Hidden Master

“Hey! Stop fartin’ around!”

The voice brings me up short. I lower my foot from the last crescent kick that I'd been doing, just inches from the new guy’s face.

“I was just showing him the technique, Sensei,” I say, my face a mask of innocence.

Sensei Bush isn’t buying it. “You were showing off, Frank. God! You’re middle aged! Why do you have to act like a little boy?”

“I can’t help it. It’s my…”

“Yeah, yeah, your ADHD. You know, I think you hide behind that excuse a little too much. Why don’t you go practice your meditation?”

“But I was teaching tonight!”

“I'll take care of class. You go cool off.”

I take my usual place by the side wall, off the mats, and sink down into a kneeling position. I’ve been taking Shotokan Karate lessons for quite a while, and became an assistant instructor a few years ago, but it’s hard to keep my energy under control with my Asperger’s and ADHD. Sensei Bush teaches meditation as part of the class and it’s helped a lot.

I close my eyes and focus inward. I take hold of my ki energy and try to force it out, to disperse it. The energy won’t cooperate. It flows around my consciousness like a wild, chaotic river, paying my efforts no more heed than a pebble thrown in the stream. I deepen my concentration and gradually, with my will and my mind, I coax and guide my ki energy into smooth patterns, coming into my body through my mouth, down through my chest, into my extremities, and then back out through my nose.

Part of my mind hears the ending of class. I hate to miss the final bow out, but I’m used to it by now. I come to class every weekday, and at least one day a week I end up having to meditate through the end of the session.

I can hear the new guy saying, “Class is over. Aren’t you going to… you know, wake him up?”

“Frank will be fine,” I hear Sensei tell him. “I’ll give him a few minutes while I clean up the dojo.”

Vaguely I'm aware of the sound of the students leaving. Then the sounds of Sensei sweeping and mopping the mats, cleaning the dirt and sweat off them so they don’t grow bacteria and fungus. But my meditation has deepened even further. I'm not concentrating on my energy now. Something deeper is pulling me. Something inside me. Nothing else exists. Just the black, formless void inside of myself. There’s something there, lurking in the void. Something I can’t quite grasp. I go deeper.

I come back to myself much later. Through my closed eyelids I can tell that it's nighttime, and I know that it’s near midnight. From the lack of fluorescent buzz, I can tell the lights are off. Sensei has left me alone in the dark. Somehow this is ok.

I turn my meditation outward now, stretching my senses and energy out into the dojo. I can sense a presence. There’s someone there. More than one someone. I continue my breathing, not moving a muscle, and soon I can feel the life force of eight other people in the room. I keep going and soon I can hear their breathing, and their tiny movements. And their heartbeats.

Not even knowing why, I shift myself so I'm away from the wall and I'm facing the people in the room. I know that we are all kneeling with our feet under us, hands on our thighs. I haven’t opened my eyes yet but I know they're all wearing black uniforms, and gloves, with black hoods over their faces. Every inch of them is covered, and only their eyes showing. They're almost invisible in the darkness, but fully apparent to me.

It comes to me that I know all of them. Their every movement, every breath, the energy they give off, it's all familiar to me. I've known them for years. Some of them are students in the Shotokan school, but others are not. I know that they are all skilled and experienced. I don’t know their names, and they don’t know mine. We only know each other by Japanese designations. I am Fumei, meaning “hidden” or "unclear". They are Ichi, Ni, San, and so on, numbers one through twenty. That’s how many total students there are, I realize. There are eight here tonight, but there are twenty total.

Likewise they wear the ninja costumes to hide their identities, from me and from each other. The uniforms are all the same, and the only parts visible are the eyes. Even their hands are covered by black gloves.

Information filters through my mind that we hold class like this at least once a week, but somehow I never remember. I start by meditating and I always wake up in my own bed, thinking I left after Shotokan class and went home alone. I realize I actually own the dojo, and Sensei Bush is one of the formless shadows clothed in black, waiting for me to speak.

I open my eyes and speak to them in a whisper. “Let us continue our discussion of using cut-outs to distance yourself from suspicion. Shichi, I believe you were working on something clever.”

Shichi, a small person that is probably a woman in her early years, whispers from the darkness of the dojo. “Yes, Fumei. I am almost in the final phase.”

Not going into specifics, she speaks of the character assassination of a corrupt business executive she is working on. She has ten different people unknowingly working for her, spreading a mixture of half-truths and damning whole-truths, making sure the information gets to the right ears. These people speak to each other sometimes, and their sharing of this information adds to their conviction that it's all complete truth that needs to be acted upon. These cut-outs will bring the executive down. And yet none of it can be trace back to Shichi.

Over the next two hours I teach my students the subtle arts of spying, subterfuge, subtle manipulation, setting up systems of cut-outs and distractions, martial arts, and a million other things that go into being a spy master. We discuss ideas, and some share their field experience, and we all learn. We whisper in the darkness, exchanging information, sometimes getting up briefly to demonstrate a hard to describe technique or concept. Mostly we sit and talk.

I love these students. Every one of them is dearer to me than life. They are the bravest, smartest, and most loyal group of people that anyone has ever worked with. I would give my life for theirs in an instant.

As it does every night, it comes to me that I have given my life for theirs. This whole situation is something I have arranged. I split my personality intentionally to protect them. Frank’s ADHD is a side effect of this process, but it gives a perfect reason for him to study meditation. And when he meditates I can be free, for a little while. And Frank can never be questioned about my life. He can never accidentally give away a secret. He can never betray my students. The person that lives during the day knows nothing about the one that lives during the night. I am the Hidden Master, hidden even from myself.