The Pains of Two Arrows

Astra drew in close and lightly placed a hand on Stacy's elbow. "I'll go in and talk to him first," said Astra quietly. "He'll want to see you alone."

"Who is the Dai-Oshi?" asked Stacy.

"He's the Abbot," said Astra. Stacy didn't find that answer particularly satisfying. "He'll help us, Stacy. He's helped us before."

Astra went through an ornate door at back of the temple and Stacy waited next to the statue of Buddha.

She gently stroked the side of her face. It still felt tender from where she had been hit and she hoped that it didn't come out in a big bruise.

A boy dressed in yellow robes was sweeping the floor around the statue. "When you engage with your pain you make it into two pains." He stopped sweeping and looked at Stacy. "Just as if they were to shoot a man with an arrow and, right afterward, were to shoot him with another one, so that he would feel the pains of two arrows, one from the body and one from the mind."

"So I need to ignore the pain and it will go away?" asked Stacy.

"No, if you try to ignore it, the pain will follow you because you are still bound to the physical. Instead go through the pain and when you emerge on the other side you will realize the truth."

"And what is the truth."

"That there is only mind," said the boy as if it was obvious and went back to sweeping the floor.

Astra emerged from the door. "The Abbot will see you now."

1. The Abbot

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