The Sword Is Sharpened
- Dan arrives home, feeling more relaxed, enjoying growing mastery over his thoughts. His parents pick up on the change; his father compliments him on how nice he is to be around.
- The young man buys a motorcycle, a Triumph—the same make Steve McQueen rode in The Great Escape movie Dan watched back at the start of Chapter Two, we note digressively—rides it, and promptly gets hit by an accelerating Cadillac.
- The gymnast's right leg is shattered. He's taken into an ambulance, remembering his teacher's words about how he'd be severely tested. Soon a surgeon puts his leg more or less back together.
- In the hospital, Joy shows up—the person, not the feeling. She relays a story from Socrates. It's about a farmer whose horse runs away, then returns accompanied by more horses; next the farmer's son breaks his leg taming one of the horses, but therefore isn't drafted by a passing army. At each turn of fortune, the farmer declares, “Good? Bad? Who knows?”
- Joy continues the lesson as Dan is assaulted by a wave of pain. She tells him everything has a purpose, and that this injury is his training. Dan passes out.
- Lying in his hospital bed, Dan meditates. Soon he's up on crutches, and not too long afterwards he's training intensely like some sort of Zenned-out Arnold Schwarzenegger who prefers handstands to bench-pressing. He ponders Socrates and life's mysteries as he trains. Finally the doctor says his leg looks good, unusually good in fact, but gymnastics is likely out of the question forever.
- Back in Berkeley, Dan keeps up his training. He phones Socrates, who tells his student to visit once he can walk without crutches. Teammates take Dan out in the snow to play as best he can. Eventually he gets back to the gas station.
- With new clarity to his gaze, Dan sees wonders about Socrates. He has a faintly glowing aura; he leaves customers happier than when they arrived; he's simple, efficient, and above all, he has transcended his mind.
- Dan asks where Joy is; Socrates says he doesn't know, that the woman is a mystery to him.
- Socrates now introduces the metaphor of the gate (see the Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory section for more). He says it's something within Dan that the student will have to blaze an inner path to. Anyone can find the gate, Socrates notes, but Dan has the unusual will to make it happen.
- The old man notices Dan is sick and tells him to go to the hospital. It turns out the young man has mononucleosis. Socrates shows up at the hospital and feeds Dan plant leaves, rubs urine on his leg (ew!) and conducts other alternative medicine practices. These heal Dan super fast. Yay!
- Before leaving the hospital, Dan makes sexual innuendos to the nurse, whom he doesn't know at all. Perhaps implausibly, she appreciates them. Soon Dan returns to the gas station.
- Socrates tells Dan it's time for a complete overhaul. This begins a new phase of his training. The old man tells his student that anger at his predicament can be a powerful motivator for change.
- Continuing his lecture on emotions, Socrates recommends Dan follow the examples of babies: they accept their emotions completely: they let them flow and then let them go.
- A cafe-owner named Joseph arrives at the station and meets Dan. He invites Socrates and his student over to dinner. Socrates accepts on behalf of both. Socrates explains that Joseph specializes in uncooked, natural food.
- On the way to Joseph's, Socrates tells Dan his new diet will give him real energy, better moods, and better awareness. His old habits are to be dissolved.
- Joseph treats the pair to simple food at his cafe. Socrates nibbles away; Dan shoves his food down his throat. The old man uses the meal as an opportunity to lecture Dan on eating slowly and paying attention to what he tastes.
- Socrates outlines a purifying fast for Dan to follow. For the next seven days, the youth has to eat nothing but diluted fruit juice and plain herb teas. After that, Dan will have to resume eating without refine sugar, refined flour, meat, coffee (cue a collective gasp from all of us at Shmoop—not our precious coffee!), alcohol, or basically anything else that isn't super-duper healthy. Instead, just fruit and raw salads and the like.
- Not only that, Socrates informs Dan, but he'll have to give up sex for quite a while. This throws Dan into a tizzy, but Socrates is unmoved. He tells him he'll simply have to get used to finding fresh food, fresh water, fresh awareness, and the like thrilling.
- The next few days Dan fasts, and during the nights at the gas station, Socrates criticizes his walking, talking, breathing, and pretty much everything else about him. Dan's social life begins to collapse since he's unable to participate in ordinary dining.
