There are Dryads in Japan, tree spirits, and especially do they haunt the willow. Beautiful, alarming, some of the stories, but always instinct with the life which lies just below our horizon. Now I was conscious of some presence beside me, not to be accosted until its own moment of choice. I put out my hand instinctively; it met nothing. I said a word aloud. No answer. And again most disabling fear submerged me. Then, clear and small, as if written, the Rules of Detachment rose in my mind, and hurrying, I repeated them under my breath, not knowing how they could help, but catching at anything.
“I have no parents. I make the heavens and the earth my parents. I have no strength. I make submission my strength.” And so to the end.
“I have no sword. I make the sleep of the mind my sword.”
Now, as I said these words the meaning flashed upon me in light. Here was I—alone in a frightful solitude—so desolate that it might have been the Mountains of the Moon. What means of escape could I make for myself? What friends had I—what sword? The Rules assured me. The enemies—the mountains, the wild ways, were my slaves if I could believe it. In submission strength awaited me. In the surrender of the plotting reason, which can only break tangible material obstacles, my latent powers would function. And what were they?
Once more and confidently I repeated the words, knowing that they unloosed some hard-bound knot in my being. I willed to be in the garden of Arima. My one instinct was flight.
I was sitting beneath the willow tree— Yes, but in Arima’s garden, and he was beside me looking steadfastly at the river where moonlight flowed away with it to the ocean.
Impossible to describe the shock of relief. It never occurred to me to ask if I had been asleep—to think I had been hypnotized or anything of the kind. I knew the experience was real.
“Where have I been?” That was the only possible question. He replied:
“In the garden. Did you not recognize it? See—the mountain, the tumbled rocks, the river and bridge. But in the garden as my ancestor first saw it. Some day you shall hear why.”
“But first—first— Was I long there? Time—I forgot time.”