked a femur with an open palm. Masaaw went flying sideways like he had been hit by a dump-truck and hit the brewery floor skull-first with a crack of bone. One of the skeleton man's ribs broke off in the tumble and went skittering across the room. The bone began moving of its own accord, inching its way across the floor, then levitated from the ground, swooshed across the brewery, and reattached itself to Masaaw.
The skeleton man scrambled to his feet and leered at Master Mirbodi. “All you do is turn my own attacks against me! Come on, old man! (FIGHT ME FOR REAL!)”
Masaaw came at Master Mirbodi with a sequence of lightning-like punches, which the old monk deflected without effort; none of the blows even came close to connecting. He then jumped to deliver a sweeping roundhouse kick to Master Mirbodi's head.
This time Masaaw went floundering into the bottling machine, where he ended up on the floor in a jumble of broken glass and scattered bones.
Masaaw quickly reformed and, whole once more, jumped to his foot-bones. He came at Master Mirbodi again, fists and feet flying. Sitting Lotus could not make out any individual attack; it was more like a hundred attacks at once. The old monk backed up a step, reacting without thinking (utterly Zen-like, the novice observed) to the frenzied offensive.
Then Master Mirbodi jumped straight up in the air, gaining thirty feet of altitude like a geriatric Asian Spiderman giving it one last go. He touched the brewery ceiling with outstretched hands—and Sitting Lotus, looking up, saw Master Mirbodi's “legs” for the first time.
Master Mirbodi twisted in the air and hurled himself earthwards. Masaaw tried to get out of the way of the Zen Monk Missile, but too late. Master Mirbodi led with both fists and landed in a direct hit atop the skeleton man's skull. Masaaw was driven into the brewery floor like a big-headed bone-nail, to where only his skull remained visible.
The kung-fu master bounced off Masaaw and landed on his feet. He clasped his hands together and bowed to his defeated opponent.
The skeleton man's fiery eyes went muted. “You have defeated me. Again. You are an Eternal, yet you have powers that dwarf my own—and I'm no slouch among mythos! How is this so? Eternals don't have supernormal powers. It is as if you have transcended humanity and become something . . . else. Who are you, monk? (TELL ME NOW!)”
“I no know why you try that Death Voice on me any more,” said Master Mirbodi, picking dirt from underneath a fingernail. “You no yet realize it no gonna work?”
“Yeah, I guess I should have realized it by now,” grumbled Masaaw. “But as you can see I have an amazingly thick skull. And you're one of the few beings I've encountered, human or mytho, upon whom my Voice of Death has no effect. How do you do it?”
“I see all forms, I hear all sounds, I know all thoughts. I know all previous existences of every sentient being in existence, be they human or mythical or something else. I know end of rebirth, and I am everywhere and anywhere I wish to be, for I realize there no such thing as 'I'.”
“Well, that about covers it, doesn't it?” muttered Masaaw. “But that still does not tell me who you are. You are no ordinary Buddhist monk.”
Before Master Mirbodi could answer, a voice from the vicinity of the mountain of twelve-packs stated, “I know who he is.”
All eyes turned to Sitting Lotus.
“Do you, novice?” asked the Zen master.
Sitting Lotus stared wide-eyed at Master Mirbodi. “When you jumped up and bounced off the ceiling like in some old-school kung-fu movie, I saw your legs! Or I didn't see your . . .” He pointed a quivering finger at Master Mirbodi. “But it can't be . . . can it? You can't really be him. It's just not possible. You'd be over fifteen hundred years old. And you have eyelids!”
“I surprised to hear you talking about what possible and not possible after what you see last few days,” admonished the Zen master.
“He can't be who?” inquired Huck. “And what do legs and eyelids have to do with anything?”
Sitting
Lotus took a deep breath and said, “In the sixth century CE, the 28th Patriarch left India and traveled east to spread the word of Buddhism in China. People there already knew of the dharma, but the monks were more interested in reading scriptures, chanting sutras, praying to bodhisattvas, building temples, and lining their pockets with temple donations than applying the teachings of the World Honored One to their daily lives.
“The Emperor Wu invited the respected monk to give His Eminence a personal dharma talk at the palace. When the 28th Patriarch stood before him, the Emperor Wu said: 'I have built monasteries and temples, and I have donated an emperor's ransom in the support of Buddhism. I have decreed the ordination of countless monks, and I have printed thousands of sutras for distribution among the public. How much karmic merit have I built up doing all these wonderful things?' The 28th Patriarch answered: 'Doing these things have accumulated you no merit whatsoever.' The Emperor Wu was taken aback by this and said, 'So what, then, is the highest and greatest truth of Buddhism, since you are obviously so knowledgeable?' The 28th Patriarch replied: 'Vast emptiness, nothing holy.' This nonsensical reply perturbed the Emperor to even greater depths, and he said: 'So who is standing before me right now? Are you truly a sage, or are you just an ordinary man?' The 28th Patriarch—raising his open hands and shrugging, perhaps—answered: 'Hell if I know.' The Emperor Wu then threw this impertinent monk out of his palace. The 28th Patriarch dusted himself off, shrugged, and went on his way.
