Afternoon Storytime (D2 MA, Open)

[Jihen]

"I will relay the warning to my Master and seek the portents myself this evening."

He nods in deference, "We will do what we can to help as many as we can."

He offers a word of encouragement to the anxieties the Dragon brought forth, "Whatever happens... What is now has been before and will be again. Life is filled with patterns, and unknown purposes. All that is now is part of what has been and what will come to be. One need not fear what will come... just prepare and act."

[Mirumoto Jinkan]

"I got many plates in the air, Jihen-san. If all this has come before could you find the guy in my position and ask him to fill in while I take a vacation?" Jinkan asked seemingly in earnest.

"I fear a lot, and I prepare just as much. Maybe at some point it won't be my first rodeo anymore." He paused.

"Do you have any one-armed puns? I have been wracking my brain to come up with something funny this entire conversation but so far all I have is something about something about lending you a hand, and that one isn't any good."

[Jihen]

"If you're looking for someone to fill your place... You won't find them. You must simply find your place Mirumoto-sama... Whatever that place you feel you should be... No one else can fill that spot. Be there..."

He then smiles, "I usually keep a number of them up my singular sleeve. Telling a joke about oneself can be quite a disarming conversational tool."

He tilts his head, "How's this one? Do you know the hardest part of being a one-armed monk? I have to buy everything new... because I can't do second-hand goods."

[Mirumoto Jinkan]

"If we are going by feelings, Jihen-san then I wouldn't be within a hundred ri of this castle. Bitterness aside, that is a really good one. What about I bet you get pretty lonely doing everything singlehandedly?" Jinkan wiggled his eyebrows like they were caterpillars.

[Jihen]

"Funny... and true." He replies with a smile.

"I may not ever marry, but I would make a good right-hand-man."

[Mirumoto Jinkan]

"Ah, you can still have bastards. I have seen more than a few monks who have more children than me." Jinkan said with a smile. "Though you might need another pair of hands to raise a kid..."

[Jihen]

“If I were to have a child… I think I would very much like to be there to watch it grow up.” He said with a soft smile.

“But since that is not possible now… I think I’ll wait for the next life.”

[Mirumoto Jinkan]

"Achieve enlightenment in this life Jihen-san. Putting things off for the next one is like holding in a dump. It has to come out eventually." Jinkan advised the monk.

[Jihen]

He smiled, "One should always 'Seek enlightenment, but do not be foolish enough to expect enlightenment'."

He then added, "Things that would be destructive should they be let out uncaringly... often can be redirected and find a release that would build instead of destroy."

[Mirumoto Jinkan]

He smiled, "One should always 'Seek enlightenment, but do not be foolish enough to expect enlightenment'."

He then added, "Things that would be destructive should they be let out uncaringly... often can be redirected and find a release that would build instead of destroy."

"Seems simple enough to me. If you are going to be enlightened, then be enlightened." Jinkan shrugged.

"Why think about things when you could just be as you were meant to be? Because you were meant to think! The greatest lesson I ever learned is that the only reason you look for reasons is because you aren't satisfied with what is right in front of you. And maybe that is ok. Acting like humans are out of harmony with nature because we have feelings is an illusion not worth keeping." The Dragon kept going like a madman.

"Be, and know that you are. Think, and realize you cannot know. Why stay trapped in such a cycle when you can just go? Just leave. What is keeping you here?"

[Jihen]

"What keeps me here? Me." He replies.

"My thoughts, my actions... my self. One cannot escape the ground while digging deeper into the soil." He replied with a calm voice.

"Feelings do not make us different from nature. We are the same elements as the rock, the deer, or the wind. But a rock does not breathe, a deer does not fly, and the wind does not pause... A self does not just 'leave'... It must first become something that can leave."

[Mirumoto Jinkan]

"I think you are coming at this the wrong direction. Why should the self exist in the first place to be something? There are a million-billion dreams but the one that is yours is somehow yours? There is a you to have dreams that it is itself? Either you are, or the illusion is. In either case does the wind know anymore than that which you call you?" The Mirumoto took a deep breath and began fanning himself with his hand, despite the chilly temperatures and wind.

"Ignore me, sometimes I say something real."

[Jihen]

“It is quite possible I am taking the wrong perspective. Distinction is the blessing and curse of being human. We create categories… different modes of being… struggle to understand them and divide them from other categories. Some of the greatest mysteries of the Tao are in those that are self-contradictory. The very concept of the distinction of self and others is just such an idea.”

He tilts his head, “That which I can observe serves as my guide. The observations are lessons for me… observations prompt me to unlock the wisdom that already exists in me and around me. And for now… I see me standing here… and you standing here. I see selves… I observe more on top of that, but I do observe that.”

[Mirumoto Jinkan]

"Sure. Selves just being themselves." Jinkan laughed in his nasty high-pitched way. "Well, I guess honest philosophical debate does make things clearer as much as they can be. Perhaps at the end of court we will all spontaneously achieve enlightenment?"

[Jihen]

“May we all stop existing together… If we even existed at all.” He replies with a smile.

[Mirumoto Jinkan]

“May we all stop existing together… If we even existed at all.” He replies with a smile.

"Ah, but only if we get to leave the wheel. I think I have had enough of suffering." Jinkan answered in turn.

"Follow the Way, Jihen-san. May we meet again under better stars." A bow.

[Jihen]

“Farewell Mirumoto-sama. Until our paths cross again.” He returns the bow and to a degree deeper than the one given to him.