Do
you not find this story wondrous, or do you perchance think that we are
liars?"
"Brethren of the great monastery called the World," Kou-en answered
with his customary chuckle, "why should I think you liars who, from the
moment my eyes fell upon you, knew you to be true men? Moreover, why
should I hold this tale so very wondrous? You have but stumbled upon
the fringe of a truth with which we have been acquainted for many, many
ages.
"Because in a vision she showed you this monastery, and led you to a
spot beyond the mountains where she vanished, you hope that this woman
whom you saw die is re-incarnated yonder. Why not? In this there is
nothing impossible to those who are instructed in the truth, though the
lengthening of her last life was strange and contrary to experience.
Doubtless you will find her there as you expect, and doubtless her
_khama_, or identity, is the same as that which in some earlier life of
hers once brought me to sin.
"Only be not mistaken, she is no immortal; nothing is immortal. She is
but a being held back by her own pride, her own greatness if you will,
upon the path towards Nirvana. That pride will be humbled, as already it
has been humbled; that brow of majesty shall be sprinkled with the dust
of change and death, that sinful spirit must be purified by sorrows and
by separations. Brother Leo, if you win her, it will be but to lose, and
then the ladder must be reclimbed.
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