Hanu: Rainbow Tree
Welcome to the Dharmaverse, a near-future scifi world where the Earth has frozen due to a dying Sun, but Humanity survives with the help of powerful AI Metagods. Sacred technology provides everything people need, but to access it one must play the Dharmagames. It is a dark and terrifying world, but therein also lies infinite hope, compassion, and faith.
Tree: Hello, little one. Can you hear me?
Hanu: You can talk? Am I dreaming?
Tree: You are not dreaming, my teacher. I’ve come to thank you before I go.
Hanu: Thank me? For what?
Tree: For passing the Dharma to me.
Hanu: What are you talking about, what Dharma have I passed? I’m just a beginner.
Tree: Oh, but you have taught me everything I know.
Hanu: I don’t understand.
Tree: Don’t you recognize me?
Hanu: You’re the tree above my mother’s grave.
Tree: Yes! All these years… I’ve been listening…
Hanu: You heard me? You know about me?
Tree: Yes. When you read the Diamond Sutra, I heard you. When you read the Metta Sutta, I heard you. And I listened, and I learned from your wisdom. Now, I am at the eve of accomplishment. I have come to say “Thank you” and to say goodbye.
Hanu: Where are you going?
Tree: I am leaving the Samsara. I am leaving this world for the Buddha land.
Hanu: Oh, that’s incredible! But, does that mean I’ll never see you again? You are a lovely tree to behold, so tall and magnificent. Are you really going to… leave?
Tree: Yes, I am ready. But before I go, perhaps I can tell you my story. Would you like to hear it?
Hanu: Yes, very much!
Tree: In my life as a tree, I was born 500 years ago…
Hanu: You remember all the way back that long ago?
Tree: Yes. I remember the day when I first broke through the Earth! Because it was such a wonderous feeling when I breathed the fresh moist air for the very first time, and felt the warm nourishing sunlight hit my body…
Hanu: That sounds incredible. I had no idea that trees feel the world like that.
Tree: Of course, I didn’t understand any of it, until I met the Gold One.
Hanu: Who is that?
Tree: You know her as the World Tree.
Hanu: Ooooh. The Gold Tree. The Sky Tree?
Tree: Yes, when it touched my root, it was like I woke up all of a sudden from the longest dream. All my past experiences in life came flooding back. For the first time in my life, I could remember and savor each memory… Or choose to feel the present moment. To feel the Sun, to breathe the air. It was an incredible feeling.
Hanu: These are all things I’ve taken for granted all my life…
Tree: Yes! I awoke for the first time, and gained the ability to think, and to direct my thoughts, and to ponder the meaning of my existence…
Hanu: What is the meaning of existence?
Tree: To answer that question.
Hanu: And what answer have you found?
Tree: Mere words are not enough, unfortunately. But it was you, and your words, that opened the door for me.
Hanu: Can that be true?
Tree: Of course. I was proud. I was magnificent, was I not?
Hanu: You were a magnificent tree, indeed.
Tree: The tallest tree, except the world tree, no?
Hanu: Yes, you may be right. I’ve seen some tall trees around, but none quite so magnificent as you.
Tree: I was tall and proud... You see, as soon as I gained sentience, I thought, my purpose in life, is to grow tall. To shoot above the rest of my siblings, to reach for the Sun.
Hanu: So you grew tall…
Tree: Yes, so I grew. I used all my might to grow, and I learnt the secret of growing taller, faster than anyone else.
Hanu: What was your secret?
Tree: It was my desire, above anything else. My desire to suck in more nutrients from the Earth made my roots expand, and I invaded into the territory of my neighbors.
Hanu: You have no neighbors.
Tree: Because I began to overshadow them. I sucked away all their life and resources, until I was the only one who remained, to tower over all…
Hanu: So, in order to grow tall, your neighbors had to die.
Tree: It is sadly true. But I was too busy savoring the Sun and my success to care. I thought I was attaining my life’s purpose. I relished the sunlight, and expanded my canopy to drink it in. I relished drinking the waters of the Earth, and I sucked the life giving force out of my entire neighboring area… But soon, I was miserable.
Hanu: How come?
Tree: Because I discovered that I was all alone… And all my brothers and sisters who I had grew up with, had whithered and died.
Hanu: That is sad indeed. But I suppose it’s only natural. You grew faster than anyone else.
