He took a deep breath and asked, "There are many like Buddha, some are sitting, some are standing, and others in different poses. But why does Mara have only one pose?"
The sage smiled faintly, his wrinkled face unmoving, like a calm lake untouched by wind. "Next question," he said softly.
The boy frowned but didn't argue. He knew that tone, once the sage decided not to speak, no force in the world could make him.
He paused, thinking of something else that had been troubling him. "Then… what should I do after this? I've only learned the basics. Where should I go next? If I keep practicing, will I reach it one day?"
The sage looked at him with eyes that seemed both kind and piercing. "Reach what?" he asked.
"The end," the boy said quickly. "The goal. Enlightenment. Whatever lies beyond these lessons."
The sage smiled again, eyes half-closed. "You think the road ends?"
The boy hesitated. "Doesn't it?"
"The road ends only for those who stop walking," the sage murmured. "For those who believe there is an end, they will find it, and it will be emptiness. But for those who keep walking, even in circles, the path keeps unfolding like an endless lotus."
The boy's gaze dropped to the ground. "Then how long do I have to walk on that road to reach the end?"
"Until your feet forget they are walking," the sage said, smiling once more.
The boy chuckled dryly, half in disbelief. "You always say things I can't understand."
The boy sighed and tried another approach. "Then answer me this, why do these bell fruits have no taste, but after eating them I never feel hungry?"
"Because," said the sage, "you keep searching for sweetness with your tongue. But what feeds you lies beyond taste. Hunger is not always for food."
The boy fell silent. He plucked one of the bell fruits from the branch beside them, bit into it, and frowned. It was bland as ever. Yet when he swallowed, a strange calm filled his chest, and his body felt light again.
He looked up at the sage. "Then these two, Buddha and Mara are they really so different? Look, both idols are curved like those koi fish you showed me. If I turn them side by side, they almost become one shape. And the wood you gave me, two different colours, are they not just the same tree, split in half?"
The sage's lips curved into a deeper smile. "Harmony," he whispered.
That one word hung in the air like the lingering chime of a temple bell. Then, without warning, he closed his eyes.
The boy waited. One minute passed. Two. "Sage?" he called softly. But there was no reply.
When the boy bowed to him again and lifted his head, everything had changed. The sage was gone. The tree was gone. Even the small wooden rack the he built to measure time had vanished. The air itself felt different, thinner, clearer, filled with a strange ringing silence.
Only a single piece of bark lay on the grass where the sage had sat. Lines of glowing words slowly carved themselves upon its surface:
"Do you not want to know what you will do now? Why not check around you? What do you see around you?"
The boy blinked and looked around. Nothing but trees. Deer grazing in the distance. A river glittering softly where he bathed each morning. Birds sang faintly in the branches.
He walked toward the river and whispered, "Nature."
He turned back, when the letters on the bark began to move, rising like freed dust motes. The invisible glue that bound them lost its hold. Some floated upward into the air; others drifted toward his face. A few entered his eyes, burning like tiny sparks.
Then his mind slowly returned to reality, as though surfacing from the depths of a still lake. The trance faded, and the world around him began to breathe again, the wind rustling through the leaves, the murmur of the river at a distance, the distant cry of a bird echoing like a fading thought. He blinked and looked down at the wooden bark lying before him. The glowing letters that had vanished moments ago were beginning to form again, curling into sentences as if written by an invisible hand.
He leaned closer. The bark seemed to hum softly, and the words appeared one by one —
"You have a better teacher than me, nature itself. There is no greater teacher than it. Nature is full of beauties, like a mother who shelters her child within her arms, like a girl whose eyes carry both the calm of rivers and the storm of skies. Every leaf whispers a story, every breeze carries a secret. Every shadow has its own reason for being dark."
The boy read each word slowly, his heart strangely heavy and calm at the same time. The letters shimmered faintly, and his reflection on the bark's polished grain seemed to breathe with the words themselves.
