Discussing "A Jar of Myrrh"

It was warm. I wanted to take a ride while I had the chance.

I cleared the furthest tunnel. My skin pricked at the base of cold that the night was trying to rise above. Even though there was only a sliver of moon, the stars and the faint glow of the clouds helped me make the outline of things.

Including a man sitting on a reed mat, robes clouding out, with a scroll spread between his crossed legs.

I figured it wouldn't hurt to check, even though there was only one person who it could be.

"No candles?"

He looked up. Towards the very edge of his face I could see the tip of a fold of a smile.

"I have no need."

I couldn't even see the ink on the scroll.

"You know why there's the saying 'blind as a monk', right?"

He looked back down at his scroll, rolling closed one slat and opening another.

"Only because some monks strain their eyes while attempting to read. If you relax and allow your eyes to adjust to the darkness, then the words come."

I guess you'd trust a monk on such matters. It took me a moment to realize that I myself was straining to make out the words on the scroll. I bent in a little further but did try to relax my eyes.

"What is it?"

"The Nine-Point Citadel. It's not terribly interesting, but Master Tokei recommended it." He paused for a moment, as if to pull himself from a thought. "It assumes that the self-constructive view of building spirituality is dominant over the whole-constructive view, which is a point of view which I have never been able to accept unconditionally." He

"And the thesis?"

Arihitsu rolled the scroll up and stood to stretch. "Mm, it's terribly boring. I actually have a better question for you. Have you ever read A Jar of Myrrh?"

This was akin to asking me if I had practiced with a bow. "I have."

"Do you remember the last words of the peasant-woman, just before the closing narration?"

I looked up towards the stars. "I would have to paraphrase. It was something like 'In birth, in marriage, in mourning, in death, in all the points of my childrens' lives, and for generations thereafter, may this jar of myrrh serve as a simple gift to the gods.'"

"'Serve to mark the providence of the gods', but that's close enough. But it's the plain moral of the story for all those who failed to pick up on it before. So when did you pick up on it yourself?"

That was.... What? Not what I was expecting. I had to sift through all the few memories I had of reading the book, running the story through my mind's eye and trying to pick up how I was feeling at the time. I'm sure I had a few events mixed up. It came to me, but not without a great deal of confidence.

"Ah, yes. I guess it was during that long section towards the end, when it was held in the merchant's manor. It was the part where Unoki dresses up as a knight and beds the merchant's wife."

Arihitsu pursed his lips and nodded. "That's about the usual place, somewhere around there. Now, where would you think that a lifelong monk of my order would draw the conclusion?"

I began to see where he was going with this, though I could not see the end of it. "At... the point where the corrupt abbot starts flogging the thug in order to steal the jar."

He shook his head, fully taking up the manner of a teacher. "Not quite. It's a little before that, when Tanoda, the thug, murders Aoki, the tanner. Now, where would the wisest man in the world, having never seen nor heard of the book, draw the line?"

Now I was completely lost. He couldn't mean Master Mubo, could he? I didn't think that Hachirantei-ists paid much attention to the secular philosophies. Guess it wouldn't hurt to give it a shot.

"Upon the first person finding it not immediately giving it to the temple."

"A good guess, but no. I was once told by a very learned Median priest that the authors of the Classics would have figured it out straightaway by the fact that the first two sentences of the book had a poorly-constructed meter."

I... guess that made sense. "And, ah... what did you think of that statement?"

At this point he smiled as I imagine that he would have smiled back then. "I told him that if the authors of the Classics had read the book, they would have thrown it out straight-away because of said poorly-constructed meter." He grinned and his lips parted just in the middle, a joyous serenity breathing from them. "He was, as you say, miffed. Now, I believe that you were taught that the book was constructed like a seashell, with adjacent stories spiraling outwards in greater size but with similar dimensions."

I nodded.

"I believe that such an interpretation can be applied to the interpretations of the book as well. In the smallest chamber are those who learn only at the end. The next chambers consist of those who learn only when the transgressions are great, then when the transgressions are lesser, and then finally the largest chamber is for those who recognize a purposeful stylistic error at first sight."

Alright, that makes sense. He continued, however.

"However, step back for a moment, if you will. Your nose is, in fact, too close to the shell. What you thought was the largest chamber is in fact much smaller than you imagined. There are further chambers beyond, coiling outwards forever. Remember how I cast aspersions on the priest's interpretation of Master Mubu. This is not out of disrespect for the Master, but because I recognized that the priest's sense of competition, his desire to be the one who wished to have the 'perfect' understanding of the text, was far too narrow a goal. It is the same way that the characters of the story wished to possess the jar of myrrh, not for any spiritual purpose, but to enrich and debase themselves. It is in the spreading the simpler interpretations holistically, achieving peace and compassion with one's neighbors, that one's Work should be measured, not crude self-construction. Do you see now why I do not much care for The Nine-Point Citadel?"

I could only stare at him for a while, at him and through him into the meaning of his words, which I still did not quite grasp. I scratched my neck.

"I may," I said. It had grown too warm for me. "Thank you for taking the time to educate me, Master. You do me far too much honor in doing so."

I decided to reconsider my ride for tonight.