Post by Pyro on Sept 8, 2006 16:44:11 GMT -5
((Posted here as the 'action' occurs in more than one place))
-----------------
Too many times that morning John had sworn a string of profanities when he'd got the bandsaw caught in a knot in the tree, or caught a splinter in his finger, or any other number of things that meant things didn't go quite the way he expected. His mood, always changeable, was definitely the darker side of grey right now.
He was looking far healthier than he'd done for months. Working outside was actually starting to put some colour into his fair skin making him look far less insipid and sickly. His mental health was clearly improved for the outdoor work, too, as he even laughed several times a day, something his longer term companions, mainly Python, Gill and Juggernaut had figured he'd simply forgotten how to do.
Dharma had been sitting nearby, slowly etching precise notches into the wood. Now and then he would test fit two long boards together, then go back to his hand-sawing at a wretchedly slow pace. It seemed to make no difference to the monk.
Lifting his dark eyes as Pyro cursed for the seventh time since the sun was a quarter through the sky, he sat back and brushed sand off a board. "You snagged another knot," He observed, and sat there watching him for a moment longer before speaking again.
With a tone that was more curious than condescending(as it seemed Dharma was incapable of the latter), he questioned, "Why do knots anger you?"
"I'm not angry," came the instant retort, then the young man laughed lightly. "OK, I AM. It's just...they get in my way. I want to get this stuff finished." He waved a vague hand in the direction of the wood. "It just...irritates me when I come up against obstacles."
He reached up to wipe the morning's sweat from his forehead. "I was never very patient," he admitted.
Dharma shifted his hand over a section of wood, continuing his work.
"Finished? I did not know that was the point." He looked up again, not stopping the gentle sawing motion. "All is how you see it. If you work for an outcome, you will always find yourself upset by obstacles, weighing whether the work you put in was worth what you received at the end, and whether the outcome was good enough. Then there is always more work; with that, more upset."
Frowning a bit as he worked, he made a last observation. "It is little wonder you are so angry."
"I'm not very good at relaxing," admitted John, almost needlessly. So much was obvious. "When you've lived the way I have for the last few years, relaxing means lowering your guard. And out on the street, lowering your guard is the pathway to all sorts of bad."
He considered Dharma's words as always, with interest. Being something of a writer, he enjoyed the way the quiet man spoke. "But surely we're trying to achieve an end result here?" he countered.
Dharma looked up at him only momentarily. "I work because that is what I am doing in this moment. I intend to build something, yes. But if I do not build it, I am still the same being. The world goes on with or without this building and the building can just as easily turn to sand once it is built. It is an illusion."
He knew that would likely confuse the young man, but it was the truth, and Dharma knew no other way to explain it.
Pausing, and brushed his hand off again, picking up a few wood shavings and rolling them in the palm of his hand. "If your perception on your life in the last few years were different, you may have been relaxed the whole time; no matter the outcome." Looking Pyro in the eyes once more, he lowered his hand.
"The Buddha taught four truths. The first; life is suffering. By the process of living, we both cause and take on suffering. Many think this is a morose or depressed way of belief. But to the Buddhist, suffering or not suffering is not about good or bad, happy or sad... it is, or it is not. YOU, Pyro, you have the choice to suffer or not to suffer, no matter what occurs about you."
Gesturing to the tree Pyro was sawing, Dharma nodded. "So it is your choice to feel anger over a knot in wood. Or to understand that wood possesses these frustrations, and continue on your task."
As if in demonstration, Dharma went back to his work.
John hesitated, trying to absorb what Dharma had just said to him, but finding that it was a bit too complex to digest in one go. He stared down at the wood under his hand.
"Would you explain all that to me in bite-sized chunks sometime?" he asked, wryly. "I want to understand you, but I don't feel I'm doing you a justice by trying to assimilate everything at one go."
The young man had never put forward many opinions on religion. He had seen the damage over-zealous religious people could do, and like many other people questioned the existence of a higher power that was happy to allow terrible suffering in the world. He didn't write off people's beliefs out of hand: he was simply of the 'each to their own' approach to religion. But Dharma's words on the Buddhist teachings caught his interest.
Dharma laughed, nodding.
"You would like the short version." He pointed at the wood. "Stop complaining, just saw." With a chuckle, he got back to his own work.
* * *
Some time later, after he had taken a shower and, as was part of his new regime instilled by Emma's careful ministrations, taken an hour's nap, Pyro was in his office. Only for once, he wasn't sat in front of the computer. He was sitting, rather self-consciously, in the corner, trying to meditate.
And failing.
Spectacularly.
Dharma had taken a shower, having completed his work for the day. He changed into the white robe he wore for meditation and decided to stop by the kitchen to check on Angie before disappearing into his room for the night. Passing the open door to the office, he stopped.
