comment: |
  {{{
  Tara, Buddhist Pirate Captain Excrucian
    The world is suffering, end the world
    Airily, Tara says, “I decided it’d be faster to bring enlightenment to all living beings if I skipped the last few million years of the process and just became a pirate.” and/or just destroyed the false world
  }}}

  * Plays are for resources
  ** Talk to everyone
  ** Collect secrets/sets of secrets related to the question
  * Looking for new Excrucian recruits, particularly [[Sid]], who
    would be super-useful

  * Question: "Does humanity deserve to be freed from suffering?"
  ** Answer1: "Everything is worthy of being so freed."
  ** Answer2: "Only the worthy will recognize their freedom."
name: \mf{Zheng}{Tara}
player: Katie Tingle
gender: f
stuff: |
  [[Actors]], [[Excrucians]],
  [[Sailor]], [[Buddhism]],
  [[TaraFalse1]], [[ExcrucianRose]]
contacts: |
  \MrsSchiff{Hired you to work with the troupe.}
  \IndianaJones{Dramatic Excrucian archaeologist with experience with
    ruins and traps.}
  \UnicornLover{A weird kid you met in your travels.  Seems a bit clueless,
    but any allies in a storm.}
body: |-
  \cenquote{“I forget that not everyone’s a bodhisattva yet.”}

  \cenquote{“If you won’t willingly abandon your attachment to material 
  existence, I’m afraid I’ll have to use the cannon.”}

  When you were a child, you didn't usually wake up and marvel at the
  beauty of the sun.  You more often saw black smoke rising from a 
  battlefield.  You heard stories from farmers and travellers attacked
  by bandits and marauders.  You asked your father, "Why is there such
  suffering in the world?"

  Your father was busy, weeding the rice fields.  He said, "Don't ask me,
  ask the monks."

  So you did.  The monk said, "Dukkha, the principle of universal suffering,
  holds sway over all.  To escape it, you must study the Noble Eightfold
  Path."

  This didn't make a lot of sense to you, but he was old and wise.  If
  you could end the suffering in the world, it was worth it.  So you
  stayed at the temple, studied the sutras, practiced meditation, tried
  to answer koans.  It seemed awfully indirect and self-centered, but
  you stuck with it.

  And you achieved Enlightenment.  You could step outside the world and see
  it for the web of false conceptions and unnecessary attachments that it is.
  Everything was clear to you, now.

  It's customary at this point to make a vow to forswear Nirvana until you
  have helped all sentient beings achieve Enlightenment.  Your teachers
  expected you to do as they did, teach those who would listen and sit
  in isolated monestaries away from ordinary concerns.  They told you of
  Boddhisatvas who swore to teach for millions of years, always working
  towards this noble goal.

  A million years is a long time.  You might be freed from all worldly
  desires, but there's no sense getting lazy about things.

  You decided it'd be faster to bring enlightenment to all living beings if
  you skipped that part of the process and just became a pirate.

  I mean, pirates get to interact with a lot more people.  They travel all
  over the world.  There are many situations where weapons are more effective
  persuasion techniques than cryptic riddles.

  Plus, you like to swashbuckle.

  See, a lot of people don't really understand the Buddha's truths.  Even
  a lot of your companions these days don't really.  What it boils down
  to, is that the world is suffering.  To escape suffering, you must escape
  the world.  That's why the Enlightened go to Nirvana, outside the world.
  Life and suffering are effectively the same thing.

  That doesn't mean you're some sort of mass murderer who goes around
  killing people to free them from the world.

  That's because it doesn't work.  You get killed, you come back as
  someone else.  No one escapes the world.

  No, to free someone from the world, you need to be more invasive.

  Your ship, //Honest with Myself//, was prowed with a great stone
  statue of Amitābha that could cause people to see past the skandas
  at 30 paces, and bore cannons that could sever attachments eight
  ship lengths away.  You sailed the seven leagues with a crew of
  holy monks and ne'er-do-wells, and forced many to shed their
  attachment to the world with sword and fire.

