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For how long the group laughed, Robin didn’t know; perhaps only five minutes, perhaps ten. Every time she found her face aching, and reverted to forced chuckles, she found genuine laughter overtaking her once more.
At last, Mazu raised a single finger to her lips and the laughing stopped. The group stood, slightly breathless, still grinning.
‘You feel that?’ said Mazu. ‘You have control over your own moods and your own state of mind. Grasp that, and you have placed your foot on the path that leads to pure spirit. Once there, you’ll unlock power you never knew you had…
‘And now we kneel.’
The command took everyone by surprise, but all obeyed and instinctively closed their eyes.
‘Blessed Divinity,’ intoned Mazu, ‘we thank you for the wellspring of joy you have placed in all of us, which the materialist world tries so hard to extinguish. As we explore our own power, we honour yours, which lies forever beyond our full understanding. Each of us is spirit before flesh, containing a fragment of the force that animates the universe. We thank you for today’s lesson and for this moment of gladness.
‘And now, rise,’ said Mazu.
Robin got to her feet with the others. Mazu descended from the stage, the train of her robes rippling over the black marble steps, and led them towards the closed temple doors. As she approached them, she pointed a pale finger at the handles. They turned of their own accord and the doors slowly opened. Robin assumed someone else had opened them from outside, but there was nobody there.
27
Thunder comes resounding out of the earth:
The image of ENTHUSIASM.
Thus the ancient kings made music
In order to honour merit,
And offered it with splendour
To the Supreme Deity…
The I Ching or Book of Changes
‘Did you see that?’ breathed Penny in Robin’s ear, as they descended the temple steps. ‘She opened the doors without touching them!’
‘I know,’ said Robin, carefully astonished. ‘What was that?’
She was certain the door opening must have been a trick, using some kind of a hidden mechanism, but the thing had looked unnervingly convincing.
Ahead, in the otherwise deserted courtyard, stood Becca Pirbright. Glancing back, Robin saw that Mazu had retreated inside the temple again.
‘How was the Joyful Meditation?’ Becca asked.
There was a small chorus of ‘it was great’s and ‘amazing’s.
‘Before we go to dinner – ’ thank God, thought Robin, ‘– I’d like to just say a word about another of our spiritual practices at the UHC.
‘This,’ said Becca, gesturing towards the statue in the pool, ‘is the Drowned Prophet, who in life was called Daiyu Wace. I actually had the privilege of knowing her, and I witnessed her performing extraordinary spiritual feats.
‘Each of our prophets, when alive, exemplified a principle of our church. The Drowned Prophet teaches us, firstly, that death may come to any of us, at any time, so we should hold ourselves always in spiritual readiness to rejoin the spirit world. Secondly, her self-sacrifice shows us the importance of obedience to the Blessed Divinity. Thirdly, she proves the reality of life after death, because she continues to move between the earthly and spiritual planes.
‘Whenever we pass her pool, we kneel, anoint ourselves with her water, and acknowledge her teachings by saying, “The Drowned Prophet will bless all who worship her.” By which we do not mean that Daiyu is a goddess. She merely embodies the pure spirit and the higher realm. I invite you now to kneel at the pool and anoint yourselves before dinner.’
Tired and hungry as they were, nobody refused.
‘The Drowned Prophet will bless all who worship her,’ muttered Robin.
‘All right, Fire Group, follow me!’ Becca said, smiling, when all had made the tribute to the Drowned Prophet, and she led them back towards the dining hall, Robin aware of the cool spot of water on her forehead as the breeze hit it.
Fire Group was the last to enter the room. Robin estimated that a hundred people were already sitting at the tables, although there was no sign of any small children, who presumably had been fed earlier. Free spaces were dotted about, so the members of her group were forced to split up and find places wherever they could. Robin scanned the room for Will Edensor, finally spotting him at a crowded table which had no free spaces, so she took a seat between two strangers instead.
