“My brothers,” Luc repeated. “Your voices have helped guide my thoughts at this troubled point in our history. I have been too long away from Rinpoche-La yet even just a moment home restores my spirit and clears my mind.”
“Time has no meaning when one has peace,” Yoh Dzu remarked. He was the Lama’s secretary and the voice of the more conservative arm of the Order. His words were part of a familiar litany, a not-so-subtle rebuke to the discord Luc’s actions had created.
“And yet time stalks us even if we have peace. Because peace isn’t a possession, but a state. That is precisely what I want to discuss with all of you. The state of the world and the state of the Order, for the two are more entwined now than ever.”
“That was not always the way,” an ancient monk muttered. “For many generations the world and the Order were separate.”
Luc seized on that comment. “Since our present Lama was given the right to wear the blue robe, he has changed the nature of the Order from passive watchers to active participants. He embarked us on a path of interference, of trying to correct the discrepancies between the oracle and physical reality. I stand before you and say that it was a mistake.”
Several heads nodded. A young monk Luc had coached said, “His mistakes have cost us and they have cost him.”
“Laying blame at the feet of a dying man is not taking a stand,” Dzu scolded.
“It is not blame, brother. It is fact. The world and the Order are no longer separate.” By invoking the Lama’s controversial decision to try to realign the earth’s chi, Luc had carefully sidestepped his own responsibility in drawing attention to the Order. “Even if we stopped now, our presence has already been detected.”
“This was debated many years ago,” Dzu pointed out. “We understood the risk then and accepted it. We all agreed that we had to do something to heal the earth and return the oracle’s accuracy. It is an unfortuante circumstance that we are without the Lama’s guidance when the time came to face the consequences.”
“Perhaps not unfortunate, but auspicious. Unlike our Lama, I have spent a great deal of my life in the outside world. I understand how it works. The La Palma eruption is going to spark unprecedented fear, and what people fear they hate. What they hate, they kill. Word will soon spread about us and how we knew about the volcano. The world leaders cannot lash out at a mountain, but they can come after us.”
“Why would they do that?” an older monk asked innocently. The man had never set foot outside the valley and had been sheltered from the corruptive nature of the world.
“Because that is their way. Startle a snake and it will strike. It doesn’t matter to it that you meant it no harm.”
“But I would not blame the snake,” the elder brother said.
“Nor I,” Luc agreed. “But the outside world does not think like us.”
The old man grasped the analogy. “I think I understand. When I was a young man I once burned my hand picking up a stone that was too close to a fire pit. In anger I kicked out the fire. Afterward I could not understand why I did it, for it was not the fire’s fault.”
Luc smiled. “You were given a taste of human nature’s darker side, one that is amplified outside the valley to the point where nations wage wars over rumors.”
“What can be done?” Dzu asked.
“I do not know, but I fear that we can no longer rely on the monastery’s isolation to protect us.”
“Is that why you and some of the others are carrying weapons?”
“Yes, brother. I fear for our safety.”
“Would you take a life to protect your own?” Dzu asked.
“No,” Luc lied. “But I still debate whether I would do it to defend the oracle.”
The statement sent a shocked murmur through the older monks. The taking of life, either a human’s or that of the lowliest insect, was anathema to everything the Buddhist Order believed.
Luc cut through the chatter. “That is the question that faces us all, the one we must answer before I take my leave of Rinpoche-La.”
“Is our situation truly that dire?” Dzu, who had been Luc’s sharpest critic in the months since the Lama’s stroke, was falling under Luc’s spell.
“It is. We must all recognize that our way of life will soon come to an end. It is how we go forward from this moment that will determine the Order’s ultimate fate.”
“I for one can never kill, no matter the circumstances.” Dzu crossed his arms over his chest as if that settled the discussion.
“And many agree with you,” Luc said. “I would never ask anyone to act against his vows. But I need to know if you would prevent others from acting in ways that you would not? What if they believed that killing to protect the oracle was the right choice? Would you stop them?”
“That question should be easy to answer. Life must take precedence over all other considerations.” Dzu paused. “Even if the oracle was threatened, killing to preserve it is wrong.”
“As wrong as those who may kill to destroy it?”
“Are there degrees to that kind of sin? I don’t know, perhaps. This is a matter I have never contemplated.”
Luc took on a sincere look of sympathy. “It is something I have not stopped thinking about for some time now.” It was a struggle to keep from smirking. He had so twisted logic that he now had the monks thinking about committing murder. “Here is something else for your consideration, something that has occurred to me over time. For one hundred fifty years the Order has had within its power the ability to save countless lives by warning those about to die and yet we did not. By rights those deaths should be on our collective consciences. Is not a lie of omission still a lie? Why then would the deaths of those who come to harm us be more wrong?”
His question was met by silence.
Finally Dzu spoke. “In some ways I hear the voice of our Lama in you, Luc. He stood in this very room when he proposed that the Order heal earth’s chi. He was very convincing and after a short debate we agreed to his plan, although some secretly believed it was a mistake. How do we know that your intentions aren’t also a mistake?”
“You must all agree that passivity is not an option. No matter what we do, the Order is forever changed.”
“I see that, yes.”
“If we do not defend ourselves when they come for us, we will cease to exist. The oracle will be destroyed.”
“So you say.”
“All I am asking is for you to consider that we are worth saving, that we should survive and emerge whole after the eruption.” He turned his attention to the elder monk. “Brother, would you not prevent a man from beating the snake that bit him.”
“Yes, I would.”
“That is all that I ask. I do not blame those of you who wouldn’t protect the snake, but I ask you not to stop those that would.”
The door at the back of the temple room creaked open on its iron hinges. A gust of fresh air swirled in, diluting the cloying smell of the joss sticks. Donny Randall wouldn’t enter the chamber but just his presence at the threshold interrupted the meeting.
“I believe Mr. Randall is here to tell me everything is ready for my trip back to Nepal.” Luc smiled at the assemblage. “Were it that I could stay and pray with you for our Lama’s recovery and for guidance in these troubled times.”
“We shall pray for your speedy return to us, Luc.” Dzu got to his feet and embraced him. “You do the Order proud and while I don’t agree with some of what you said, I know your heart is good and your thoughts pure.”
“Bless you,” Luc replied and hugged the older man more fiercely.
He crossed the carpeted floor and joined Donny. Together they strode down the hallway away from the temple and the reek of incense that burned Luc’s eyes.
“How did it go?” Donny asked.
“Better than I expected.” Luc snickered. “The old men are so confused they don’t know what to do. Even Dzu
