西藏的回忆 Tibet Memories

1.
King Sonjanganbo was returning from his morning hunt; ahead, the Podala Palace gleamed in the sunlight - situated high on a cliff, the golden walls of the palace could be seen from miles away on the flat plateau of Lasa.
He looked at the day's haul being carried on the horse behind him: not bad - two mountain goats, a deer, and the rarest of rare, a wild boar; pigs do not take to the cold climate and rough scrubs of Tibetan highlands; in fact, they want tender shoots and roots, almost like humans. Goats and yaks are not as choosy; they eat anything, leaving the better plant material for human consumption.
His wives did not approve of his enthusiasm for hunting: both the Princess of Nepal and the Princess from China were devout Buddhists who neither drank wine nor ate meat, and spent whole days reciting the sutras; it made time spent with them rather slow; in fact he spent little time with either, though by right he should be sharing their beds as often as possible so that his sons would be the grandsons of the Tang Emperor or Nepal King, which would be good for diplomacy. However, it was so much more enjoyable to spend time with Tibetan chiefs in drinking sessions, or those lovely maidens who had not been brought up so strictly.
No, a king's got to do what a king's got to do; however much the princesses might disapprove of the taking of lives, a king's job was to lead men into war, or at least, to hunt, riding on fast horses and shooting arrows. Those peasants who came from the east, up those deep river gauges, or the nomads that came from the west driving their yaks and goats, what do they know about being a king? They can worship the fire, stone, the monkey god, or snakes and dragons, refusing to change; the king has to go with whichever god whose blessing is needed to win, in war or in diplomacy. Tibet has known many gods, and right now, Buddha seems the most powerful, since both the Emperor of Tang and the princes of India worship Him; what choice does the King of Tibet have but to go along as well - but without abandoning any old gods that we used to worship; it would be unwise to offend the old even if one has to take up the new.
And this afternoon he would have to confer with all those chanting Great Vehicle monks who thought they could save everyone else, the scholastic Lesser Vehicle monks who thought each could only save oneself , the swearing shamans who could do those firebreathing tricks, and the dragon worshipers who said their ancestor was that monkey king - about how to decorate the Great Light Temple, built for the Nepal princess, and the Lesser Light Temple, built for the Chinese princess. The fuss they would make about every little detail, and they could never agree on anything so that every little thing had to come before the King in the end.
Yes a great king that knew everything; out in the country, peasants and herders who had not seen the two temples being built were already telling stories that he, using his magic power, constructed the two temples in one night - of course, if the king can command workmen to build what he orders, then the building arose from the king's power; but one night.
And stories about him being the wisest king, that when two women fought over a baby, the king judged the woman who gave up the struggle, for fear of injuring the child, as the mother; that when he was in Chang-an to seek the hand of Princess Wen-cheng, and was given the test of passing a silk thread through a nine-corner pearl, he did it with the help of an ant; that in anticipation of getting drunk at a banquet in the Tang palace, he took a ball of string and unreeled it as he went over, so that he could trace his way back at the end. All those stories he already heard as a small child in the nursery and were about great kings or sages of the past, but now had been put on him.
Of course Sonjanganbo did achieve many things; orphaned at a young age, he managed to fight off usurpers, evil ministers, scheming relatives and foreign interferers, rebuilt the Tibetan army and reimposed sovereignty on all those baronial territories. Even the great Tang Emperor had to treat him with respect. But statecraft was such a bore.

2.
Tibetans say they were descended from the union of a tribe of monkeys and a tribe of witches; the monkey, they said, popped out of a stone, while the witch made fire. With fire, we turn bloody, tough flesh into tender, fragrant food, keep savage beasts at bay, burn away vegetation to clear land for planting while making a fertilizing ash, and most important, turn offerings to the gods into smoke, to rise to heaven for them to enjoy; after death, some of the people insist their bodies needed to burnt so that their souls can rise. But stones were also important; those that stand erect pointing at heaven - surely one could speak to heaven through them? corpses could be covered by a mound of rocks, and those who did bad deeds were punished by being stoned.
Tibet used to have kings that came down from heaven to rule over people, and returned to heaven to make way for their sons who were also gods from heaven. The first king was found by the six shamans from the six tribes, who decided they needed a common king and went out in search. They found him descending the high mountain path, carried him back to the village on their shoulders and proclaimed him. The kings always returned to heaven when their sons were old enough to ride horses, so one need not put up with any one for that long. The Han people to the east of Tibet, and others, even more distant countries further east, did the same thing: heaven would send down a dragon to take their chiefs back up, when their sons were about ready to take over and old kings were no longer needed.
But in Tibet this arrangement soon stopped, when the last king of that dynasty, who upset many people by importing different shamans from the west, and then upset even more people by asking them to leave, had a duel with a courtier and was killed in front of all the watching noblemen and soldiers; he obviously did not go to heaven in the usual way arranged by the shamans; in fact, people say the fight of the two men accidentally cut the ladder that linked heaven to earth, stopping all future kings from returning to heaven; instead, they left behind corpses that needed to be buried in soil, like the Han people did with theirs. This is what they would do with Sonjanganbo, while his soul returned to heaven to be with his ancestor gods, and tribal shamans would chant and burn offerings for all the gods.
Now a new god, maybe the most powerful so far, needed to be included.

