INDRA TECHNIQUE

 

THE LEGEND OF THE INDRA SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

 

It was a sunny morning, the sun was beginning to warm up, and people in the city were trying to hide in the shade of houses and trees. There were only a few vendors standing in the market square. Not far from them, a boy of about 14 was sitting on the ground crying.

 

Qing Hu was crying not so much from the beatings as from resentment. Today, as usual, he was asking for alms when he suddenly caught the eye of some man who was being carried on a stretcher with a red top by servants. The official pointed his finger at Qing Hu and said something to the servants. Two of them rushed to the teenager and started beating him, then took the money and left with the angry official. The boy cried and thought, "Doesn't God see all the injustices being done on earth. Why doesn't he protect the weak, punish the cruel." If Qing Hu were a strong and brave warrior! He would have avenged all of them for his mother, father, and two brothers who were killed by rich officials and soldiers. Qing Hu did not notice how an old man with a long white beard and a staff in his hands approached him. He said nothing to Qing Hu, but just looked him in the eye. And a miracle happened. Qing Hu then could not understand for a long time what the old man had done. The wound on the boy's forehead no longer hurt, and his broken nose no longer ached or bled. The scratches on his hands were gone, as if they had never existed. The old man smiled, took Qing Hu's hand and led the way. They walked for a long, long time. Qing Hu had never been outside the city, much less in the mountains. To all the questions Qing Hu asked the old man, the old man only smiled. And - the amazing thing - Qing Hu did not think about anything, did not worry about going to unknown places and why. With this old man, the boy felt calm and somehow happy. He felt so happy only with his mother and father. The road meandered among the steeps, then steeply went upwards. Finally Qing Hu saw the roofs of buildings in the valley that opened to his view. The boy and the old man had only gone down at night. The building Qing Hu saw from the mountain turned out to be a temple. But what surprised Qing Hu was that there was not a single person in and around the temple. A wet drop fell on Qing Hu's nose and brought him to his senses. He sat on the steps leading into the temple, and the old man who had brought him here was nowhere to be found. Qing Hu called out to him for a long time, not even the birds responded to his cries. Suddenly it began to rain. Whole streams of water crashed to the ground, all accompanied by a thunderstorm like Qing Hu had never seen in his life. White lightning was flashing so painful to the eyes, and thunder was rumbling, tens of thousands of drums. Qing Hu was not frightened by it all. He was somehow calm and felt at home. He was already soaking wet when he decided to go up the stairs to the temple. It was dry and smelled pleasantly of incense. The temple was semi-dark, with only a few candles burning in front of images and statues of the gods. Qing Hu did not know them before he had never seen them, but he worshipped them as his father had taught him. In the middle of the temple stood a huge statue of a beautiful god with a bow and arrow, in his hand he held a lightning bolt. Qing Hu felt something slowly and inexorably pull him toward the statue. He wanted to resist it, but he could not. He walked over to the statue, looked into its eyes, and suddenly a whipping blow knocked him down. The blow was not delivered to the body, rather, it struck directly at the soul, the heart. Qing Hu slowly settled down on the floor and drifted off to sleep. He awoke to a sunbeam breaking through the doorway and tickling his nose. He stood up, looking around. Qing Hu remembered coming to this temple, but of what happened to him next, he remembered nothing else. Qing Hu walked out into the temple courtyard and leaned over the spring to quench his thirst, but recoiled from it like fire. The face of a man dressed as a monk was looking at him from the water. Qing Hu looked around himself and was speechless for a moment. It was not him, but a grown man who appeared to be the abbot of the monastery, for he had the abbot's staff in his hand, which he had not noticed before. In fact, Qing Hu felt that his body was no longer his body. He felt that he had brains in his head like a thousand wise men. He asked himself questions and answered them himself. He marveled at his, or maybe not his, wisdom. In him lived Qing Hu, and at the same time it was a monk, who knows the Great Truth.

 

And this monk was telling him that he needed to give up himself and trust in God, he needed to give people the truth that Qing Hu was given by God. And the more the monk talked about it, the more Qing Hu felt like this monk. Qing Hu did not notice in his musings when the monks came up behind him and bowed respectfully before him. One of them, the oldest, came up to Qing Hu and said: "We have come, Master, lead us." But Qing Hu did not see him; he saw the old man who led him into the temple. The old man said to Qing Hu, "You must impart to them the knowledge given to you by God. Teach them everything you know yourself, God has commanded it." The old man disappeared, and Qing Hu stood looking into the distance for a long time. Then he called the monks and led them into the temple to pay his respects to the lord.