Chương 377: Chapter 349. Youngwoo’s Inspection — Guangyou Temple 2

Sitting quietly like this, the cultivation came easily. Youngwoo gave a faint inward chuckle. Well, look at that. Had temples always been like this? Before, he had only ever stopped by briefly, never thinking of them as places to practice. They were places where he could step away from the noisy world for a while, the way one stepped into shade to escape the heat. He would bow to the Buddha, ask for a drink of water, perhaps ask directions, and then leave again.

But now, sitting here and settling his breath, he found that his qi gathered surprisingly well. The silence helped. With so little before his eyes to catch his attention, fewer stray thoughts arose. The hall was broad, and because that breadth was mostly empty, it seemed deeper still. Human voices, the movement of military tents, the cries of horses, the clash of metal—all of it felt far away. The empty space spread quietly before him. That vast emptiness opened like an endless plain.

When he inhaled, its breadth seemed to enter his body. When he exhaled, the turbid energy within him seemed to dissolve into that vastness. His breathing gradually became finer. At first, the breath lingered at his nostrils. Then it passed through his chest and descended into his lower abdomen. When it reached the dantian, it remained there like a tiny ember, and from that ember warmth slowly spread through his lower back, shoulders, and fingertips. Youngwoo followed the flow. He did not drag it by force.

He did not try to push through blocked places. Wherever the breath reached, his body loosened a little, and the sharp edges of his mind softened with it. The smell of blood from the battlefield, the stifling atmosphere of the council hall, the ambitions of men, and the anger within himself all receded into the distance. At the end of that flow, a strangely vast sensation opened before him. His body remained seated on the meditation cushion, yet his mind seemed to stand alone in the middle of an empty field.

Nothing enclosed him. Nothing pulled at him. At the farthest reach of his breathing, he saw a version of himself that was free. For a moment, the man who held a sword, the soldier who obeyed orders, the killer who had crossed battlefields, and the commander carrying the expectations of others all settled away. There remained only one person breathing in a vast silence. The silence was good. There was nothing to catch his eye, so stray thoughts did not arise.

The hall was broad, and its emptiness spread before him like an endless plain. At the farthest reach of his breathing, he saw himself free. The practice continued almost the moment he sat down. His fierce resentment toward the affairs of the world gradually settled. His worries about the Balhae political faction that had troubled him also drifted away. In the end, that was someone else's affair. Unless the cultivation illuminated what stood directly before his own existence, everything else lay outside the body.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Who owned the city, what name the country should bear, who coveted a throne—those too were matters outside himself. What Youngwoo needed now was not to seize hold of such noise, but to see where a single breath arose and where it returned. The cultivation resumed from the very point where he had stopped some time ago. That was why he liked this kind of practice.

Other studies required opening the book again, returning to the first page, and checking today what had been memorized yesterday. This was different. The moment he settled his breathing, the place in his mind where he had last stopped opened again within him. How far had he gone then? He could not reach it through thought. The more he tried to remember, the farther it slipped away. The more he tried to seize it, the more it scattered. But his body knew. His breathing remembered the path.

The qi in his dantian remembered the place. There had been a moment when his middle dantian opened and qi merged with emotion. Qi was no longer merely a current of heat or cold. At the center of his chest, it met the trembling of the mind and began to contain even the faint ripples of joy, sorrow, anger, and compassion. From then on, distant movements in the world had begun to feel strangely close. Even things unseen seemed almost within reach of his fingertips. It was not like divination.

It was more like sensing rain from the direction of the wind, or reading a person's feelings from a glance. The movement of distant things approached him through an inward sense. The presence beyond the military tents. The unrest within a city. The desires and fears rising among people. All of them came to him like parts of a single flow. It was difficult to explain in words, but his body felt it, knew it, and understood it. That memory now unfolded again as present reality. Youngwoo inhaled and slowly exhaled.

