Scrolls of the Brushhand

crolls of the Brushhand

What follows is the oldest writing the Hwa keep. They were set down in the old world by one of the circle who stood near First Master Ye-Jin and saw what his hand could do. The order holds them as the myth-record of the founder’s gift. Read them as the Hwa read them, as reverence, and as a thing that may once have been true.

I am old now, and I am the last who watched the Brushhand work. I write so the gift is not lost with me, and so the young who come after, who will know only the forms, do not take what I saw for a tale told to make a dead man large.

Believe me or do not. I was there. I set down only what these eyes held.

Of the brush and the blade

He taught that the brush and the blade are held in one hand.

A warrior who can only break is half a man. He has learned the taking of life and nothing of its worth. The Brushhand would not raise a student to the sword until that student could sit a morning with ink and make one true line. Make the line first, he said. Then I will teach you to end one.

We thought this a hard rule. We came to see it was the whole of the teaching. The hand that steadies the brush is the hand that steadies the sword. The breath that carries the dance is the breath that carries the cut. Master one poorly and you will hold the other poorly. A man is a vessel, he said, and a cracked vessel keeps no water, whether you pour into it wine or blood.

Of the Breath

Know first that he forced nothing.

The Breath moves through all things, through the stone and the river and the marrow of a man. We name it Giun (기운). It was here before the mountains and it will outlast them. The Brushhand did not command it. He grew quiet until he could hear where it wished to go, and then his hand showed it the way, as a cut channel shows water down a hill. The water was always going down. The channel only gave it a shape.

This is why his art was no trick, and why no thief could take it. A thief may steal a man’s brush. He cannot steal the years the man spent learning to be quiet enough to hear.

Of the wonders these eyes held

I will tell you plainly, and you may call me a fool for it.

I saw him write the mark for fire upon the air, and the air took flame, and the flame held where he had written it until he let it fall. I saw him dance the geommu (검무) on the eve of a hard march, and the men who watched rose lighter than they had lain down, their fear thinned and their arms sure. I saw him paint a winter branch on a dry summer day, and those near the paper felt the cold come off it.

He did these things seldom, and never to be admired. A wonder spent for praise is a wonder wasted, he said, and the Breath does not come twice to a vain man.

Of the Five Holdings

He left us five holdings and named them the Ogye (오계), that we should keep them when he was gone. I set them here in the order he gave.

Hold to the code before you hold to your own heart, for the heart is a poor judge on a long night.

Honor the line that made you, the living and the dead alike, for you are only the latest hand to carry the brush.

Take no step backward. The ground you give up is ground someone died to hold.

When a life may be spared, spare it. Offer the blade before you use it, and call that mercy, and mean it.

Keep faith with the few who stand where you stand. You will be far fewer than you wish, and a small fire must guard its own coals.

Of the day the Breath is wounded

Hear this last thing, for it is the one I fear.

The gift lives only while the Breath runs clear. I do not know what could wound the Breath of the whole world, and I pray you never come to know it either. But should that day fall, the brush will write only ink, and the dance will be only dance, and you will think these scrolls a fable and me a liar.

Do not stop. Keep the forms when they are empty as carefully as we kept them when they were full. A lamp is carried unlit through the dark so there is a lamp to light when the dark breaks. Be that lamp. Hold the form against the day the Breath runs clear again, for it has run clear before, and what has been may come to be once more.

Of what remains

The man is the least part of this. I have half forgotten his face already, and it does not matter. The work outlasts the hand. The form outlasts the man.

Keep the line. Hold the ground. Make one true thing each morning before you are permitted to break another.

The day may come. Be ready to be its lamp.

The ETK Lore Bible

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Scrolls of the Brushhand

Of the brush and the blade

Of the Breath

Of the wonders these eyes held

Of the Five Holdings

Of the day the Breath is wounded

Of what remains

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