“It is said he went north, to a cave in the mountains near Shaolin Monastery”—Sitting Lotus's eyebrows went up and down, up and down—“where he sat meditating, staring at a wall, for nine years straight. This exercise was dubbed 'wall-meditation,' and it is one of the staples of practice at the monastery where I have lived for the past ten years, a sect-less monastery that has a rather bare-bones approach to Zen.” He stared over at Master Mirbodi, who winked at him. “It has long been debated as to whether or not the 28th Patriarch's legs atrophied and . . . fell off . . . during this long period of time doing nothing but sitting zazen.”
Sitting Lotus fell silent, and his face grew thoughtful. He stood and stared at Master Mirbodi, who beamed around at everyone and everything in the room.
“Good story, novice. A classic, for sure.”
“Okay,” said Huck. “But what about this eyelids thing?”
“Sometime before his nine-year wall-meditation session,” said Sitting Lotus, “the 28th Patriarch was having trouble staying awake during zazen. Desperate for a solution to this, he proceeded to cut off his eyelids so they would not droop while he was meditating. Not long after his sacred eyelids hit the ground, strange new plants began to grow from the soil. This new vegetation was the first tea plant, and since that day Buddhists have prepared tea in order to stay awake and maintain concentration during meditation.”
“Okay,” said Huck. “Eyelids. Check. But what is the name of the by now infamous 28th Patriarch? This guy here, this all-powerful monk standing before me, grinning like a Trickster.”
“It is said the 28th Patriarch died when he was one-hundred and fifty years old,” replied Sitting Lotus. “He was entombed in China at Tingling Temple. Three years later, a government official traveling in the central Asian mountains on business happened to cross paths with a laughing, wild-eyed monk whom he recognized quite well. This monk was carrying a staff from which hung a single sandal, and he told the official he was returning to India to continue to spread the true dharma. This monk was none other than the 28th Patriarch, dead and buried three years ago. The official's story aroused enough curiosity among the monks of the time that they found reason to open the 28th Patriarch's tomb. And when they did, his remains were nowhere to be found. The only thing in the tomb was a single sandal.”
Sitting Lotus's eyes locked onto Master Mirbodi, who met his gaze with gleeful, dancing orbs. “You have no legs, Master Mirbodi, and you have the True Dharma Eye. You are the first outright, in-your-face teacher and promoter of Zen. You are Bodhidharma, the 28th Patriarch of Indian Buddhism, who became the 1st Patriarch of Chinese Ch'an—which eventually became Japanese Zen—Buddhism.”
“He has no legs?” spluttered Masaaw. “But how is that possible? I mean, I've taken kicks to the face from this guy!”
Master Mirbodi grinned. “Humans and mythos often see or feel what they expect to see or feel, rather than what really there.”
“Siddhartha's sacred sandals!” Sitting Lotus smacked himself in the forehead. “Your name! Master Mirbodi, full name Mirbodi Madhaha! Mirbodi Madhaha!” He danced around like a kid in a candy store. “M - I - R - B - O - D - I - M - A - D - H - A - H - A. Ha-ha, indeed, Master! Shuffle the letters of your name around, and what do you get? I - A - M - B - O - D - H - I - D - H - A - R - M – A. It's an anagram!”
“Yeah, I just change letters of name around and nobody even suspect I Bodhidharma because they all think I dead long time ago.”
“You're like me,” said Sitting Lotus. “You must have somehow imbibed six pints of the Water of Life and become immortal.”
“An Eternal,” supplied Masaaw. “A human being who has ingested enough of the Water of Life to live forever is called an Eternal.”
Sitting Lotus sat down on a pile of twelve-packs and stared off into space. “Bodhidharma, the one who came from the West,” he mumbled. “A millennium-and-a-half-old living legend. Un-fricking-believable. ”
“I closer to millennium and six-tens. I born in year 440 C.E. going by Western calendar.” Master Mirbodi shrugged. “But you only as old as you feel, and I feel like man in prime of life. I teach kung-fu for long time, do much zazen, and stay in shape physically and mentally.”
“Ah, yes,” said Sitting Lotus. “Kung-fu. Bodhidharma is also credited with the invention of martial arts, which he brought to China along with Zen. Master, is this true? Did you invent kung-fu? Is that why you're so obsessed with instructing those kids in the ancient art?”