The breath descended into the dantian, passed through his chest, then dispersed cleanly. A narrow gate within his chest opened again, and the qi sealed behind it began to ripple quietly. Whatever else happened, he breathed. Whatever else happened, he observed. He left the noise of the world where it belonged and returned the currents within his body to their proper paths. The walls of Liaoyang, the voices in the council hall, the name Balhae, and the shadow of a throne all receded for a while.

What he watched was not the politics before him, but his own mind as it saw those things and was disturbed by them. The cultivation deepened again. The monk who had greeted Youngwoo earlier stood beneath the signboard of the Mahavira Hall and glanced inside. He had entered through a side door, spread out a meditation cushion, and sat there like some great master. The monk could hardly walk up and speak to him without cause.

At first, he had wondered whether the stranger might be looking around for something worth stealing. For a moment, he had even wanted to tell him that this was not permitted and ask him to leave. But one look at the man's posture made it obvious that he was practicing. There was no reason to disturb him. The monk crossed the courtyard several times and eventually went away. Time passed without measure. A faint sunset spread across the evening sky. It was a winter sky, so even the red did not deepen much.

If the sky remained clear, it would grow colder. And if the cold deepened, snow might fall during the night. Darkness gathered, but Youngwoo did not rise. The incense inside the hall settled low, while only the small lamps before the Buddha flickered. The monk's footsteps faded once, then returned. When the monk came back again, it was late in the Hour of the Dog. The evening had turned bitterly cold, and he had been planning to close early. Yet the guest showed no sign of leaving.

The monk went out, closed the great gate, and left only a small side door half open before returning. He did not come too close. From a short distance away, he said quietly,"Layman, would you like to join us for the evening meal?" The man who had sat as motionless as a rock sprang to his feet at once. The monk had expected him to decline. Instead, Youngwoo bowed immediately.

"Thank you." He gathered his cloak and loosely fastened the sword belt with the hwando hanging from it. The quiet stillness of cultivation remained around him, but there was strangely no hesitation whatsoever in his steps now that food was involved.

"Where is the dining hall?" The monk turned to lead the way.

"Follow me." Still, the monk could not quite put his mind at ease. Guests like this usually made little or no donation. But perhaps this one would be different. Before ending the day, he would have to check the donation box anyway. He found himself already expecting to find nothing in it. And, almost as a precaution, preparing himself in advance for the disappointment. When the monk pointed out the dining hall, Youngwoo followed him inside as though it were his own home.

He took a bowl, served himself rice and side dishes, then found an empty place and sat neatly. This was clearly not his first temple meal. His body already knew where to stand, where to pick up the bowls, and how much food to take. Only then did the monk look at Youngwoo more carefully. Even washed and dressed in fresh clothes, he still had the unmistakable air of a warrior. His shoulders were broad. His back was straight.

Even after the sword had been set aside, something of the sword remained in the place where it had hung. Calluses covered the backs of his hands and the joints of his fingers. His movements were quiet, yet his was the body of a man who could rise at any moment. The monks of the temple all took their places. Bowls were set down, and steam rose quietly from the rice. Youngwoo too brought his hands together and offered a brief gesture of thanks. Then he began to eat the evening meal with genuine gratitude.

He ate quickly. He had barely been sitting with the bowl before him before the rice and side dishes were gone. It was customary to refrain from talking during the meal. After devouring his food, Youngwoo set the bowl neatly before him and waited for the others to finish. Only then did he really look around the dining hall. There were perhaps a dozen monks. Some were young novices. Others were old monks with graying beards. They all chewed slowly and sipped their soup sparingly.

Among them, Youngwoo alone had eaten as though he were still on a battlefield. When everyone had finished, he followed the others and washed his bowl. He was careful not to waste even a drop of water and returned the cleaned bowl to its proper place. There was nothing awkward in his movements. The years he had spent wandering from place to place, occasionally receiving temple meals along the road, still remained in his body.