In ancient times when kings protected populaces with hired armies and Celtic magicians counseled royal families on culture, the ways of fickle gods, and decorum, dragons hovered over the lands. These dragons – some noble and some wicked – fought one another for dominion over the skies and retreated to mystical sanctuaries never viewed by human eyes.
During these magic times, most subjects lived in villages and toiled the fields with ox-driven plows while the royals enjoyed the accoutrements of arts, silk robes, and velvet slippers – their stomachs filled with the finest pheasant and sweetest red wine. This separation of position manifested itself with not even a casual word exchanged between peasant and nobility.
In the midst of this backdrop of having and losing, Prince Bam Bam lived with his mother, not in a palace behind buttressed walls, but abutting a village in a humble cottage made of stone and a thatched roof. The four rooms of the cottage although not opulent were neither bare; a rivulet ran through the expanse of the cottage’s backside with moss lining the tree trunks that fortified the stream’s banks. The scene, rather idyllic, echoed a pleasant calm.
And, when the rain fell, the cottage’s roof leaked into copper pots placed by Bam Bam’s mother atop the cottage’s wooden floor. Even during a heavy downpour, the sound of the water hitting the copper pots echoed a charming staccato as the lightning flickered like blinking warning signals from a light house atop a craggily, dangerous rock.
Here, Prince Bam Bam learned of the arts and fortitude from soiled books weathered by centuries of use. While his nature was quiet and thoughtful, he could also entertain a throng of children with versions of the stories his mother told him. He made drawings of charcoal and mixed bark on darkened parchment of warriors fighting dragons although he had never actually seen a dragon or a warrior for that matter. His drawings, although at first rudimentary, resonated a certain sophistication of shading and detail. As he grew older, his drawings became finer and his repertoire broader as he began drawing the village folk happily toiling in the fields waste deep behind tall grains.
One day, playing with his friends, Prince Bam Bam stumbled upon an unusual sight: a simple, yet elegant man sitting cross-legged underneath a stone pine tree. He wore a light blue robe reaching to his knees and flaxen, silken knickers that extended to his ankles; shoes that tapered at the toes upward in a curl; his hair, jet black, straight, and extending just above his shoulders. His face was clean as if his facial hair did not grow but he had an air of an ascetic old man although he looked only 25. His eyebrows were noticeably bushy and arched, and his eyes were deep azure blue, bright, keen, but un-menacing – almost kind. His skin was slightly golden.
As the young man opened one eye, espying the children who surrounded him in a near half-circle, he moved his palms behind him, leaned forward, and let out a short, high-pitched scream. The children scattered instantly while only Bam Bam moved closer, looked straight into the man’s eyes, and then darted right as fast he could to the field nearby on the heels of the other children.
The next day, Bam Bam and his friends, once again, ventured to the same tree, finding their strange acquaintance sitting there as the day before, cross-legged, his eyes closed calmly, and his hands clasped in front of him with his thumbs almost touching. The children, timid from yesterday’s fanfare, peaked behind surrounding trees, and, this time, tiptoed towards him….
During these magic times, most subjects lived in villages and toiled the fields with ox-driven plows while the royals enjoyed the accoutrements of arts, silk robes, and velvet slippers – their stomachs filled with the finest pheasant and sweetest red wine. This separation of position manifested itself with not even a casual word exchanged between peasant and nobility.
In the midst of this backdrop of having and losing, Prince Bam Bam lived with his mother, not in a palace behind buttressed walls, but abutting a village in a humble cottage made of stone and a thatched roof. The four rooms of the cottage although not opulent were neither bare; a rivulet ran through the expanse of the cottage’s backside with moss lining the tree trunks that fortified the stream’s banks. The scene, rather idyllic, echoed a pleasant calm.
And, when the rain fell, the cottage’s roof leaked into copper pots placed by Bam Bam’s mother atop the cottage’s wooden floor. Even during a heavy downpour, the sound of the water hitting the copper pots echoed a charming staccato as the lightning flickered like blinking warning signals from a light house atop a craggily, dangerous rock.
Here, Prince Bam Bam learned of the arts and fortitude from soiled books weathered by centuries of use. While his nature was quiet and thoughtful, he could also entertain a throng of children with versions of the stories his mother told him. He made drawings of charcoal and mixed bark on darkened parchment of warriors fighting dragons although he had never actually seen a dragon or a warrior for that matter. His drawings, although at first rudimentary, resonated a certain sophistication of shading and detail. As he grew older, his drawings became finer and his repertoire broader as he began drawing the village folk happily toiling in the fields waste deep behind tall grains.
One day, playing with his friends, Prince Bam Bam stumbled upon an unusual sight: a simple, yet elegant man sitting cross-legged underneath a stone pine tree. He wore a light blue robe reaching to his knees and flaxen, silken knickers that extended to his ankles; shoes that tapered at the toes upward in a curl; his hair, jet black, straight, and extending just above his shoulders. His face was clean as if his facial hair did not grow but he had an air of an ascetic old man although he looked only 25. His eyebrows were noticeably bushy and arched, and his eyes were deep azure blue, bright, keen, but un-menacing – almost kind. His skin was slightly golden.
