The Old Master

My best guess is that I was about sixteen years old when it started. I'm not sure about my age, as few counted off their years at that time. As I walked along, I approached a small quiet village in the hills in a vast land of villages a few days walking distance from each other. 
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I sought the teacher that was well known there and beyond. I had a begging bowl, a staff, and the rags on my back. It is said that people occasionally came to him for advice. His house was small, simple, clean and well kept. It shined with polished wood floors and a surrounding covered porch. The house was sited to receive nature and observe the flow of life.

He saw me as I walked up the hill. He was old and well worn. His warm welcoming smile invited me before I was able to say anything. He was small, quiet, caring with a glow in his eyes. Before I made any request he offered me a pad in the corner on which to sleep, a warm meal and friendliness, but few words. I slept the sleep of a weary man who had found home, his place. 

Seeing the need to learn in my eyes, he gave me daily tasks to do and said to be patient. Slowly, deed by deed, he taught me of the Great Tao. I, who knew nothing, was guided and instructed by him as much as I could absorb in each moment. At first I felt that I was not learning anything. After a couple of years, his instructions were non-verbal, a demonstration. In leaving words behind, we pushed off from the shore into the Tao. As I asked irrelevant questions, he would warmly smile in an amused way and answer, "Just experience the Great Tao and all questions dissolve". I sat with him and he surrounded me with it all. I learned from his greater presence in this place.

Then one day, as was usual, he directed me to the porch to meditate. As I sat staring out into the world, he quietly came by behind me, placed his hand on the top of my head, then quickly removed his hand upward and I was set adrift in the Tao. A single wave in that infinite ocean.

Years later now, on his death bed, I see him with new eyes. He is I, and I am he. He says that I will replace him. I'll take his place and I do. He dissolves away to  the Great Tao and I become him. I take his place in the house and receive visitors, give advice to them and they drop a few coins in the begging bowl. I am there for years and years, until a student comes.

My student, my death, my replacement. He is about sixteen years old. I take him in and begin his instruction in the Tao. I grow old and he is now aware and empty. As I die, I see myself in him. I feel my old teacher in me. I see the future old man in my student. Behind the student I see standing all the old teachers of the house that came before my teacher, going back in distant time. 
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A continuous line of existence going back forever. I am they, they are me. A continuity of existence, of place, of being, floating across the ocean of the Tao.