Sea of Ink Read Free Page A

tightly shut.
    ‘You should paint, not stop breathing.’
    In fact Xuege had great difficulty concentrating on the brush tip and the imaginary midpoint of his circle at the same time. He could not stop and rest because he would waste ink; moreover it was almost harder to hold the brush while standing still.
    Xuege went on and the shining black bristles left behind a thin trace on the paper. After another circle his teacher said, ‘You went in a circle but you did not draw one. Do not make any detours. Go on, improve the circle.’
    The abbot said no more as Xuege completed his third, fourth and fifth circles. Then he forgot to count. Each step became a torture. He was just blindly following his own track.
    The line became ever fatter, for the brush sank lower and lower with Xuege’s vanishing strength. His arms trembled and the brush transferred even the slightest movement onto the paper.
    The abbot now sounded dictatorial: ‘Your line is starting to shudder, Xuege. Let it go on for as long as there is still ink left. Stand up straight. Listen to what I tell you!’
    After another half-turn Xuege’s back started giving way. But all of a sudden he felt the short, sharp stroke of a bamboo cane in his side. He completed the circle. Was it the ninth? Or the tenth? His master’s gaze burnt into his back, but he knew that he would not be able to manage yet another circle.
    Then he collapsed on top of the brush. His body fell onto the cluster of bristles, squashing them so that the last remaining ink flowed out and made large dark stains on the paper as well as on his white robe. He looked like a dying man lying in his own blood.
    When Xuege glanced up, his face contorted with pain, expecting a second, possibly harder stroke of the bamboo cane, he saw his master’s severe expression.
    ‘If you ever wish to become a Master of the Great Ink you must learn to hold the brush firmly. Let it go only when no ink is left. Never before.’

 
    11 For many months he drew large circles with the heavy brush.
    One day the master unexpectedly ordered Xuege to rebuild a derelict monastery complex in a remote spot in the Fengxin mountains.
    Xuege devoted himself to this task with all his energy. The renovation of the temple took six years.
    The new monastery was called Green Cloud.
    From then on he lived in the solitude of the mountains, immersing himself ever deeper in the teachings of the Tao. His responsibilities as the leader of a community of monks prevented him from leaving the Green Cloud for lengthy periods of time, but not from receiving friends and acquaintances as guests.
    One evening he went into the pine forest alone. The mountain peaks were glowing in the evening light. It appeared as if a giant had carved them with a huge knife. The flat rocks looked so clean, as if they had been washed. The stream snaked its way upwards, ending in a mere silver thread.
    When Xuege spotted a swathe of white flowers along the riverbank he took off his shoes, walked over, bent down and greeted them as if they were children. He had a sudden, burning desire to see all the flowers of Jiangxi in one evening. He ran barefoot across the springy floor of the pine forest; he was dancing with the earth. The light and the pines and the stream and the flowers were there for him alone, and in his happiness Xuege forgot his exhaustion and sorrow, and his heart became as light as a feather.
    If you are guided by human feelings you will easily lose your way, a wise saying went, but if you are guided by nature you will rarely go wrong.
    Now he had understood.
    He finally sat down. The place was so quiet and remote; no monk ever found his way here. He thought: Even if I sat here for three hundred years the mountains would not fall.
    A formation of wild geese passed over him like an arrow of feathers seeking to strike desire itself. The stone he was sitting on and the entire ground under him seemed to melt away.
    I’d like to live here for the rest of my life,