As the young man opened one eye, espying the children who surrounded him in a near half-circle, he moved his palms behind him, leaned forward, and let out a short, high-pitched scream. The children scattered instantly while only Bam Bam moved closer, looked straight into the man’s eyes, and then darted right as fast he could to the field nearby on the heels of the other children.
The next day, Bam Bam and his friends, once again, ventured to the same tree, finding their strange acquaintance sitting there as the day before, cross-legged, his eyes closed calmly, and his hands clasped in front of him with his thumbs almost touching. The children, timid from yesterday’s fanfare, peaked behind surrounding trees, and, this time, tiptoed towards him….
…The Blue Dragon alighted on an ocean-side cliff. With her wings arched at first, she pulled them back to measure her weight against the surly rock face. She let out a sigh that ruffled the nearby long grass as she felt the ocean breeze against her magnificent spine. While the rocks cracked under her claws, she could feel the moss as it deepened in color towards the long grass. And, the muted sun, sinking now below the distant ocean line, harmonized the water’s waves, swimming closer to the shoreline, with the light’s orange and pink rays.
Perched along the cliffside, the eternal Baj, haunting the craggily rock, spread her wings, gently curling her feet underneath her belly, and flew toward the dimming sun.
The black-haired gentleman opened one eye and said: “My name is Milarepa. I am a simple man and a traveler.” And, yet, the children did not believe him. He was not simple in any form of the word – this man had no home, no possessions, and seemed quite satisfied fishing food out of the stream and eating clovers and berries. Whereas other grown-ups laughed only at certain points during the day, this man never frowned and laughed unexpectedly from morning to night. He was simply charming and confusing but definitely not simple.
Then, Bam Bam spoke up: “Why do you sit underneath this tree all day doing nothing with your eyes closed?”
Milarepa: “I am emptying myself; I am meditating.”
Bam Bam: “How can you be emptying yourself and also thinking at the same time? This does not make sense.”
Milarepa: “Perhaps I am not emptying myself, perhaps you are right. Let me rephrase: I am calming myself.”
Bam Bam: “Why do you need to calm yourself?”
Milarepa: “So that I can slow my perceptions to really understand how things work.”
Bam Bam: “But, yet, this again is not an answer.”
Milarepa: “I am sorry. What I mean to say is that I slow myself down for a moment so that I can speed myself up again.”
Bam Bam: “Like water that speeds itself around the rocks in the stream?”
Milarepa: “Somewhat. Yes. Correct. You are right.”
The other children smiled together looking at one another. As their excitement mounted, the wind blew downward toward the stone pine’s trunk where the children surrounded Milarepa almost hovering around him, some sitting with their legs cross-legged and others with knees bent on the mossy soil. As the wind now lifted toward the tree’s leaves, Milarepa said: “Now it is time to play.”
Bam Bam: “Tell us more. How do your thoughts move like the water and the wind?”
And, with a sweet smile, Milarepa said: “Child, you ask too many questions all at once. But, the answer is quite boring. First, you control your breathing in a way that seems quite unnatural. When you breathe in through your nose, push your stomach out. And, when you breathe out your nose, push your stomach in.”
Bam Bam: “That seems quite easy.”
Milarepa: “Let me continue – and, when you breathe in, imagine the air as the pure light from a candle in the darkness. And, then, when you breathe out, imagine the air taking everything bad out of your body, like smoke from the fire.”
Bam Bam: “This is very easy indeed.”
Milarepa: “Simply, all in all, breath out, push your stomach in. Breathe in, push your stomach out.
Bam Bam: “What of the candlelight and the smoke?”
Milarepa: Breath in, imagine the air as candlelight, push your stomach in. Breath out, the air as smoke, push your stomach in. It is simple; this is the first step to make your thoughts like water and the wind, and you will become like water and the wind.”
With the last word passing through his lips, Milarepa sprang up almost softly and began climbing the tree limb by limb faster than anyone the children had ever seen. He disappeared under the foliage and then suddenly, the wind stopped blowing and the air became very still. Bam Bam cried out to Milarepa, but his inquisition was only met with silence.
…The blue dragon felt the wind carry its weight as it flew through the clouds; its lungs still as if filled with condensation. Like a lone albatross gliding across the ocean line, the Baj flew into a cloud...breathed in and then sighed as gently as a hummingbird’s wings fluttering over a flower petal….
From the dense foliage of the treetops, a blue dragon flew forth. Prince Bam Bam and the children looked up in awe as the blue dragon seemed to hover above them. Prince Bam Bam fearing for the safety of his new found friend, Milarepa, called out to him: “Milarepa, Milarepa, where are you? Are you safe? Milarepa, do you see the blue dragon hovering above the trees? Milarepa, why don’t you answer? Milarepa, where are you?”
The seemingly unending silence came to an end when Prince Bam Bam and the children heard Milarepa’s voice echoing down from above. “Children I am fine, I am here above you. Do not be afraid!”
Prince Bam Bam said: “Milarepa, where are you? I hear you but I cannot see you:”
Milarepa answered: “But of course you can see me, I am here, hovering above you, I am the blue dragon that you can see, I am the voice that you hear.”
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