by Antonio Napoli

When the temple was set ablaze by young monks from another school, the beloved master who led it—venerated as though he were the Buddha himself—perished in the flames. The surviving disciples mourned him, rebuilding the school in the nearby Ishiyama district, and even those monks who had started the fire wept, not because they had wanted his death but because they had wished for him to come and teach them.

One day, a boy from the Ishiyama surroundings appeared at the monastery, gesturing for shelter. The eldest of the disciples immediately felt a fondness for the newcomer, who soon revealed something special within his mute and innocent ignorance: a silent essence, ready to take any shape.

“I see you gazing in wonder at the white wings of dawn and the red footprints of dusk,” said the elder. “You marvel at the blade of grass bowing beneath the regal dew, at the morning bellflower that knows the luminous brevity of life. You listen, captivated, to the wind greedy for the splendid fluff of poplars and willows. And I catch you enchanted by our library. You are special.”

The boy smiled.

“Do you know where books are born?”

The boy shook his head.

“Every tree’s fruit prepares a book: it’s the seed. Take one, dig a hole, bury it, and watch as the pages of this future book grow!”

The next day, the boy showed an enormous hole he had dug in the garden. A young disciple was indignant about the pointless excavation, which marred the carefully maintained lawn, but the elder, smiling, turned to the boy: “You’re preparing a grand library, aren’t you?” The boy nodded.

A month passed. The boy struggled to read, but he did so with such ardor that it filled the elder with satisfaction. The spirits of the disciples, oscillating between trembling hope and resigned disappointment, had never stopped seeking the elusive signs of the master’s rebirth. Yet none of them was inclined to see such signs in the boy—especially a boy who might truly be mute!

“If he had shown any talent or a sliver of wisdom,” they said, “then we could believe that in this boy the master has found his way back home. We’ve put before him scriptures handwritten by the master himself: not only does he not understand them, but he doesn’t even recognize them. We even showed him a phrase of the master’s so scrawled that no one can read or grasp its meaning. All he does is marvel at everything, and in his wonder, we see him hardening into silence. Is he just a foolish, dim-witted boy, incapable of speech?”

But the elder replied, “Patience, patience. To you, rebirth is like a flame passing from one burnt-out candle to a new one. But it’s not like that. Do you know what the majestic pine and the fragile bellflower have in common?”

The disciples exchanged questioning looks.

“Both fulfill their destiny, even though one lives for a hundred years and the other only for the span of a morning. Let destiny unfold—it is invisible to our eyes. When the boy bends over the books, the lost wisdom, the absent truth, the deposed mastery shines upon his small head. We expected a grand return, but we are witnessing an even greater one. The master lives in this boy, who knows nothing and strives to relearn everything—with effort, struggle, and slowness. For the way of return is the way of first times, of clear eyes stripped of the scales of familiarity; it is the path of an unbound heart. Let us lay our restless search to peaceful rest: the master has returned to teach—but in a new way.”

That night, old enemies, their envy and malice still smoldering, came to the monastery intending to burn it to the ground. Believing all the monks were sound asleep, they crept into the library. Amid the shadows of the shelves, a small, silent figure stood watching them: it was the boy.

“Aren’t you afraid of us?” growled one of the men.

The boy didn’t answer. With disarming calm, he approached a shelf, pulled out a book, and pointed to a scrawled phrase. “Read it,” he said.

The leader glanced at it and laughed scornfully. “Are you so foolish you don’t understand what’s happening? And now you offer us something incomprehensible to read? We’ll be fair with you: we’ll crack open your skull like a book to teach you we’re here to erase this school as though it were a worthless scribble.”

“And are you… not afraid of me?” asked the boy.

But his voice was no longer that of a youth; it became grave and solemn, as if an old sage spoke through him. The enemies paled. They had recognized the voice of the deceased master from the first monastery. A terror laden with guilt awakened in them.

“He who destroys a word destroys a world,” the boy proclaimed in the unmistakable voice of the master speaking through him. “He who saves a word saves the entire universe.” Those words, spoken by a voice thought long gone, resonated in the library, vibrating like a sacred chime. Suddenly, all the torches went out, as though an invisible breath had extinguished the flames. Darkness enveloped the library.

“Run!” shouted one of the men. Their escape turned into a disorderly, chaotic flight: one by one, they stumbled into the large pit the boy had dug in the garden, now filled with water from recent rains.

When the monks arrived, they found their enemies muddied, trembling, and begging for mercy.

“Remove the spirit of your master!” they wailed, pointing to the boy, who sat on the edge of the pit, silent and still as a sentinel, holding the handwritten book.

The elder of the monastery, observing the scene and grasping its meaning, said to the monks with a smile full of wisdom, “Did I not tell you that the master would find a new way to teach? He has given each of us a perfect lesson—correcting some’s stubborn disbelief and punishing others’ violent arrogance.”