The message continued —
"If you ever find that it is not enough, then try to look again, but from a different angle. Do not demand perfection, for even the gods have flaws in their works. See through your own eyes, find the imperfections that no one else can see, and make them beautiful in your way, in your strokes, in your art, in your silence."
He stopped reading for a moment. The forest seemed to listen too. The leaves rustled softly, like an audience murmuring in agreement.
The next line appeared —
"But remember, never harm what gives you inspiration. Do not cut what breathes. There are many like you who will come to seek what you now hold, but not all will find it. If you find beauty in a flaw, let it be. Perhaps what seems broken to you is whole to another. And what seems whole to you may crumble in someone else's hands. Every view is true, every truth partial."
The boy's eyes glistened. "Then what is truth, Sage?" he whispered unconsciously, forgetting that the sage was gone.
The wind stirred, and a voice, or perhaps a memory, seemed to answer within him: "Truth is the river, not the reflection."
The words struck deep. He knelt on the grass, still holding the bark, and closed his eyes. The scent of wet soil, the warmth of sunlight filtering through the branches, the hum of insects, all of it began to feel alive, as though he had never truly noticed them before.
The glowing letters shifted again —
"In the process of making art, there is no end. There is only flow. You are just a pebble in the sea of knowledge, small, yes, but capable of creating ripples that last beyond you. Do not struggle to outshine the ocean; instead, let the ocean move through you. Flow with it. Learn, create, think and one day, without seeking, you may find harmony."
He breathed out slowly. The words were fading again, but their warmth stayed. He placed his hand gently over the bark. "Because even God's works have flaws…" he murmured.
At that very moment, a leaf drifted from now where, landing softly near his cheek. Its delicate fall caught his eye, and for a heartbeat, he felt as though the leaf itself had chosen to remind him of something, that even falling could be graceful.
He turned back to the bark, and once again, new letters began to carve themselves upon it, burning faintly in soft gold.
"Did you feel your eyes pause at certain places while reading?" the bark asked silently. "You need not answer. I already know. Wherever your eyes stopped, there your soul also paused. Remember those points, for they are the gateways of your imagination. Begin from there."
The boy read in silence, his breath shallow. The forest air felt thick, charged with something divine.
The script continued —
"You must know, imagination has power greater than nature itself. But power is not meant to overpower, it is meant to blend, to coexist. Use your imagination to see what the eyes cannot, but always be humble before the mother that gave you sight. Nature is the first artist, and you are her echo. Take what she offers, the light, the shadow, the rhythm of waves, the silence between songs and let them live again through your vision."
The boy's eyes filled with a strange light, as though a secret long forgotten was being remembered deep within him.
The bark pulsed once more, and the words moved fluidly like flowing ink —
"Through this union, you will find what your heart deserves, what your mind cries for, what your hand aches to paint, and what your soul longs to free. The world does not ask you to understand it — only to see it. If you can see with love, you will create with truth."
He felt something break open in his chest, not pain, but a quiet release. Around him, the forest seemed to shimmer anew. The branches swayed as if whispering blessings, the sunlight danced through the leaves, and the river's distant hum now sounded like a song composed for him alone.
The words on the bark glowed brighter for a brief moment, and then, as before, lifted softly into the air. They twirled upward like spiralling petals, rolling and folding into the unseen sky until the bark was once again bare, unmarked, as if none of it had ever been written.
The boy sat there for a long time, holding the bark against his heart. For the first time, he did not feel the absence of his teacher. He felt his presence everywhere, in the breath of the wind, the murmur of the river, and in the quiet rhythm of his own heartbeat.
...................
The bark in his hands began to soften, the rough edges melting into a dark, glistening flow. It dripped through his fingers like liquid chocolate, sinking quietly into the earth beneath him. The ground absorbed it without resistance, and within moments, the soil began to shimmer faintly as though it remembered something sacred. Then, right before his eyes, a small sprout broke through the surface, tender, fragile, trembling in the breeze. Its tiny leaves opened toward the sunlight as if it had waited lifetimes just for this moment.
Then came a gentle voice, the sage's voice, clear as morning bells, yet distant like an echo through a dream.
