Tattoo Scrolls: Master

The Master Scroll is the fifth of the five Tattoo Scrolls, written by Grandmaster Zhang the Burdened during the events of the War of Shadows. In it, teachings of the master-student duality and of the act of teaching itself are distilled that are available only to the initiated disciple.

Like the other Scrolls, the Master Scroll has several properties that mean only great training and preparation allow one to safely read it directly. In fact, its teachings, while self-evident to one who has read the previous four Scrolls, can only be fully internalized when passed on to another. The reader will feel an insatiable urge to teach the Scroll's contents to a disciple, overpowering any other urge or wish. If unprepared, one will find their mind eroded with the force of this urge, becoming little more than a mindless lumbering lesson to never be imparted.

Provided below is a mere transcription of the Scroll, which is understood to not possibly convey the nature of the Scroll in its entirety.

Transcription
Standing at the edge of his lifetime, the Exile, with Self but not Teachings, meditates alone in the mighty Temple.

Familiar gusts of wind pelt the Exile's face.

An old friend is at the door.

But before the Exile can open it, the Dragon is gone. All that is left is a basket full of infantile screams.

The Exile lifts the Child from the basket. He feels her face.

It appears you, the Exile muses, are my final lesson.

Many years pass, and the Child follows the Exile through the temple.

"Where are we going?"

The Exile looks to the mountains.

"To your first lesson, child."

I must teach her the meaning of Kung Fu, the Exile ponders. What in this world can show her such an abstract and deep state of mind?

The Exile leads the Child up into the mountain peaks. They arrive at a perfectly still lake, obscured by fog.

The Exile ponders how the Child may learn from this.

He soon knows the answer, and tells her to step inside.

Ripples disrupt her confused reflection as she dips into the mirror.

"As you walk, observe yourself."

The Child looks down to the water below. Her walking breaks the reflection - she cannot see herself.

"Is that where you are? Are you your reflection?"

The Child thinks, and closes her eyes.

She walks further and further into the lake, feeling her every move.

"Are you truly what you are feeling? Are you the water pushing against your skin?"

The Child thinks further, and ignores sensation.

She wanders deeper into the lake. Her head dips below the surface.

Floating and cold, she observes only her mind.

She feels the commands she gives her body. She imagines her movements, a self-image clearer than the waters she ignores.

When she resurfaces, the Exile smiles.

"I now ask you - how can you look at yourself?"

The Child ponders this, and replies.

"I push, and can only feel the world push back. I look, and can only see the world look back. I speak, and can only hear the world speak back. It is only my mind and soul that I can truly see."

The Exile nods. "Looking outwards at oneself from deep inside - that is the meaning of Kung Fu."

And the Child, baptized in her reflection, learns the Clairvoyance Within.

---

The Child rushes to the Exile one morning. He is meditating atop the Temple.

"I wish to learn more of Kung Fu. Please teach me!"

The Exile opens his blind-but-seeing eyes.

"Have you had breakfast?"

The Child nods.

"Then, wash your bowls."

Agitated but obedient, she agrees and leaves to do so.

The Child returns minutes later.

"I have done this task. What can you teach me?"

The Exile muses. "Have the floors been cleaned?"

The Child says no.

"Then, clean the floors."

Frustrated but still compliant, she agrees and leaves to do so.

The Child returns hours later.

"The floors are swept. I would like to learn Kung Fu now, and do chores later."

The Exile shows surprise.

"But this is your lesson. Do you not see?"

From this, the Child has a great insight.

"Our greatest vice is to live only in predictions and memories. Even as you speak a sentence, you live in the memory of the last word you said and the ambition to say the next. As you train towards a goal, you live in the memory of your prior falters and in the aspiration to fix them.

To feel the eddies and currents of life that touch us in one, infinitesimal moment. To forget the illusion of Time, and to appreciate the world without remembering or predicting. It is this unattainable perfection of merely existing for which we reach - the perfection of Kung Fu."

The Child gains a profound insight, and demands further chores.

And the Exile thus imparts the Gift of the Present.

---

The Child, after many years of training, comes to the Exile with a question.

"I have spent many years in practice. Why is it you cannot simply tell me what you wish to teach? I am sure to understand, at least to some degree."

This brings great shock to the Exile.

"You believe this to be so? Then, I shall ask for a lesson from you."

The Child perks up. This is the day her teachings come to great use.

Blind eyes turn to the sky.

"The sky is cloudy."

The Child is surprised. "What? It is clear."

"Is that so? Then convince me."

The Child thinks for many moons on this question. She returns to the Exile with an idea.

"I ask you to feel the warmth of the sun. Does it not heat your skin? Clearly, a cloudy day would cruelly hide this warm light from you, sentencing you to a day of cold darkness."

The Exile is not convinced.

"Am I not warm because of the fire near me?"

The Child sees no fire. "I do not understand. There is no fire here!"

"Then convince me the fire does not exist."

The Child thinks further.

"You do not feel the warmth of the fire because you are not tired. If a fire was lit, it could only be so if it were dinner time, so we could cook. But we eat at night when we tire, and you neither crave food nor rest!"

The Exile is not convinced.

"Do I not refuse rest because I am already sleeping?"

The Child is irate. "How are you asleep? You speak to me."

"Then convince me you are not a dream."

The Child angers, and pinches the Exile. He jumps back in pain.

"You see? If you dreamed, you would have now awakened. But your sensations have not changed. How can your dream look the same as reality?"

The Exile ponders this, and nods.

"You have convinced me. But what did it take to do so?"

The Child realizes that her words were not enough. Only with sensation and experience could her lesson be given.

And the Exile imparts the Silence of Speech.

---

The Exile, blind-but-still-seeing, looks upon the Child.

"You have learned a great deal. You have been taught of Reflection, the Present and of the Silent Word. I ask you now - what has this made you?"

The Child reflects on this.

"I have become the Student. You, the Master."

Both Master and Student are enlightened, and thus the cycle of teachings repeats itself. As it has forever, and as it shall forevermore.

Knowledge must be passed. Burden must be carried. Life must be lived.

For this, and only this, is the Way of the Master.

These teachings were founded by Master Zhang Ming, House-Bearer of the Thousand Whipsers Pilgrimage.