Free The SONG of SHIVA by Michael Caulfield

no such thing as random chance. Without evidence, the truth could never be known. It mattered little.
    Let the monk claim that he had experienced dozens of cycles of life, death and rebirth ― and could recall details of every one ― insisting that Lyköan had passed through only a handful of incarnations, at least in human form. That too was unimportant. What did matter was the bond.
    Sun Shi had attempted to explain the mechanics of how he had come by his knowledge more than once, a lot of metaphysical doublespeak ― that one hand clapping sort of nonsense. In all honesty, the revelation of these perceived pasts might be little more than a sophisticated teaching tool ― Sun Shi’s variation on the Socratic Method ― rather than any actual statement of belief.
    All that mattered were the results. It was all the proof Lyköan had ever needed. Might as well get started and let him work his magic .
    “Just a lot of aggravation the last few days,” he began tentatively. “Thought maybe I could toss a few of the worst your way and see what you think. My continuing tussle with the middle way ― which still doesn’t seem to be working for me. Moderation’s never been my strong suit. Take this morning. I’m downtown on business and without provocation nearly get into a fistfight with the desk clerk at the Ayutt Haya.” Lyköan dragged in a quick breath. “If that lobby counter had been two centimeters narrower we’d probably be discussing bail right now.”
    Sun Shi had heard the lament before. “The Tanner, of course. It is the unfettered, primal aspect of your personality. Unthinking. Passion-filled. The wrong sort of passion. Dark, wholly submerged. The middle way will be forever blocked while the Tanner remains in the driver’s seat. It’s a stumbling block that would yield to meditation, but of course you would actually have to practice meditating, my child.”
    There was always a catch, usually the same one, like believing in the unseen. Sun Shi waited silently, his flesh stretched tight across the angles of sharp, ascetic facial bones, immobile as a statue, like a modern-day Arjuna Savyasaci, whose ancient story predated the historical Buddha’s by forty-five centuries.
    Sun Shi was as much a spiritual anomaly as Lyköan. And he flaunted it. Born in Thailand and orphaned shortly after birth, he had been adopted by an American couple who raised him in Baltimore, believing their act the height of Christian compassion. The old monk rarely spoke of those days.
    But two things had occurred simultaneously during his university years that had dramatically altered the course of his life: he had discovered Buddhism and afterwards decided to return to the land of his birth, moving first to India and ultimately settling here in Bangkok. Shunning the fabulist Greater Vehicle, Mahayana Buddhism, with its multiple celestial Buddhas, he had become a devotee6 of Theravada Buddhism, the Narrow Way or the Way of the Elders, which revered only the one historical Buddha. Then, in the spirit of other converts of that era, he had changed his name, and Ed Bennett became Sun Shi.
    He was firm in his faith: that the eight-fold path and the five precepts held the ultimate keys to truth, the path of perfected cosmology. A short time after his return to Thailand he began to be recognized for the power of his understanding, particularly his ability to resist the temptations of earthly desire. He had only recently been elevated to the rank of chao awat at Wat Tee Pueng Sut Taai, an ancient and important Theravada shrine.
    After a deep breath, Lyköan began in earnest. “Okay, here’s the problem. I’ve run up against this moral dilemma. At least it seems like one. Or maybe it’s just business and I’m looking for you to bless my greed, who knows?
    “All I hear is you having trouble getting to the point,” Sun Shi said, attempting to be helpful.
    “That’s just it. I don’t know what the point is. I’ve been offered the