  But, all things in this world are transient.  A storm of misconceptions
  (and also lightning) caught you off the coast of California.  You were
  shipwrecked, and as you washed up on a sandy white beach in Santa Ynez,
  you thought perhaps it was time for a change.

  You came across an advertisement from a "\MrsSchiff" looking for someone
  to light his theatre company. This sounded perfect. If you could
  enlighten the theatre company, they could use that to enlighten
  their audiences. Done right, that could be almost as effective at
  freeing people from the world as being a pirate!

  You showed up the next day, all set to awaken people to the dangers
  of attachment to material existence. \MrsSchiff met you, delighted,
  and to your great surprise, led you to a closet full of cables and
  wrenches and strange metal contraptions hanging from pipes. On
  closer inspection, these last appeared to be lights of some sort.

  You forget that not everyone uses words the way monks do.\footnote{Great pity, that.}

  Deciding that it had all been a great misunderstanding and that
  perhaps you'd really rather return to being a pirate after all, you
  set off back down the hallway to chase after \MrsSchiff, who had
  abandoned you at the closet to attend to some business or other, to
  inform him that you wouldn't be sticking around.  But then, something
  caught your ear.  That is, to say, your inner ear.  There was a
  great potential here, like 108 cannons rolled into one.  Stepping
  out of reality, you could see it glowing, like a perfect jewel.
  Whatever it was, it had the potential to free a great many from
  the prison of suffering that is the world.

  Of course, being able to see the true nature of things does not always let
  you see exactly how to get //to// them.  But you couldn't risk this
  opportunity.  You contacted some others you'd met on your travels
  who share your philosophy, \IndianaJones{} and \UnicornLover{},
  to assist you in localizing this potential.  They're good allies,
  but neither of them really understand the nature of reality the
  way you do.  (You'd thought of taking an apprentice to bring into
  Enlightenment and to assist you more fully, back as a pirate, but
  since you got shipwrecked you haven't had a chance.)
  But regardless, you got them jobs with
  the company as cover, and you worked together to search.

  But right when the Professor had almost found the Truths that had to
  be the potential you'd seen, though, the Ragged Things came and
  brought the whole company, yourself now included, off to the Place
  Without Recourse. There was Ii Ma, that great horrible bulk, and you
  stood before him and he spoke, "**Does humanity deserve to be freed
  from suffering?**” And you could not answer.  You mean, you love
  all sentient creatures.  But you've put long years of study and
  practice into escaping the world.  It's hard to justify the ordinary
  ignorant people of the world really deserving to get it handed to
  them.

  Without your answer, you can't return to the world outside, but
  that's no reason to stop being a pirate and striving to end the
  suffering of the world. And perhaps, from the Place Without
  Recourse, you can do more than you could outside. At least, the
  potential you saw before is in here now, somewhere.  With it, you
  might be able to destroy the world entirely. What better
  way to end all suffering?

  == Goals ==

  * Work with the \Excrucians to free all sentient beings from the suffering
  that is the world.
  * Put on Shows to blend in.
  * Talk to everyone and gather useful information.
  * Find someone worthy to walk the path of Enlightenment and 
  of the \Excrucians, and convince them to learn from you.
  * Answer your question, so that you are not cut off from the world
  long enough to hinder your vow.
username:
badgedesc: A Serene-looking Pirate
number: <<parent.this />>
castinghint: |
  Your character is \name, an actor newly arrived in the Place without
  Recourse. You are a Buddhist and a pirate captain. You are dedicated
  to bringing enlightenment to humanity, but you think that it will be
  faster to bring enlightenment to all living beings if you just skip
  the last few million years of the process.

  Costuming:\\
  A mix of Buddhist and pirate.

  Suggested reading:\\
  http://imago.hitherby.com/2006/08/the-pirate-iiiv/\\
  http://imago.hitherby.com/2006/08/the-skandhas-of-head-island-iviv/
wrapup: <<parent.this />>
CR: <<parent.this />>
password: <<parent.this />>
claimedby: Lian/Xavid
status: Draft
answers: |
  [[TaraAnswer1]], [[TaraAnswer2]]
email: ktingle@wellesley.edu
