Tians’ triumphal trumpeting of his awesome arrival at level six was met with a resounding “Oh,” from the Brothers of the West Town Temple. Disappointing, but he was used to it at this point. Brother Su gave him a single encouraging pat on the back. Tian would just have to make do with that.
Tian’s shift in the hospital was unremarkable. The horrors and miseries of the place become part of the working environment. Like the dump- never nice, but there was a sort of numb comfort in the familiarity.
He did his best. He always did his best, of course, but there was something quite conscious and deliberate about it now. When he had to shift someone between beds, he lifted them very carefully, minimizing their pain. He focused on shaping his voice, trying to sound soothing and authoritative. It wasn’t very good, but it was the best he could do. He moved quickly to collect medicine for the doctors without raising a ruckus in the halls. He cleaned thoroughly, not neglecting even the hard to reach corners. Not minding when the best way to reach those corners was to scrub on his hands and knees with a rag.
It felt important to be doing his best today. He could do more today than he could yesterday, so he should do more. He couldn’t wrap words around it beyond “It’s the right thing to do.” Also, for some reason, it really exhausted that disciplinary squad member. So it was probably worth doing for that reason too.
At the end of his shift, Tian caught brother Wong in the break room.
“Brother Wong, someone said I was an ascetic cultivator earlier today. What is that?”
“An example of adjective abuse.”
Tian gave Brother Wong a look of bewilderment. His senior relented and elaborated.
“An ascetic is someone who lives according to very strict discipline and self denial. Of the top of my head, I’d say no wealth in any form, no food beyond the absolute bare minimum to sustain life, definitely no alcohol or meat, probably no flesh of any sort, no sex certainly and very likely no contact with the opposite gender whatsoever, strict schedules of prayer and meditation, ritual self abuse in the form of whippings, ordeals, fasts, carrying heavy weights, the list is endless. So while you may be one of the less materially motivated cultivators in the Depot, calling you an ascetic is…?”
“An example of adjective abuse, Brother Wong.”
“Exactly. You take after Brother Fu more than you do most of the rest of us- frugal, not ascetic.”
Tian frowned. The word frugal nudged a memory, but he couldn’t bring it to mind.
“So what does frugal mean?”
“Hmm. I’m pretty sure you have heard someone mention this in a lecture- the three treasures of the Dao are Compassion, Frugality and Humility.”
“Yes! That was it! That exact phrase.” It had been Grandpa Jun that had told him that, but Tian was used to leaving those sorts of details out.
“Right. And the first of those virtues is compassion.”
“So… what is compassion?” Tian was starting to feel a bit adrift.
“Compassion is the recognition that we all share a common origin. Every single thing in the universe is interconnected with every other thing. Your suffering is my suffering. Your triumph is my triumph. If you eat well, my belly is full. Although you can see how this would quickly become ridiculous if taken to an extreme. My starving to feed you would be considered compassionate, certainly, and quite in keeping with filial virtue, but it would also result in you starving because I am starving, leaving us no better than we were to begin with.”
“Or someone refusing to feed someone else for that same reason. You don’t need food, I’m eating for all of us.”
“Right, though that would lead to virtues two and three- frugality and humility.”
“Well, I still don’t know what frugality really means.” Tian scratched the back of his neck.
“Frugality means only taking what you need, and nothing in excess. That can be monetarily, but in other senses too. For example, eating just enough rice to fill your belly, but not so much that you feel bloated. That leaves enough for other people to eat. Wearing solid, long lasting clothes made out of cheap fabrics rather than easily damaged, but beautiful and expensive, silks. Again, that way, everyone can wear decent clothes.”
“Using a sect-made weapon rather than questing around for the legendary hook swords of King Ming.”
“Kind of thing, yes. Though again, all within reason. If the hook swords are exactly what you need and no more than you need, it would be perfectly reasonable for you to go and get them. It’s just that, are there really no alternatives?” Brother Wong’s pointy smile seemed to be aimed at the entire Inner Court.
“Right. Which would also extend to humility, I guess.”
“Yep. The ancients described it as “Not needing to be first under Heaven,” or words to that effect. You are no better than anyone else, and no worse either. It flows back into frugality. You don’t need more than others, so you take only what you need. You leave the rest for everyone else. Not just your friends, everyone. Which rolls back into compassion. Everyone is worthy of your care. Everyone is worthy of your empathy. As you are worthy of theirs.”
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Wong spoke in a calm voice, but they both heard the fishhooks hanging off those words. They were in a hospital, and not one person had ever come here for maternity care. Each and every patient had been hurt in the field.
“Everyone, Brother Wong?”
“Yes. Even the heretics. You can say we are bad daoists, or hypocrites, or you could finesse it with some sort of ‘being kind to the enemy is cruel to ourselves,’ but the plain fact is that I hate heretics. I hate them with every fiber of my being, and I know you do too. There isn’t a doctor in this building that would piss down a heretic’s throat if their lungs were on fire. Not one of us would risk saving that life. And yet, compassion truly is the first virtue of the dao. And we all struggle with it. Every cultivator struggles with it. As we do with frugality and humility.”
