The ninth vibration and other storiesBeck, L. Adams (Lily Adams)
Science
The ninth vibration and other stories
Beck, L. Adams (Lily Adams)
Fantasy fiction; Paranormal fiction; Short stories
So, looking upward to the heavens, he beheld the Infinite Buddha,
high and lifted up in a great raying glory. About Him were the exalted
Bodhisattwas, the mighty Disciples, great Arhats all, and all the
countless Angelhood. And these rose high into the infinite until they
could be seen but as a point of fire against the moon. With this golden
multitude beyond all numbering was He.
Then, as His Majesty had seen in the dream of the night, the
wood-cutter’s daughter, moving through the flowers like one blind that
gropes his way, advanced before the Blessed Feet, and uplifting her
hands, did adoration, and her face he could not see, but his heart
went with her, adoring also the infinite Buddha seated in the calms of
boundless Light.
Then enlightenment entered at his eyes, as a man that wakes from sleep,
and suddenly he beheld the Maiden crowned and robed and terrible in
beauty, and her feet were stayed upon an open lotos, and his soul knew
the Senju Kwannon Herself, myriad-armed for the helping of mankind.
And turning, she smiled as in the vision, but his eyes being now clear
her blinded eyes were opened, and that glory who shall tell as those
living founts of Wisdom rayed upon him their ineffable light? In that
ocean was his being drowned, and so, bowed before the Infinite Buddha,
he received the Greater Illumination.
How great is the Glory of Kwannon!
When the radiance and the vision were withdrawn and only the moon looked
over the trees, His Majesty rose upon his feet, and standing on the
snow, surrounded with calm, he called to the Dainagon, and asked this;
“What have you seen?”
“Augustness, nothing but the country wench and moon and snow.”
“And heard?”
“Augustness, nothing but the harsh voice of the wood-cutter’s daughter.”
“And felt?”
“Augustness, nothing but the bone-piercing cold.” So His Majesty adored
that which cannot be uttered, saying;
“So Wisdom, so Glory encompass us about, and we see them not for we
are blinded with illusion. Yet every stone is a jewel and every clod
is spirit and to the hems of the Infinite Buddha all cling. Through the
compassion of the Supernal Mercy that walks the earth as the Bodhisattwa
Kwannon, am I admitted to wisdom and given sight and hearing. And what
is all the world to that happy one who has beheld Her eyes!”
And His Majesty returned through the forest.
When, the next day, he sent for the venerable Semimaru that holy recluse
had departed and none knew where. But still when the moon is full a
strange music moves in the tree tops of Shiobara.
Then His sacred Majesty returned to City-Royal, having determined
to retire into the quiet life, and there, abandoning the throne to a
kinsman wise in greatness, he became a dweller in the deserted hut of
Semimaru.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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