Masao gritted his teeth and took a deep breath.
This time, he was going to ask a truly profound question.
"What is emptiness?"
It was a question that generations of great monks had spent their entire lives trying to comprehend.
Shin-chan looked at him and remained silent for two seconds.
Masao's heart leaped with joy.
He can't answer it after all.
"Emptiness is the feeling of looking at an empty bowl when you're hungry," Shin-chan said. "When you haven't eaten breakfast and stare at that empty bowl, your heart feels empty too. That's emptiness."
Masao froze.
"But that emptiness isn't eternal, because an empty bowl can be filled. Once you fill it with ramen, it isn't empty anymore. So emptiness isn't the end. It's the beginning—the state before the noodles go in."
The abbot slowly opened his eyes.
Something difficult to describe flickered within his gaze.
"This round... Masao loses."
Masao abruptly raised his head.
"But what he said has nothing to do with the meaning in the Buddhist scriptures!"
"The emptiness of Buddhist scripture teaches that all things are empty. What he speaks of is an empty bowl waiting to be filled—within emptiness, all things may yet exist."
Shin-chan scratched his head.
"Am I really that impressive?"
"You possess a heart that is not bound by concepts. Practitioners spend their entire lives trying to break free from attachments that you simply never possessed in the first place."
Masao wanted to argue.
He wanted to say he hadn't lost.
He wanted another round.
But the abbot had already declared the result, and the abbot's judgment was never wrong.
"I lost." Masao pointed at Shin-chan. "But that doesn't mean I acknowledge you! I'll keep training, and one day I'll defeat you fair and square in Zen questioning!"
After saying that, the tight feeling in his chest somehow became even worse.
Losing to someone whose head was filled entirely with ramen was far harder to accept than losing to a true Zen master.
"Benefactor Nohara." The abbot placed the vegetarian cakes on the table. "This is your prize."
"There's so much!"
"The Fire Temple's osmanthus vegetarian cakes are made using blossoms from a three-hundred-year-old osmanthus tree within the temple grounds. They are only prepared twice a year." The abbot smiled. "You may take them home and enjoy them slowly."
The option of "taking them home and enjoying them slowly" did not exist in Shin-chan's mind.
He immediately grabbed one and stuffed it into his mouth.
"What's wrong?" Asuma asked. "Is it so bitter that your face froze again?"
"It's sweet."
"Then why are you making that expression?"
"Because it tastes so good that my brain stopped working."
Shin-chan announced this in a solemn tone bordering on sacred reverence.
"This osmanthus cake has surpassed dango and become the third-greatest food in my heart, right behind ramen and chocolate sticks."
The sweet aroma of osmanthus slowly spread through the meditation room, carrying its light floral fragrance into everyone's noses.
Shin-chan picked up the most intact piece and held it out to Ai.
"Ai, eat this one. The edges are the crispiest. It's so sweet your brain will start spinning."
Ai took a small bite.
The fragrance of osmanthus blended with the soft texture of the rice cake and melted across her tongue.
"It really is delicious."
"Right? Right?"
Shin-chan handed another piece to Asuma.
"You try one too. It's even better than the yokan in the kitchen."
Asuma took a bite without hesitation.
Then his face immediately took on the exact same expression Shin-chan had made.
Shin-chan offered another piece to Masao.
Masao pressed his palms together and stiffened his expression.
"A practitioner must not indulge in the desires of the appetite."
The moment he finished speaking, his Adam's apple quietly bobbed.
His eyes also kept drifting toward the cake.
"Oh. Then I'll eat it."
Shin-chan pulled his hand back and was about to put it into his mouth.
"Wait!"
Masao snatched it away.
"Wasting food is also disrespectful to the Buddha. This humble monk will... reluctantly taste one bite."
The abbot sat nearby, silently observing everything.
"Would the two benefactors be interested in learning one of the Fire Temple's secret techniques?"
"What secret technique?"
"The taijutsu art passed down through generations of the Fire Temple—Thousand-Armed Murder," the abbot said. "It turns defense into offense and transforms an enemy's strength into your own."
Shin-chan swallowed the cake in his mouth.
"Sounds troublesome."
"It is not." The abbot smiled. "Masao had already grasped its foundations by the age of five."
"I'll learn it."
Asuma stepped forward.
The abbot nodded and pressed his palms together.
"Then we begin with the foundation. The essence of Thousand-Armed Murder lies in 'stillness.' The body must be firm as stone, the mind calm as still water. When the enemy attacks, one answers all changes through stillness."
"Stillness?" Shin-chan scratched his head. "I'm good at that. I can lie on a roof all day without moving. Even when Chashu steps on my face, I don't move."
"The stillness I speak of is stillness of the heart. No matter what attack you face, your mind must remain like this Buddha statue—without shock, without fear, without dread."
"It does look really calm. Is that because it doesn't need to eat, so it never has to worry about being hungry?"
"..."
The corner of the abbot's mouth moved slightly.
"Benefactor Nohara, the first step of Thousand-Armed Murder is visualization."
"Visualization?"
"Close your eyes and imagine that you are a mountain. The wind cannot move you. The rain cannot shift you."
Shin-chan closed his eyes and imagined himself as a mountain.
There were lots of trees on the mountain.
There were lots of fruits on the trees.
The fruits ripened and fell to the ground, rolling everywhere.
They looked delicious.
Shin-chan opened his eyes.
"Nope. I can't be a mountain."
"Why?"
"Because fruit falls from mountains, and the moment I see fruit, I want to pick it up."
"Then imagine something else," Asuma suggested from the side. "Something that doesn't drop fruit. Like a rock."
Shin-chan closed his eyes again and imagined himself as a rock.
Rocks were so boring.
They couldn't move.
They couldn't eat.
Forget it.
He opened his eyes.
"I can't be a rock either."
"What now?"
"Rocks are too boring."
"Then imagine yourself as a bowl of ramen."
"A bowl of ramen?"
The abbot said, "The noodles remain in the bowl. The broth remains in the bowl. No matter how the diner outside stirs them, the noodles remain noodles and the broth remains broth. This is what we call stillness."
Shin-chan closed his eyes.
This time, he imagined himself as a bowl of ramen.
The broth was rich tonkotsu.
The chashu was thickly sliced.
The soft-boiled egg had been cut neatly in half.
The chopped green onions were sprinkled in just the right amount.
A diner's chopsticks entered the bowl and stirred.
The noodles were lifted, then dropped back into the soup.
But he was still noodles.
He was still broth.
He was still chashu...
The noodles did not change.
The heart did not change.
Shin-chan opened his eyes.
His gaze was unusually clear.
"I think I understand a little."
"What do you understand?"
"Stillness doesn't mean never moving," Shin-chan said. "It means that even after moving, you can return to where you were. Like noodles being lifted by chopsticks and then falling back into the broth. In the end, that bowl of ramen is still the same bowl of ramen."
Masao's mouth fell open.
"That analogy is obviously complete nonsense, so why does it somehow sound profound...?"
The abbot looked at Shin-chan, a trace of amusement flashing in his eyes.
"Benefactor Nohara, you were born suited to this path."
"What path?"
"Understanding the world in your own way without allowing yourself to be restrained by any framework. That is a state one normally reaches only at the highest level of Thousand-Armed Murder."
"Then can I just learn the highest level right away?"
"The counterattack of Thousand-Armed Murder requires chakra to cooperate with the body. Your heart has arrived there, but your hands have not."
~~~
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