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I was born in the 33rd year of the King of Ilbon under what were said to be auspicious skies: the first and only son of the chief of a provincial border town. My name was to be constituted by two Han characters, NAO, meaning to repair or heal, and YA, being an arrow. I am not sure what my father intended by this unusual combination. While we could hardly be said to be of noble stock, my position was such that, unlike my peers, I was educated in Han letters and the Buddhist scriptures from a young age. I was aware of my superior position, and, frankly (although not without gratitude to the gods), anticipated an easy life. It was not fated to be so, the Mongols being the gods' chosen instrument for punishing some unknown karmic default of our people. In the mid-summer of my nineteenth year, I found myself alone, having neither family nor home nor position. Escaping with a bundle of the barest necessities, I took refuge in our family's ancestral temple. It was not far from our town, but hidden in the deeper parts of the mountain where the Mongols would not, at least for a time, think to tread. In those first days of relative safety, I did what any provincial princeling would do -- I appealed to the capital by letter. No pigeon, nor other sign of help, ever arrived, albeit that my own pigeon somehow knew to return. With each passing day in that abandoned place and the advance of successive Mongol scouting parties, my reliance on the trappings of civilisation eroded, and the need to provide for myself came into greater clarity. I was not entirely without means in those thick mountain woods. While I was never a warrior, my education extended to hunting and archery. I had with me my father's bow, on which were carved four Han characters: JAKU NIKU KYO SHOKU, or, in translation, "the weak are meat; the strong eat". Inscribed with some miraculous prescience, that bow was my salvation, keeping me fed for weeks while I worked at forging some simple weapons and salting foods for what I came to know would be an inevitable journey. The other thing that kept me sane was reciting sutras and making offerings to Fudo Myo'o, being the guardian deity of the mountain and our town -- he somehow felt more real up there in the mountain than he had back home. In the 153rd year of the King of Koguryo, I arrived on these shores, a stranger in a strange land, having no name nor any other advantage. I struggled at first. Being literate and skilled with the bow, I had some saleable skills, but no connections, and my accent immediately identified my as foreign and untrustworthy. I found myself selling my labour to the few shady characters willing to employ me for who-knows-what clandestine purposes. My sufferings on Ilbon had somehow not extinguished my sense of the ethical, and I felt compromised by my work despite my desperate circumstances. Reflecting on those equally desperate days in the thick of the mountain wilds, it became clearer to me that, despite their harshness, the forests had provided everything that was sufficient for me even in the midst of the ruin of everything that I had known before. In return, it asked of me no sin or compromise of myself. Indeed, in those high places, despite my grief, I somehow felt that I was inhabiting a sacred space, a place of connectedness to some unidentifiable something. In these recent days, I have heard that there are others of a similar bent of mind. I seek their instruction so that I can come to know these lands and their creatures, to find a home for myself apart from the moral confusion of life in the capital, and to grow the seedling that was planted in the ruins of my first home. By my own hand this 4th sun of the 9th moon in the 154th year of the King, Naoya | |