The Scroll of Hi Nu

By Mel C. Thompson

A Zen student announces that the ordinary rigors of conscientious Zen practice are impossible for him, and he confronts his teacher with the need to become instantly enlightened. The teacher cannot offer any guaranteed solution to the student's problem, he does, however, offer the student "The Scroll of Hi Nu" which the student accepts.

The student later returns asking for some additional reading material. The student is then given "Selected Fragments from The Scrolls of To Fu," a mythological work allegedly derived from a vast collections of scrolls now considered lost to history. (Experts, when asked about the existence of these scrolls have been known to utter, "I will not dignify this nonsense by even commenting on it.") To Fu is also one of the authors cited in "The Scroll of Hi Nu." To Fu is, according to legend, a discredited poet in ancient China who somehow fails to gain literary fame or romantic love.

The entire work only takes several minutes to read, and, due to its brevity, Zen monks are said to be able to "recite it in a single breath," or, as some have boasted, "between breaths as I'm meditating."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mel C. Thompson
• Release date: Feb 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005014063

Mel C. Thompson

Mel C. Thompson is a retired wage slave who survived by working through temp agencies and guard agencies. Unable to survive in the real world of full-time, permanent work, he migrated from building to building, going wherever his agencies sent him, doing any type of work he could feign competency in and staying as long as those fragile arrangements could last. He somehow managed to get a B.A in Philosophy from Cal-State Fullerton in spite of his learning disorders and health problems. Unable to sustain family life due to depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, lack of transportation and lack of income, he lives alone in low-income housing and wanders around California on buses and trains. He began writing at the age of 14 and continues till the current day. (He turns 64 in June of 2023). In his early years he wrote pathetic love poetry until, in his thirties, he was engulfed by cynicism and fell in with a group of largely antisocial poets who wrote about the underground life of drugs, sex, alcohol, poverty, prostitution, heresy, isolation and alienation. In his fortes he turned to prose and began to write religious fiction with an emphasis on the comedic aspect of theology and philosophy. He now writes short novels focusing on the attempt to find meaning in a economic world beset with money laundering, unethical marketing, contraband smuggling, human trafficking, patent trolling, corrupt contracting and every manner of spiritual and psychological desperation and degradation. When he is not writing, he wanders from hospital to medical clinic to surgical room attempting to sustain what little health he has left after a lifetime of complications resulting from birth defects and genetic problems. When he is able, he engages in such hobbies as reading, walking, yoga and meditation; and whenever there is any money left over from his healthcare-related quests, he goes to wine tastings and searches for foodie-related bargains. Before the pandemic, he spent many years gaming various travel-points systems and wrangled many free trips to Europe. He is divorced and has no children, no pets, no real estate, no stocks nor any other assets beyond the $550 in his savings account. His career peaked in the early 2000s when he did comedy gags for a radio station and had about 10,000 listeners per week. However, currently, he may have as few as five active readers on any given day. He no longer has the stamina to promote his work and only finds new readers through ran...

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