“When I first arrive at Shaolin Monastery in China, I see many out-of-shape monks, sitting around reading scriptures all day while monastery falling apart around heads, debating insignificant points of dharma till tongues near falling out. I start exercise regimen called 'Eighteen Hands of Lohan' so they able to meditate longer and gain strength to fix place up. And back then you never know when barbarians drop by for pillage and plunder, so now fat guys can defend selves. From 'Eighteen Hands' develop modern kung-fu.” The ancient monk shrugged, as if it didn't really matter. “Nowadays I only teach kids light kung-fu, with heavy dose of Zen throw in. And hey, maybe I good kung-fu guy, but I no wanna poop my own horn, if you know what I saying.”
This brought a series of strange looks from Sitting Lotus, Masaaw, and Huck. Seeing that his words did not have the intended effect, Master Mirbodi added, “Arrogance no very Zen-like.”
Sitting Lotus shook his head to dislodge the remnants of the terrible vision: the Zen master taking a dump in a tuba. “I just can't believe I've been learning Zen from the guy who first brought Zen to China—a direct dharma descendant of the Buddha, twenty-eight generations removed!” Irony seeped from Sitting Lotus's grin. “You'd think I'd be a little further along in my studies, wouldn't you?”
“Well, novice, perhaps this motivate when you assigned next koan.” Master Mirbodi looked down at Masaaw. “Now, Trickster, I got couple questions for you.”
“Ask away,” replied the skeleton man. “In action I shall be of no use to you, for I have no choice but to do what the Unseen One tells me. That's why I attacked you and Whiskey Jack at the Dojo yesterday. Hades's orders. He wanted me to send you two to the Spirit World, out of his hair.” Masaaw paused. “But after he gave the order, as I was walking away, he grabbed my elbow and told me not to let the children witness the final deed. At the time, I found that distinctly out of character for the diabolical bastard.”
Nobody spoke for a moment.
“But now,” said Masaaw, breaking the silence, “any information you need I shall be more than will
ing to give, for he cannot control what I think, say, or believe without giving me a direct order.”
“So you no wanna help him, then?” asked Master Mirbodi.
“By no means!” bellowed Masaaw. “I have no desire to see the end of the world. But the Unseen One assured me that my people will be spared and live in the next reality in eternal peace.”
“Unseen One lie to you. If this reality end, Time be no more. There be nothing and nobody left, human or mytho or anything, only Buddha-space.” Master Mirbodi's stare pierced Masaaw. “But you know this already.”
A sigh whistled through Masaaw's exposed teeth. “Yes. I know it. But at the time I did not want to acknowledge it. The Unseen One is a manipulator, and he played on my role as Guardian of my people. When he first told me of his plans, I figured I'd just get it over with and help him out with his lunatic plan, and nothing would happen. No end of the universe. But now . . . I just don't know.
“I tried to alert my blood-brother Whiskey Jack to my predicament. I fired him from Colonial Eden and gave him a six-pack of Hoppy Heaven Ale to try and wake him back up to real, mythical life. He's an old friend, and I thought he might have been able to help me out. But he was a little . . . dense at the time. The Unseen One discovered what I had done, and ordered me to never speak of these matters to Whiskey Jack.” His constant skeletal grin widened. “But you guys aren't him.”
“And how Unseen One got control of you?”
Masaaw's eyes sputtered like dying embers. “He has my kopavi.”
This brought stares of incomprehension from Huck and Sitting Lotus, but Master Mirbodi was unperturbed. “You say Hades has skull-bone? How this happen?”
“Well, I was going about the daily paperwork and filing and bureaucratic management that goes with being President and C.E.O. of the Spirit World. I absolutely love paperwork . . .” Masaaw let out a heartfelt sigh before continuing. “Anyway, I received a report from an assistant kachina that living beings were getting into the Spirit World—you'd be amazed how often that sort of thing happens—so I went out into the field to check it out. But when I got to where I was told the rip in the fabric of the World's reality had occurred, everything was as it should have been. I was on my way back to the office to demote a few assistant kachinas when I was way-laid by the Unseen One and a sleepy-looking fellow with giant white wings attached to the sides of his face. Before I could react, Wing-face blew this trumpet in my face. I got disoriented, and passed out. The last thing I remember was the Unseen One standing over me, laughing.” Fires flared up within his eye-sockets. “When I awoke, I was in the Throne Room of the Unseen Palace, and my kopavi was missing. Look!” He inclined his head, and a two-inch diameter circle of bone was missing from the apex of his skull. “It is the most powerful bone in the body. My people call it the kopavi, 'the open door on top of the head.' The Hopi believe that, when mind and heart are open wide, a man or woman has the ability to communicate with the Creator through this 'open door.' As I am Protector of the Hopi, the dreamers of this myth, my kopavi is the source of my power. Without it, I cannot access my ken to its full extent.”
