Elder brother Azure Lion has owned the karma of Lion-Camel Ridge. On that same account, I set my mark beside his. When we devoured the kingdom, these tusks of mine were the weapons. That line I neither dispute nor forget.
I will speak only of my master — and of what these tusks were used for afterward.
My master is the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra. The world knows Manjushri governs wisdom, and Samantabhadra governs practice — the practice of the vow. His Ten Great Vows I heard from beneath the seat for centuries; their depths I dare not claim, but one line this dull elephant memorized to the bone:
"Though the realm of space be exhausted, though the karma of beings be exhausted — this practice of my vow shall have no exhaustion."
There is no day when the vow's work is finished. That is my master's Way.
Before he left — the same day Manjushri departed — he gave me no case, no seal. He led me by the trunk, as one leads a calf, out beyond the hall, pointed down at the human world, and said one sentence:
"White Elephant — I go to a council. My vow: practice it in my stead. Practice until I return."
Practice it how? He did not say. It is the Bodhisattva's rule: the vow's practice is never itemized. Itemized, it becomes a job. Unitemized, it remains a vow.
I thought three days, and found my method. I am an elephant. An elephant has strength, a pair of tusks, four steady feet. Then my practice begins wherever strength can reach.
A bridge down: I haul the beams. A road sunk: I tread it firm. A flash flood through the field-dikes: I lay my body as the weir. A caravan's cart to the axles in mud: two tusks under the shaft, and lift. For three hundred years, along three thousand li of road east of Vulture Peak, the old stonemasons can recite which washouts I filled and which bridge-piers were raised against my shoulder.
And for each work completed, I cut one notch in my left tusk.
Not for merit. For the count — when my master returns and asks how much did you practice for me, this dull head fears to misreport; but notches on a tusk, he can tally at a glance.
Three hundred years: the left tusk filled, then the right. Last month, after the Homeward-Gazing Bridge was mended, I asked my old mason friend to count.
Nine thousand nine hundred ninety-one.
Nine short of ten thousand.
And with the count nearly full, this dull elephant has lately begun to sleep badly.
Not from labor. From the strangeness in the tusks: whenever I cut a new notch, the oldest notches seep light. The faintest gold, as if something long stored in the ivory were welling out along the grooves. The fuller the count, the stronger the seepage. These nights, when I rest my tusks in the stream, half the stream runs pale gold.
A white elephant does not understand such things. But the company now holds learned elders — Bifang, Bai Ze — and when they examined the tusk-light they looked at one another and spoke one term:
"The vow-force turns homeward."
They say: on the day a vow's practice reaches fullness, the force of ten thousand works accumulated across three hundred years pours itself out along the practitioner's own wish — whatever I wish, it becomes.
Ten thousand notches of vow-force, poured into one wish.
They asked me: White Elephant — have you decided your wish?
This dull elephant thought three nights.
The first night I thought: I wish my master safely home. The second night I thought: in his Ten Great Vows there is not one clause for himself — if I spend ten thousand notches on the return of one person, my master will rap my skull with his trunk when he learns of it.
The third night, I remembered his line: though space be exhausted, though karma be exhausted, this practice shall have no exhaustion.
And I understood.
So — nine notches remain, and I am in no hurry to cut them. I march west with the company, saving the last nine works for this road, choosing, one by one, the heaviest.
And on the day the count is full, if the vow-force truly asks me for a wish —
mine is ready. Eight characters:
"Let the road of the vow have walkers again."
While there are walkers on that road, then wherever my master is, he can follow the vow — and find his way back.