- The nurse from the hospital, Valerie, finds Dan training at the gym and invites him over. He ends up sleeping with her and eating all the food she cooks. As a result, Socrates bans him from the gas station for a month. Dan tries exercising discipline again—causing Valerie to reject him one night at her apartment and, soon after, to pick one of his teammates for fun instead of him.
- Nevertheless, Dan sticks with his super-healthy discipline and eventually finds himself feeling much better: his mood swings have vanished, he has more energy, and all sorts of minor symptoms such as headaches have disappeared.
- We don't know about you, but we're currently stuffing our faces with pizza. Oh well.
- Socrates increases his demands. He has Dan working menial tasks at the station to no end, and criticizes his efforts. This continues for weeks until Dan finally loses his temper and yells at Socrates that he, Dan, has been doing all the old man's work for him. Socrates tells him to stop coming to the station until he's learned to show courtesy to his teacher and breathe well to boot.
- After a month of struggling with his breathing and maintaining his dietary discipline, Dan goes to Joseph for help. He and the cafe-owner discuss Socrates; it turns out Joseph was the old man's cook and personal attendant for years. Joseph says Socrates taught him happiness and peace.
- Joseph helps Dan with his breathing. It works; Dan feels a pleasurable effortlessness to his being. Joseph says this way of breathing will keep Dan sane. Once the young man gets the hang of it, he returns to the gas station.
- Socrates continues the youth's training, making him do frustrating, difficult meditation exercises and so on. But he's also now silent about Dan's behavior, giving his student the responsibility of watching his own behavior. Socrates has stopped being his effective parent and is now his friend.
- Dan visits Joseph once more, but finds the cafe burning. Joseph is crying outside, but quickly turns serene, making peace with his emotions. He tells Dan the story of a monk who tends to a child for a year without becoming attached to it, with the lesson being that Joseph is not attached to his cafe. Joseph says he'll move north now, or south, since it makes no difference either way.
- The youth returns to the gas station and tells Socrates about Joseph's cafe burning. The old man cracks a joke and then, to Dan's utter amazement, whips out a cigarette and starts smoking.
- Socrates explains that there's no such thing as a bad habit. Addiction is the problem, he says. Every action has a price, and the point is to recognize it and make free, conscious choices.
- (Yeah, but smoking is still bad, Socrates.)
- Socrates then takes Dan out of a night on the town. They drink and party until five in the morning, at which point they run into a stick up. Socrates ninja-s the would-be thieves and gets Dan and himself away to safety.
- Back in bed, Dan decides he should loosen up a little, but heavy drinking isn't worth the price, especially when his discipline has begun to bring him so much pleasure.
- The next few days, Dan has some new experiences. First, outdoors in nature, he senses a life-giving, nameless Presence. Second, once he resumes classes, he's able to overcome his disappointment at the rise of old urges and anxieties about school; he reminds himself urges come and go and do not matter—only actions do. He understands this with such confidence that he describes the certainty of it as a Feeling with a capital F.
- (We stuck the Presence and the Feeling in the Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory section, by the way.)
- Dan heads to the gas station to tell Socrates about the Feeling, but Socrates has news for him: Joseph has died of leukemia. Socrates tells Dan that death is just a transformation, neither to be sought nor fled from. Socrates cries a little, but Dan realizes the old man doesn't consider Joseph's death a tragedy. Dan ponders life and decides he will live as a peaceful warrior.
- The next night, Dan tells Socrates that he, Dan, is ready for anything. Socrates scolds him, saying that no one knows their time of readiness. The old man puts his hands on the youth's head, and Dan goes on another one of the vision-trip things.
- Dan, in this vision, faces an enemy swordsman giant with multiple false but identical images around him, kind of like a video game boss.
- Dan, who's now conveniently armed with a sword, is told by that Feeling that the giant represents his mind. Dan closes his eyes, realizing that only the real giant would make a sound as he walked. Pinpointing the giant's location this way, Dan stabs upward and impales the demon. Flawless victory, as Mortal Kombat would have it.
- Socrates welcomes Dan back to the gas station. They discuss how Dan cut through his own mind by stabbing the giant. It seems he has made some progress.
- Socrates darkly points out that Dan would have gone mad had he failed to kill the swordsman.