A letter from Baoyun

[Jamie Norrish]

Hi all,

The following is a letter, written in Songese, sent by Baoyun to his
sister back in Song, the day after escaping from the Sanctuary. A few
annotations follow it.

It's unlikely that this letter is read by any of the PCs, but I thought
it might prove OOCly interesting.


Jie Mei Jie Mei,

For the first time I write from without the monastery walls, like Du
Fu's cricket backwards, no longer trilling sorrow beneath a bed but
now trembling in the grass. I remain in robes; the abbot has sent me
forth to live in the world as a quiet example to the people of the
city. Dharma is unknown in this convergence of hells, and every day I
encounter much confusion in those I meet.

I too am confused. Disharmony swaddles me, the Vinaya ink streaking on
wet walls of my newest home, stranger than when I came to Minglian. I
doubt that I carry the Dharma enough to survive breathing this air
poisoned with craving. I have been given money to buy food; its weight
is the whole world; the food consumes me. May you be less in danger
than I, and more at peace with your situation.

Do my letters reach you? Or are they intercepted like yours to me are?
Are we ghosts whose cries cannot stir even the dust on their tombs?

-Baoyun


[The salutation is Baoyun's childhood joke: his sister's given name is
Mei. "Mei mei" is the term for younger sister, and "jie jie" for older
sister, and "jie mei" for someone's sister of unknown age. Zhu Mei
is Baoyun's older sister, but it pleased him to mix everything up!

The Vinaya is the rules for the sangha.

Minglian is the name of the monastery Baoyun was sent to at age 15.]


Jamie