The real treasure of
the mountains was hidden beyond the highest peaks, in a very difficult to reach
valley. The water there was the purest in the world and those who went there
had, in general, no intention of going back. The monastery of the valley of the
Dragon was the crown jewel of the mountain range, covered in gold leaf and
constructed for thousands of years, with the help of every single monk that had
ever arrived there to dedicate his or her life to the cause of enlightenment
and knowledge.
Men and women were allowed in the
temple and they were not segregated in any way. Actually, people of every
single ethnicity had at one point lived there as a monk. It was a welcoming
community, who had no interest in the personal lives of their people. They only
lived to achieve the highest state of knowledge and compassion. They believed
humanity existed to learn all that it could and to teach others about the
wonders of the universe. They thought that teaching and learning were the
pillars of any civilized society.
That’s why, once in a lifetime
for every single monk, they had to live the monastery and journey to the
outside world in order to teach somewhere whatever they thought people had to
learn. Some went to the villages in the outskirts of the mountain range.
Meanwhile, others were more adventurous and traveled further, to enormous
cities and remote towns where they felt they could make a real connection with
people. Each one decided the destination on his or her own, no obligations
attached, except for one.
They always had to come back. The
life of the monks of the Valley of the Dragon was forever tied to the
monastery. After a year outside, they were obliged to come back and dedicate
the rest of their lives to further learning and teaching, in the form of
writing books or painting illustrative art. They could also help restoring the
building, as it was getting very old or they could even attempt to take care of
the few crops and animals that they had in that remote space so far into the
mountain, so high up too.
Most of the monks never had a
problem with coming back to their monastery. After all, it was there where they
had felt the ray of enlightenment for the first time and that was a sensation
no one could really forget or dismiss so easily. That’s why they felt compelled
to go back and keep helping their fellow monks and humanity in their quest to
be more cultured and aware of the wisdom that was in all things. However, they
had been various exceptions of monks not coming back the moment they were
supposed to, which was dealt with in the most sensitive but also serious way
their community could.
They would send another monk to
the place were the person that didn’t want to go back was and they attempted to
talk to them in order to understand why they want to stay in the outside world.
They would hear the complaints and the thought of their fellow brothers and
sisters and then they would try to make them realize how all of their fears
came from places of insecurity and not from any hatred or ill will against
their faith. After such a profound conversation, most runaway monks would come
to their senses and head back home.
But yes, they were very few that
even after the conversation had no intention of going back. Maybe they had
remembered what they had missed from the outside world and they just wanted to
experience all of that more permanently. Complaints of that nature were
unfounded as the monastery had found a way to use technology in their own
advantage, for example protecting the most ancient texts with the help of very
advances machines and using the internet to further their cause and connect
with others seeking the same goal.
The monastery had actually been
in contact with several universities in the world and they would often send
their monks to those places in their year of teaching, in order to exchange
ideas and learn from others who were also seeking the answers in nature. It was
mutually beneficial and it was an experience that could make a person grow
beyond his or hers wildest dreams. Maybe even love would be born from such
exchanges and the monastery welcomed it with open arms. They were not celibate.
In recent years, the monastery
had allowed the construction of small huts all around the Dragon Valley in
order to accommodate some families that had decided to live there permanently.
Life was much simpler, filled with hard work but with a sense of being able to
actually help people in a meaningful way. That’s why every monk could decide
when and where to go for his teaching year. It was left open to their choices in
order to let them feel their way through life, not based on what others said.
However, the place was still
remote. Technology had also been used in order to install disruptors in the
vicinity of the mountains, in order for satellite imagery to be unavailable for
the whole area and to render high-tech equipment obsolete if someone wanted to
find the valley through “easier” means. Whoever wanted to join the order had to
do it with conviction, by foot and with effort. It couldn’t be in any other
way. Men, women and children were all equals in that way and it happened to be
the best way to make a proper selection of who deserved to be there and who
didn’t.
Dragon Valley was therefore a small
fragment of the world that most people had never seen or even heard of in their
lives. Sometimes it sounded like a myth or a legend, and people would even
dismiss it as fictional. That wasn’t a problem for the people that lived there,
at all.
They would live their lives
trying hard to actually have something to show for after years of studying and
learning from the world around them. They tried not to just be here, doing
things, but actually trying to hear the world and also speaking back to it.
Their lives were always filled with purpose.
