..续本文上一页sh your abscess."

　　When the monk heard that he felt so happy. He knew that after he washed the abscess would all his wrongdoing and suffering be washed away, but the resentment of the other would also be washed away. He breathed in and out mindfully, he knelt down and cupped the water, but his hands were shaking so much that when he dropped the water onto his abscess, he had already lost half of the water. But half of the water was enough for the pain to go. When the water touched the abscess, the pain was so great that it went into his bones, and he fell down in a faint. He was unconscious, then a moment later he came around. He touched his abscess, and he saw it was beginning to go down—it was nearly healed. He took the water twice, three times more, and he had a lot of faith in the healing power of the water, so he stopped shaking because of that. It was still painful, but it was not so painful that he fainted. He waited a little bit, and then he bent down and cupped up another handful of water and poured it on the abscess. Then he felt so tired that he lay down, and he slept very deeply for a short time.

　　He slept more peacefully than he had ever slept in his life, and he saw himself as a child of seven years old, running around, playing on the grass, jumping up and down, very happy--a child with two strong legs, running, dancing, jumping, very beautifully in the spring. He saw himself as a child, running like that, and when he was hungry he went back home and saw his mother. His mother was still young, and she put on his clothes and gave him some sweet rice and a cookie and sent him out to play again. He was so happy…in his dream everything was beautiful, everything was easy to bear. Then he heard the sound of a monkey calling out, and it woke him up.

　　When he woke up, he saw that he was on a mountain, beside a stream, and he remembered that yesterday he had come there, he had climbed the mountain, he had seen the temple, he had met the novice, he had met Master Kaniska, he had been bathed and wiped and given clean clothes and rice soup by the Master, and he had slept. But at midnight he had suffered so much that he had to get up and come down the mountain to the stream. He remembered it all clearly, just as though he was watching a videotape from beginning to end. He looked at the abscess, and it had completely healed. At that point, it was morning light, and the path was clear, and the bank of the stream was clear, and the stone he had leaned against the day before was clear for him to see.

　　He thought, "I”d better go up the mountain again, to the temple, in order to bow deeply before Master Kaniska who showed me such love and compassion, and helped me to be cured of this abscess which made me suffer for so long." But when he stood up and looked up the mountain for the two pine trees, he couldn”t see those two pine trees any more. They had disappeared. Where was the path that he had come down

　　 He couldn”t see that any more either. So there was no path for him to go up, and no pine trees, so how in the middle of the night had he been able to come down

　　 Now he couldn”t see a single path. Yesterday when he arrived he had seen two pine trees in the mist, and now he couldn”t see them any more. Looking again, he saw that his clothes were not new clothes, not the clothes given to him by Master Kaniska, which were fragrant as sandalwood. He was wearing his old clothes, smelling terrible. It seemed that everything had happened in a dream…it was only a dream.

　　He knew that this was the last time that he would be able to meet Master Kaniska, and that Master Kaniska had made this particular scenery appear magically, so he would be able to cure his sickness. When he looked up, he knew that those two pine trees had been only a magic…

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