"Good evening." He wondered what their leader was up to, but didn't inquire.
Pyro looked up and smiled sheepishly at Dharma. "Hey."
There was a brief pause.
"Um...do you have a moment? I'm trying to...relax. Emma told me that I should try meditating, but...and you're gonna find this sounds crazy, I don't know how."
Dharma smiled mildly. "It does not sound crazy. Many do not realize that their minds nature state is clear; our thoughts cloud it." He stepped into the room, and sat in a chair facing Pyro.
"And so you wished for me to show you how?"
Pyro pointed at Dharma, not an unfriendly gesture, but a shrewd one. "You have the uncanny ability to pluck thoughts out of my mind. Are you psi at all?"
It had occured to Pyro that he'd never really sat down with his people and found anything out about them. He knew who they were, of course, but he hadn't really catalogued them as such; their abilities, their weaknesses - and it was time to change.
Dharma shook his head a bit. "I only strive in each moment to see Truth and not my own judgement." Regarding Pyro directly, he breathed a slow breath before continuing. "And you are not so far from the fire that is your namesake. Fire needs a center, something to cling to, something to burn. You lack your own center; and others cannot provide it for you. So you are scattered." He nodded. It didn't seem that Dharma felt Pyro was inferior for this fact- it was almost as if he believed Pyro's scattered way of being was in no way better or worse than Dharma's focused way. Only different.
"When I was a child, my father taught me to quiet my mind with flame." Dharma took on an oddly amused expression, acknowledging the strange connection between the leader and himself. "Try something with me. Can you hold a flame in your hand between us?" Dharma held out his hand palm up to show him what he meant, then lowered the hand to his knee once more.
"Sure I can," said Pyro and took out his Zippo, thumbing the wheel and striking a light. He took the flame into his palm, almost lovingly and gazed at it. He'd used fire very little in the days following his breakdown, almost as though he were afraid to. The display with Callisto had actually tired him far more than he would ever have admitted.
He held out his palm, the flame burning steadily between them as Dharma had suggested. "I love fire," he said, simply. "I know that sounds kinda crazy, given that it's my mutation to be able to control it, but just like this...to look into it and see the hidden power that this tiny flame possesses..." Pyro shook his head. "It's awesome."
Dharma grinned- at least, as much as the man ever grinned. It was present, in any case.
Looking to the fire, he spoke quietly. His voice registered so low and round, it may have been heard in the other room like the beat of a bass drum. "Look at the flame. Memorize its center. Where the colours shift from one to the other. You know fire intimately. Take the image of the flame into your mind. Slowly take away everything else. The desk, the chair, the floor- even your hand. Remove me from the image in your mind."
The man sat like a buddha statue in the midst of a steel fortress, only his lips moving as he spoke the last careful words. "And when you feel you are ready, close your eyes. See the flame in your mind. Place it just before your vision, as if the flame were directly between your eyebrows. Focus on it there. Do not allow your mind to think of anything else, do not allow it to add any other image to the flame in your mind. Only fire. Only your center.."
Pyro stared at the flame intently, Dharma's voice in his ears and he followed the man's instructions to the letter. Eventually, his green eyes closed and Dharma observed his slight change in stance that indicated a more relaxed, meditative state. He observed the slight creases of anxiety and worry disappear from around the young man's eyes.
Nothing was said. Pyro was a most attentive student - as he ever had been when he found something that caught and held his interest.
Dharma closed his eyes, and began to hum one single note. The incredibly low timbre he struck resonated in the metal room, filled their ears. With only the occasional short pause for breath, he continued humming the note. If they had been back in his room, he'd have worked on his brass bowls to fill the room with sound. But this was almost better. More personal.
He was capable of meditating like this for hours on end- it had taken him many years to be capable of such concentration. He knew Pyro would eventually interrupt, but for now was content to be a certain steady presence to the young man.
Were it right to do so, Dharma might have told John the strength and wisdom he saw in him. But pride was just that; and pride was not what this leader needed. He needed only to know the truth of his heart.
The boy managed a full fifteen minutes before a noise somewhere down the corridor caught him unawares and broke the moment. He opened his eyes, then closed them again at the harshness of the unnatural lighting. He opened them again more slowly.
The flame he had held in his palm still burned brightly and he focused on it again, trying to win back the moment of pure focus he'd just experienced, but it didn't want to come to him.
Dharma opened his eyes, closing his lips and the sound that came from them. His irises shifted to look at Pyro.
"I go through kata each morning on the beach at sunrise," he said, standing. "And I chant each evening at sunset. You are welcome to join me for either." Bowing his head to Pyro, he straightened his robes.
"Thank you," said Pyro, breathing deeply. "I think I may join you tomorrow morning."
Already he seemed calmer, more balanced, more at peace with himself.
