105
When the Breath Moved First — A Minute, Initial Manifestation
That day bore no special mark.The sun was not high, the wind not sharp.The soil in the yard before the hermitage was heavy with the rain from the night before, and Park Seong-jin was walking toward the well with a water jar in his hands.
Then, beneath his foot, a small pebble slipped.
It was a trivial movement.Not enough to make him stumble, not enough to throw his body off balance.
Yet he did not move.
More precisely, his body did not react first.
The breath did.
In the brief interval where he neither inhaled nor exhaled, the breath sank downward.At the same moment, the tension left his ankle, his knee bent ever so slightly, and the water jar did not sway.
There was no sound.No conscious decision intervened.
As if it had already been decided that this was how it would be, naturally and without effort, the pebble rolled aside, and Park Seong-jin remained standing where he was.
He could not leave that spot for a while.
His heart was beating, but not urgently.The ripples in the water he carried had already settled.
Just now…
As the thought began to rise, the old man's voice drifted low from behind him.
"I saw it."
Park Seong-jin turned.It was hard to tell how long the old man had been standing there.
"Do not ask yet," he said."Not what you did, but what went first."
Park Seong-jin touched his chest.His breath was moving as it always did.Nothing seemed changed, yet somewhere inside, something had quietly opened.
The old man pressed the earth lightly with his foot, then glanced once at the sky.
"Most people move the body first, and the breath follows.Just now, the breath went first, and the body answered."
Park Seong-jin's lips trembled slightly.
"What was that?"
The old man thought for a moment, then answered with disarming plainness.
"Some call it manifestation. Others call it awakening.It is so old that I no longer know what people call it these days."
He shook his head.
"It is not yet time to name it."
After that day, Park Seong-jin became more careful.He did not try to recreate the moment, nor did he attempt to grasp it.He simply walked, drew water, and breathed.
But he knew, with certainty:before, movement had gone first and breath had followed.Now, when breath went first, movement followed.
It was a very small change.Very subtle.
It was also precisely what the master had asked of him.Study is the study of breath, and what it seeks to complete is the study of the mind.
He had not yet reached sword or technique.Even so, he felt it.On the battlefield, the blade moved first.On this mountain, the breath moved first.
Much later, he would fully understand that breath decides all existence.
That night, the wind brushed the hermitage.The candle flame swayed, but did not go out.The flame leaned first, then stood upright again.
Park Seong-jin watched without speaking.His body already knew.Something that could not yet be explained had begun quietly within him.
The Name of Dawn
It was near dawn.The mountain still hovered on the boundary between night and morning.The wind was still, and a single bird cried briefly among the leaves.
Park Seong-jin, who had been sitting in meditation through the night, slowly opened his eyes.His breath was settling quietly inside his body.
The old man was already awake, tending the embers.
"One should usually do this for a hundred days," he said softly."You are quick."
It sounded like a rebuke, but a faint smile lingered at the end of his words.
"Because it is urgent," Park Seong-jin replied.
"Urgent?"
The old man looked at the half-burned charcoal.A red glow still breathed within it.
"You were afraid in the face of death."
"Yes."
It was a short, firm answer.
The old man nodded.
"Fear is proof of life.Those who know death seek living breath."
When he placed a damp branch on the embers, a sharp sizzle cut through the dawn.
"Life and death are separated by a hair's breadth."
The words remained as an echo.
Their true meaning, however, was unclear.They were simple words, familiar words, yet in this moment he could not understand why they were spoken.
The old man rose slowly and straightened his back.
"Now I will ask. What is your name?"
"Park Seong-jin."
"Yes. Park Seong-jin."
After a pause, gazing at the mountainside where dawn was spreading, he said,
"I am called Iwol-gun."
It was a name clear with the energy of the moon.
Park Seong-jin suddenly thought of Baek In-gun.The same sound—gun, "lord."
"Iwol-gun, honored one—"
The old man shook his head.
"There is no need for that.Gun is only a name.The moon merely shines, and remains."
How many days had passed?Dozens, perhaps.Only then did they exchange names.
By the customs of the world, it would seem absurd.
The old man sat beneath a tree.As the wind passed, his white hair, like that of an immortal, stirred lightly.
"Emptiness," he said, his voice low and firm,"is alive like breath."
"Today, you saw it.This is the first step of the hundred-day training.When the hundred days are complete, a seed will form."
He tapped lightly below his navel.
"No bigger than a mustard seed.It has not yet appeared as force."
Park Seong-jin silently watched the dawn.At the boundary of night and day, the mountain was gathering its breath.
Iwol-gun's shadow stretched long across the rock.
Within that quiet outline, he understood this much:the path ahead required him never to lose his breath—
and yet the words themselves made no sense at all.
For now, he would memorize them.Commit them to memory, recite them, turn them over again and again.
One day and someday, the meaning would arrive.