Tian opened his mouth- he definitely had opinions about this, but soon closed it again. He quickly found his thoughts twisting around and around. To be compassionate to the enemy, to see the heretic not as an enemy but as a brother, would no doubt doom the mortals in the nearby kingdoms. Nobody who cultivates by means of human sacrifice is capable of being compassionate to others. So would compassion to the heretics be cruelty to the mortals who look to Ancient Crane Mountain for protection?
But in the face of the eternity and totality of existence that was the Dao, was one life really worth more than another? He instinctively felt that absolutely some lives were worth more than others, but he kept finding himself back in front of the Dao. Something so big and so comprehensive, there was no escaping it.
“In the beginning there was primal chaos, which gave rise to yin and yang, which gave rise to the five elements, which gave rise to all things.” Tian murmured, trying to wrap his feelings around something his mind struggled to grasp. “And one day, it will all flow in reverse- everything reuniting into primal chaos and the Dao.”
“One day. Today, I spent four hours trying to stop a cursed acid compound from destroying even more of a good sister’s internal organs. With rare, powerful medicine and careful cultivation, over decades, she may regain the ability to eat and excrete without special tools and medicine. Having children would be even more unlikely, though not completely impossible, and it would only take a medium-sized miracle for her to regain the use of her legs and her right arm. We stabilized her. With constant care and medical attention, she could live for quite a long time. I think she is going to commit suicide before the dawn.”
“I am… so sorry, Brother Wong.”
“For me or for her?”
“Both of you. But… truly…” Tian looked away.
“Mostly for me, because my pain is real to you, and her pain is words. Words you can relate to what you have seen in the hospital, relate to your own suffering, but she isn’t real to you. You don’t know her. So you care more about the person you do know.” Brother Wong's voice was mild. Something about his conversational tone left lashes across Tian’s back.
“Yes. I feel ashamed, and I don’t know why because I also don’t think there is anything wrong about caring for you more than a stranger.”
“Cultivation is a hell of a thing, isn’t it? Compassion and hatred and the interconnectedness of all things. What a damn mess.”
It was impossible to study that afternoon. Tian sat on the dirt behind the hospital. His books were spread out in front of him, and for all the sun’s light he couldn’t read a word. Half the time he was just staring out into nothing.
“The three treasures of the Dao- compassion, frugality and humility. Which of these things do you think describes a cultivator, Grandpa Jun?”
All of them. None of them. There are two more words that you should consider here- orthodox and heresy. Orthodox can be defined a few ways, but “traditional,” or “usual” or most particularly “what is officially established as right and true” are probably good enough for now. Heresy, on the other hand, can be defined as a belief that opposes, or even just does not conform with, the orthodoxy. A heretic is, therefore, simply someone who opposes, rejects or just doesn’t match up with the orthodoxy.
“I don’t think I can stomach calling it “simply” anything. Not with all the things they have done. Not with what I’m seeing every day.”
Seems pretty simple to me. Think it over more.
He tried, but he kept coming back to that disastrous commerce raid. Where was the compassion there? Where was the compassion for his Earthly Realm brothers and sisters? When he sat with Brother Long through his last night, perhaps that was compassion, but so what? Wasn’t he dead anyway? All the people he gave first aid to, all the lives he saved, didn’t they die anyway? And yet somehow, he and Hong, the ones who hid, survived and collected the rewards. And the one who earned best was the one who spent their lives most easily- the great hero Ku.
A person who achieved great merits for the sect. Who tamed a mighty monster, and slew a great villain while weakening, very slightly, the power of Black Iron Gorge through sect-sponsored banditry.
So damn compassionate. So compassionate, so frugal, so humble, it made Tian want to puke. But somehow, somehow, the heretics were worse. It seemed like it shouldn’t be possible, but they were.
Heretics turned mortals into plague carriers, corpse poison bombs, and gu breeding grounds. They tortured and killed for art, and sport, and their dao. They made nothing, grew nothing, cherished nothing that didn’t fuel their cultivation. From what he could see, the path of the heretic was to climb to the heavens on a mountain of corpses.
They only gave a damn about compassion, frugality and humility to the extent that they could exploit it in others. For the heretics, the three virtues were weapons to use, not goals to strive for.
Tian’s mind caught on that idea. It felt rather like stubbing his toe on a rock that was always there, yet he had somehow failed to see. It really was that simple, wasn’t it?
The orthodox cultivators, Ancient Crane Monastery very much included, genuinely believed in the three supreme virtues. They considered them the essence of morality. Traits to be cultivated. They looked at the whole messed up state of the world, realized that compassion for one was often cruelty to another and they just… did their best.
Tian buried his face in his hands. Even he didn’t know if he was laughing or crying.