And John Allerdyce had a lot of things to find peace with.
-----------------
Too many times that morning John had sworn a string of profanities when he'd got the bandsaw caught in a knot in the tree, or caught a splinter in his finger, or any other number of things that meant things didn't go quite the way he expected. His mood, always changeable, was definitely the darker side of grey right now.
He was looking far healthier than he'd done for months. Working outside was actually starting to put some colour into his fair skin making him look far less insipid and sickly. His mental health was clearly improved for the outdoor work, too, as he even laughed several times a day, something his longer term companions, mainly Python, Gill and Juggernaut had figured he'd simply forgotten how to do.
Dharma had been sitting nearby, slowly etching precise notches into the wood. Now and then he would test fit two long boards together, then go back to his hand-sawing at a wretchedly slow pace. It seemed to make no difference to the monk.
Lifting his dark eyes as Pyro cursed for the seventh time since the sun was a quarter through the sky, he sat back and brushed sand off a board. "You snagged another knot," He observed, and sat there watching him for a moment longer before speaking again.
With a tone that was more curious than condescending(as it seemed Dharma was incapable of the latter), he questioned, "Why do knots anger you?"
"I'm not angry," came the instant retort, then the young man laughed lightly. "OK, I AM. It's just...they get in my way. I want to get this stuff finished." He waved a vague hand in the direction of the wood. "It just...irritates me when I come up against obstacles."
He reached up to wipe the morning's sweat from his forehead. "I was never very patient," he admitted.
Dharma shifted his hand over a section of wood, continuing his work.
"Finished? I did not know that was the point." He looked up again, not stopping the gentle sawing motion. "All is how you see it. If you work for an outcome, you will always find yourself upset by obstacles, weighing whether the work you put in was worth what you received at the end, and whether the outcome was good enough. Then there is always more work; with that, more upset."
Frowning a bit as he worked, he made a last observation. "It is little wonder you are so angry."
"I'm not very good at relaxing," admitted John, almost needlessly. So much was obvious. "When you've lived the way I have for the last few years, relaxing means lowering your guard. And out on the street, lowering your guard is the pathway to all sorts of bad."
He considered Dharma's words as always, with interest. Being something of a writer, he enjoyed the way the quiet man spoke. "But surely we're trying to achieve an end result here?" he countered.
Dharma looked up at him only momentarily. "I work because that is what I am doing in this moment. I intend to build something, yes. But if I do not build it, I am still the same being. The world goes on with or without this building and the building can just as easily turn to sand once it is built. It is an illusion."
He knew that would likely confuse the young man, but it was the truth, and Dharma knew no other way to explain it.
Pausing, and brushed his hand off again, picking up a few wood shavings and rolling them in the palm of his hand. "If your perception on your life in the last few years were different, you may have been relaxed the whole time; no matter the outcome." Looking Pyro in the eyes once more, he lowered his hand.
"The Buddha taught four truths. The first; life is suffering. By the process of living, we both cause and take on suffering. Many think this is a morose or depressed way of belief. But to the Buddhist, suffering or not suffering is not about good or bad, happy or sad... it is, or it is not. YOU, Pyro, you have the choice to suffer or not to suffer, no matter what occurs about you."
Gesturing to the tree Pyro was sawing, Dharma nodded. "So it is your choice to feel anger over a knot in wood. Or to understand that wood possesses these frustrations, and continue on your task."
As if in demonstration, Dharma went back to his work.
John hesitated, trying to absorb what Dharma had just said to him, but finding that it was a bit too complex to digest in one go. He stared down at the wood under his hand.
"Would you explain all that to me in bite-sized chunks sometime?" he asked, wryly. "I want to understand you, but I don't feel I'm doing you a justice by trying to assimilate everything at one go."
The young man had never put forward many opinions on religion. He had seen the damage over-zealous religious people could do, and like many other people questioned the existence of a higher power that was happy to allow terrible suffering in the world. He didn't write off people's beliefs out of hand: he was simply of the 'each to their own' approach to religion. But Dharma's words on the Buddhist teachings caught his interest.
Dharma laughed, nodding.
"You would like the short version." He pointed at the wood. "Stop complaining, just saw." With a chuckle, he got back to his own work.
* * *
Some time later, after he had taken a shower and, as was part of his new regime instilled by Emma's careful ministrations, taken an hour's nap, Pyro was in his office. Only for once, he wasn't sat in front of the computer. He was sitting, rather self-consciously, in the corner, trying to meditate.
And failing.
Spectacularly.
Dharma had taken a shower, having completed his work for the day. He changed into the white robe he wore for meditation and decided to stop by the kitchen to check on Angie before disappearing into his room for the night. Passing the open door to the office, he stopped.
"Good evening." He wondered what their leader was up to, but didn't inquire.