Sitting Lotus had no clue as to what Masaaw meant by this, but Master Mirbodi nodded and Huckleberry Finn murmured in sympathy.
“Anyway, the Unseen One cast powerful ken on my kopavi, binding me to him in deed. And now I must obey any direct command given me by the twisted bastard. Even now, I am worming my way out of the floor. When I do, be prepared, for I will have no choice but to attack you again. The Unseen One ordered me to protect the beer and the brewery, and that is what I must do.”
Master Mirbodi shrugged. “You know where he keep kopavi?”
“No. Either on his person or locked away somewhere deep in his Underworld domain, I would guess.”
“We see what we can do to get skull-bone back. If we do, you help us?”
“I would be glad to help if you can free me from this foul enchantment.” Masaaw spat fire in frustration. The flames snaked across the brewery floor before sputtering out.
“Okay,” said Master Mirbodi. “But what about other Tricksters? They enchanted, too?”
“No. I control the Tricksters, in accordance with the Unseen One's wishes. You must understand, we Tricksters have a mankind-given knack for getting into trouble, oftentimes so much that we end up dead. When these guys would show up in my Spirit World, I would usually just give 'em a free pass back to the land of the living and point them in the direction of the sipapuni. So I waited around for a bit, and sure enough, one by one the Tricksters come trickling into the Spirit World. But I told them that this time their free ride back to life was gonna cost 'em. I would let them come back to Earth on one condition: they work for me this time around.” Masaaw hissed in frustration. “And I work for the Unseen One. The Tricksters signed a Trickster Blood Contract, which cannot be broken.”
“Uh-huh. And there any way to break enchantment without recovering skull-bone?”
“No. The only way is to return me my kopavi. If you can do that, the other Tricksters and I will be on your side. It is not in our nature to destroy the world; we like to play in it too much for that.”
“Where rest of Hoppy Heaven Ale stored?”
“I know there is an additional mass storage spot somewhere in town, but I do not know its exact location. The Unseen One tells each of us the bare minimum needed to work his will. However, I do know that he has scattered that beer around town in every last bar, gas station, grocery, liquor store, and restaurant. To find it all, you have your work cut out for you.”
“All right, one last thing. Can we borrow some cornmeal?”
A small deerskin pouch popped into existence atop Masaaw's skull. The flames within the skeleton man's eyes danced. “What cornmeal?”
Master Mirbodi grabbed the sack from Masaaw's cranium, and it vanished into his patchwork robes. At the same time a splintering, groaning noise issued from the brewery floor.
“I have no wish to fight any more!” said Masaaw. “Go! Please!”
“Sure thing,” said Master Mirbodi. “Catch you later, kachina man.”
“Yeah, but what about the Hoppy Heaven Ale?” asked Huck. “We gotta destroy it somehow or other!”
“Oh, I got that covered.” Master Mirbodi turned and gazed at the mountain of twelve-packs. He snapped his fingers, and there was a sound like a million bottles breaking in unison—which was just what happened. Bottles of beer shattered in their cases, and a torrent of liquid gushed from the soggy cardboard mass.
The Zen master glanced, almost as an afterthought, at the beer vats in the opposite corner of the brewery, and snapped his fingers again. The portholes on the sides of the machines exploded outwards and went flying into the opposite wall with a series of deafening clangs. The brewery floor soon turned into a lake of sticky, foamy adult beverage. Masaaw's skull was quickly lost to view in the frothy sea.
Sitting Lotus stared in shock at the wet wreckage that had moments ago been the Olde Eden Brewery, holding the hem of his robe up above his knees. The beer was already up to his shins, and rising fast. Tendrils of cardboard floated in the morass like soggy brown lily-pads. “How did you do that, Master? Was it . . . magic?”
“I no do magic, novice. I do Mind. Mind penetrate everywhere, from the Buddha-lands to the sixteen lesser hells. Mind see all worlds because Mind is all worlds, especially Worlds of Myth.”
“Say, that's from The Bloodstream Sermon, isn't it?” asked Sitting Lotus, looking thoughtful. “I've always wondered if you actually wrote that. It's a hotly debated topic in Zen circles, as I'm sure you know. So . . . did you?”
But Master Mirbodi just grinned at him.
Sitting Lotus left it at that, and the three companions walked out of the Olde Eden Brewery and into the blazing noontime Virginia sunshine, leaving Masaaw to wallow in the beer.
As they trundled down Colonial Towne Road, Huck turned to Master Mirbodi. “So how is it you still have eyelids, Master? Is the tea myth not true?”
Master Mirbodi's eyes twinkled, as if he had been expecting the question. “It true as any myth. Eyelid kinda like toenail. You cut it off, it grow back.” He grinned. “Maybe.”