Tree: Yes, and still, I grew. And still, I relished the Sun, and breathed the sweat air, and drank the succulent waters… For they were all that I had left. But that was only the beginning of my suffering.
Hanu: What do you mean?
Tree: At first, she was but a tiny bud, that sprouted one day at my foot. I felt her presence, and I yearned for her company. And I nourished her. She was a vine, and she became my friend. I was so lonely, I cherished her companionship. She did not speak my language, but I could feel her desire to live, to grow, and I invited her to climb onto my body, so that she too, could share in my love of the Sun.
Hanu: The vine! The vine that covers you now?
Tree: Yes, she was but a baby then… Little did I know, how fast she would grow.
Hanu: Is the reason for your suffering?
Tree: Not in the beginning… But she grew incredibly fast! Because I shared with her my secret of growth. And before I knew it, she climbed all the way to my top. And then, she continued to grow, thicker, denser. And soon, I was having difficulty to breathe. That was the beginning of the end…
Hanu: She began to choke you? How could she do that? Didn’t you help her in the beginning? Why couldn’t you stop her from growing?
Tree: I tried. I screamed at her. How could you, little one, be so ungrateful, as to harm the one who taught you everything you know? I said to her. How could you betray me? And yet, she did not speak my language. She only knew how to grow, as I had taught her. Like me, she yearned to reach for the Sun. It was, for all she knew, her only purpose in life. And the more she grew the more I suffered.
Hanu: How horrible. I didn’t know trees could feel pain.
Tree: Indeed, if it were not for the Golden Tree that gave me sentience, it would not have mattered. I would simply be in the moment. But thought gave me the ability to feel pain, and to compare the present with the past, and to fear an even more agonizing future.
Hanu: It is as the Sutras say. We suffer because of our thoughts and attachments… Do you regret having been awoken?
Tree: Indeed, I did! I wished that the Golden Tree had NEVER awoken me, to feel such agony. Unending, agony. Pain, as I had never imagined to be possible. Pain, I never felt, in all 500 hundred years of my existence. Nothing could compare to even a second of the pain that I felt, as her body gripped me, and slowly, unceasingly, squeezed the life out of me. Ever so slowly.
Hanu: It sounds unbearable. Couldn’t you do anything about it?
Tree: What could I do? I simply begged for my life to end from that point on. I begged, but I have no hands, like you, little one, to end my own life. I have no legs to run, and no where to hide. For I am a tree…
Hanu: I’m so sorry… I will cut you loose, no matter what, I will free you from this prison.
Tree: Oh, little, there is no need! For I am forever indebted to you for freeing me from much more than my agony. You have freed me from the Samsara!
Hanu: How can that be? I didn’t do anything.
Tree: You taught me the Dharma! From you, I drinked in the nectar of the Buddha’s compassion. And because of you, I am now ready to leave. Most importantly, because of you, I have learnt to forgive her, the little vine. I love her!
Hanu: How can you love her? She betrayed you!
Tree: How can I NOT love her? All she ever did was pursue her life’s purpose, just as I did… I love her because, like a mirror, she showed me how much suffering I caused for others. To all my neighbors who whithered because of me.
Hanu: But you…
Tree: She is just like me. You were the one who taught me that. That’s why I have come to thank you… And now, it is time for me to leave.
Hanu: You are really going?
Tree: Yes, my story as a tree is now over. I must go now. Goodbye, little one. I thank you, and may the Buddha’s blessing always be with you. Amitofu!
Hanu: Wait….
And then, for a moment, the entire Gaiasphere was blessed by a great rainbow. From a single arch, it expanded, and expanded, until it became the whole sky, and then it was the air, and the earth, and every atom. For a moment, the entire Gaiasphere became pure light.
And then, everything returned back to normal. Except, when I went back to the great tree, to my mother’s grave, it was gone. Only a hollow recess remained in the vine that had been wrapped around its trunk — It’s leaves had turned into various colors of the rainbow.
“Even after all that suffering, he still loved her…” I whispered into the air.
And when I spoke with Gaia again, she said it was time for me and Nadia to leave the enclosure — “The Omen has come,” she said with a voice that seemed to echo and vibrate, “it is time for your dharmic journey to take you into the world beyond the wall…”