"Just remember," it said, "this is where you started your little journey. Grow with it, nurture it, and make it yours. Embrace all pain and love, but never forget to leave a small space for yourself. That space will be your peace, your breath, your truth. Be happy, always. Goodbye… my friend."
The boy's eyes glistened. He whispered softly, "Goodbye… Sage."
He rose slowly, brushing the soil from his hands. Behind him, he saw something resting near the roots of a tree, a wooden hat, the very one he had carved with the sage. It sat gently upon a wooden sword, the sunlight catching its edge as though blessing it. Two bell fruits rested beside it, round and pale, reflecting a quiet serenity.
He placed the hat upon his head, and took the wooden sword in hand.
Then he turned toward the path ahead. The air was fresh, filled with the scent of wet grass and morning mist. The season's wind blew softly across the plains, brushing past his legs as though guiding him forward. With each step, the murmur of life followed, the calls of distant birds, the scurry of deer running alongside the edge of the road, and the gentle hum of insects waking to a new dawn.
When he looked up, the sky stretched endlessly above, and then, he saw something that stole his breath. A great shape moved among the clouds — a colossal whale made of vapor and light, swimming gracefully through the heavens. Its body glimmered with faint blue veins of lightning as it arched and dove back into the ocean of clouds. The boy lifted his hand instinctively, waving to it as one would to an old friend. The whale's tail vanished in a soft shimmer, leaving behind a trail of drifting mist that fell like blessings over the land.
He smiled faintly but said nothing. The path stretched onward, winding like a memory, empty yet full of presence. No sage. No voices. Only the rhythm of his own footsteps, mingling with the heartbeat of the earth.
By the end of the day, he arrived at a strange place where the wind grew silent. The path opened into a wide expanse of stone and dust, framed by distant mountains capped in white snow. At the center stood an ancient gate, circular, vast, and broken.
The right side of the gate rose tall but cracked, its stone surface covered in intricate carvings. At its crown was the half-broken face of a Buddha, serene yet incomplete, the missing half lost to ages. The left side was bent, lower, as though bowing in sorrow. Upon it was carved with small face attached with demonic ear, some parts of lips, cheek. It was like cut down by something and below of that left gate part cut part of fierce face of Mara was resting, but only his expression twisted yet strangely calm, one eye closed and the other gazing endlessly ahead.
Their faces, half peace, half chaos, seemed to merge through the crack of the gate, as though one could not exist without the other. The boy stepped closer. On the gate's threshold, words were inscribed in a forgotten tongue, faintly glowing in the dimming light. Between the letters, veins of gold dust shimmered, moving like living light.
On both inner walls of the arch, scenes of divine and demonic wars stretched outward, gods clashing with serpents, dragons devouring suns, celestial dancers suspended between the two. The carvings were alive in their stillness. If you have ear, you could almost hear the clang of divine metal, the whisper of chants that once shook heavens.
The left half of the gate sat upon a massive stone chariot pulled by ten dragons, each carved with immaculate detail, scales sharp, eyes hollow, their mouths frozen in mid-roar. From the cracks in their mouths grew red-violet flowers, their petals curling upward as if yearning for the sun. The right side, in contrast, rested upon a carved lotus base. From it, a cluster of green bushes had taken root over centuries, their vines curling up the stone and spilling blossoms of pale blue across Mara's face.
A breeze passed through, whistling gently through the hollow carvings. It almost sounded like laughter.
He stepped back and stared again. The gate looked different now, like a mirror of his own journey. The Buddha's half-face whispered of serenity and wisdom, while Mara's glared of desire, struggle, and truth. Between them was a path shrouded in mist, impossible to see through.
He took a breath. "Maybe this is the road he spoke of," he murmured. "The one that never ends."
He smiled faintly and adjusted the wooden hat on his head. The wind stirred again, lifting the edges of his robe. The broken gate shimmered faintly under the setting sun, its cracks glowing as though filled with liquid gold. The dragons on one side, the lotus on the other, the flowers blooming amidst ruin, everything pulsed in a quiet, divine rhythm.
To be Continued…