Pyro looked up and smiled sheepishly at Dharma. "Hey."
There was a brief pause.
"Um...do you have a moment? I'm trying to...relax. Emma told me that I should try meditating, but...and you're gonna find this sounds crazy, I don't know how."
Dharma smiled mildly. "It does not sound crazy. Many do not realize that their minds nature state is clear; our thoughts cloud it." He stepped into the room, and sat in a chair facing Pyro.
"And so you wished for me to show you how?"
Pyro pointed at Dharma, not an unfriendly gesture, but a shrewd one. "You have the uncanny ability to pluck thoughts out of my mind. Are you psi at all?"
It had occured to Pyro that he'd never really sat down with his people and found anything out about them. He knew who they were, of course, but he hadn't really catalogued them as such; their abilities, their weaknesses - and it was time to change.
Dharma shook his head a bit. "I only strive in each moment to see Truth and not my own judgement." Regarding Pyro directly, he breathed a slow breath before continuing. "And you are not so far from the fire that is your namesake. Fire needs a center, something to cling to, something to burn. You lack your own center; and others cannot provide it for you. So you are scattered." He nodded. It didn't seem that Dharma felt Pyro was inferior for this fact- it was almost as if he believed Pyro's scattered way of being was in no way better or worse than Dharma's focused way. Only different.
"When I was a child, my father taught me to quiet my mind with flame." Dharma took on an oddly amused expression, acknowledging the strange connection between the leader and himself. "Try something with me. Can you hold a flame in your hand between us?" Dharma held out his hand palm up to show him what he meant, then lowered the hand to his knee once more.
"Sure I can," said Pyro and took out his Zippo, thumbing the wheel and striking a light. He took the flame into his palm, almost lovingly and gazed at it. He'd used fire very little in the days following his breakdown, almost as though he were afraid to. The display with Callisto had actually tired him far more than he would ever have admitted.
He held out his palm, the flame burning steadily between them as Dharma had suggested. "I love fire," he said, simply. "I know that sounds kinda crazy, given that it's my mutation to be able to control it, but just like this...to look into it and see the hidden power that this tiny flame possesses..." Pyro shook his head. "It's awesome."
Dharma grinned- at least, as much as the man ever grinned. It was present, in any case.
Looking to the fire, he spoke quietly. His voice registered so low and round, it may have been heard in the other room like the beat of a bass drum. "Look at the flame. Memorize its center. Where the colours shift from one to the other. You know fire intimately. Take the image of the flame into your mind. Slowly take away everything else. The desk, the chair, the floor- even your hand. Remove me from the image in your mind."
The man sat like a buddha statue in the midst of a steel fortress, only his lips moving as he spoke the last careful words. "And when you feel you are ready, close your eyes. See the flame in your mind. Place it just before your vision, as if the flame were directly between your eyebrows. Focus on it there. Do not allow your mind to think of anything else, do not allow it to add any other image to the flame in your mind. Only fire. Only your center.."
Pyro stared at the flame intently, Dharma's voice in his ears and he followed the man's instructions to the letter. Eventually, his green eyes closed and Dharma observed his slight change in stance that indicated a more relaxed, meditative state. He observed the slight creases of anxiety and worry disappear from around the young man's eyes.
Nothing was said. Pyro was a most attentive student - as he ever had been when he found something that caught and held his interest.
Dharma closed his eyes, and began to hum one single note. The incredibly low timbre he struck resonated in the metal room, filled their ears. With only the occasional short pause for breath, he continued humming the note. If they had been back in his room, he'd have worked on his brass bowls to fill the room with sound. But this was almost better. More personal.
He was capable of meditating like this for hours on end- it had taken him many years to be capable of such concentration. He knew Pyro would eventually interrupt, but for now was content to be a certain steady presence to the young man.
Were it right to do so, Dharma might have told John the strength and wisdom he saw in him. But pride was just that; and pride was not what this leader needed. He needed only to know the truth of his heart.
The boy managed a full fifteen minutes before a noise somewhere down the corridor caught him unawares and broke the moment. He opened his eyes, then closed them again at the harshness of the unnatural lighting. He opened them again more slowly.
The flame he had held in his palm still burned brightly and he focused on it again, trying to win back the moment of pure focus he'd just experienced, but it didn't want to come to him.
Dharma opened his eyes, closing his lips and the sound that came from them. His irises shifted to look at Pyro.
"I go through kata each morning on the beach at sunrise," he said, standing. "And I chant each evening at sunset. You are welcome to join me for either." Bowing his head to Pyro, he straightened his robes.
"Thank you," said Pyro, breathing deeply. "I think I may join you tomorrow morning."
Already he seemed calmer, more balanced, more at peace with himself.
And John Allerdyce had a lot of things to find peace with.