3.
"It pleases Sonjanganbo, King, Lord of Lasa, Siasion and Kamba, to decree that the Great Light Temple and Lesser Light Temple shall be decorated thus:
On the front shall be drawn the Diamond-Steel Rod, as wished by the Chanting Monks;
On the back shall be drawn the Praying Wall, as wished by the Scholastic Monks;
On the left shall be drawn the swastika, as wished by the shamans and followers;
On the right shall be drawn the mesh pattern, as wished by the tibetan natives.
So signed and sealed on this Day of the New Year"

the White Horse 白马

1.
Dhama was meditating under the bote tree, one of the many trees that Buddha meditated under though not the one under which he attained Nirvana; that tree was long ago enclosed inside the wall of the great temple that was built on that sacred site; the temple now attracted many pilgrims, all very much wishing to share in the enlighted way as Buddha directed.
Except of course that Buddha said he directed no one, that each must seek one's own enlightenment. However, that did not stop people from believing that merely by living ascetically, or chanting sutras, or touching the various relics left behind by Buddha despite his not wishing these to be elevated to the divine level, that they could share in the holiness he attained.
Since Buddha left this world many different sects of Buddha's followers had emerged. Some believed that Buddha meant his followers to strive for Nirvana for themselves only, that enlightenment was a small vehicle for personal use only - by releasing us from our desires we release ourselves from suffering; others believed that they can make efforts to save everyone, that Buddha left behind a system to spread enlightenment, a message that enlightened by providing understanding and knoweldge, the great vehicle.
What did Dhama believe in? He was not sure; he was striving to find out what was true; he was seeking enlightenment for himself, merely because he did not know how to give it to others; he did not have a message.
A shadow fell on him; he looked up to see a foreigner, obviously from an oriental country, standing in front of him, wearing the safron robe of a monk; Dhama himself wore a dark robe, not because he belonged to a dark robe sect since he was affiliated with no one; simply that he had no other clothes.
While the stranger was struggling to form the words, Dhama anticipated him "You are looking for the Temple of the Sacred Bote?" as this is where most monks and pilgrims coming here wish to go to.
"I..I was there already...I now want to find other holy men to talk to"
"I am not a holy man; I am only someone looking for the way"
"I am too; in my own country we know only one way; I come here to find all the different ways and true words of the Buddha, like Master Xuanzhuang did many years ago"

2
Dhama led his camel through the streets of Chang-an, dodging people, carts, horseriders, other camels..., now and then stopping by the side of the road to let the entourage of some important official through with a clear path, now and then stopping to ask someone the way to the White Horse Monastery. Most did not know; others vaguely pointed him in one direction or another. Eventually a boy said "not far; I take you there", and led him to the place. It was a tumbled down building that must have been grand once, but had obviously been unoccupied for years.
So this is Chang-an; and this is the White Horse Monastery, where the great monk Xuanzhuang kept the hundreds of volumes of Buddhist sutra that he bought back from India, riding the legendary white horse that, some say, was the son of a dragon king, doing penance for his sins; with a team of helpers, Xuanzhuang translated the volumes into Chinese, to spread the authentic words of Buddha; the very same words that had spread far and wide since Buddha uttered them. On Dhama's way along the famed Silk Road, he met Tibetans, blue-eyed people and others, all professing to be followers of Buddha, even someone from a land very far to the east, separated from China by wide oceans.
Dhama sat down beneath a shady tree, and lit a fire in his little stove to boil himself a bowl of gruel; for more than two years he had treaded from village to village, begging for alms to keep himself fed, till he met a generous wealthy man who gave him a camel and enough provision to last his whole journey; but now it had ended, in nowhere; when he set out, he did not know what he was seeking, but if he sought nothing, nothing was exactly what he found.
"White horse is not horse", he had read in a book about notable sayings from China "If one asks for a horse and receives a white horse, one is satisfied, but if one asks for a white horse but receives a horse of another colour, one is not, because horse is not white horse, and white horse is not horse". Ah those rhetoricians, Chinese or Indian; one need to be careful and alert when talking to them; they can twist the meaning of words and sentences to suit any argument they wish to make. My journey has ended in nothing, but they would say, nothing is thing, because before there was the world there was nothing, and the world came from the nothing...
He came to China seeking the White Horse Monastery, and found it, and found nothing; he had nothing else in mind to seek, but the quest had not ended; he had seen the White Horse Monastery and now must move on; seeking nothing, he wondered what he would now find...
As he left the southern bank of the Wei River and went towards to Hua hills, he set the camel free to roam on its own, continuing on foot up the mountain paths. Feeling thirsty, he stopped by a spring to take a drink, but a young girl passing by stopped him "Master, this water is poisonous; do not drink it", and directed him to another spring on the opposite hillside "this water is safe" She was young, and very pretty
"but I see birds bathing in the pond beneath that spring; they do not die"
"it is a slow poison, but people who drink daily from it would sicken and die"
Death was no horrible thing, since you merely got reborn, as someone else, or something else; it was how you lived that mattered, whether you lived in the right way; it was merely up to you to find the way; looking up the cliff above the (drinkable) spring, he saw a small cave with a path cut in the rock leading to it and asked the girl "what is that cave used for?"; he heard that it was once used, hundreds of years ago, occupied by two hermits, brothers who were refugees from Shang tyranny who, however, objected to Zhou "rebels" usurping the Shang mandate of heaven, and refused to eat produce from any Zhou territory, thus starving themselves to death, since all territory under heaven owed allegence to the Zhou King.
Dhama decided it was a good idea for him to live there, for a little while at least.

3.
Coming out of his cave at the end of the day's meditation session, he found the girl coming up the stone path, carrying a small sack of rice. The village people had again sent her to bring alms to him.
She had been there often, sometimes with others from the village; but while the other villagers stayed below and merely bowed to him and then watched, she was the one that came into the cave to set down his supplies: rice, vegetables, firewood, occasionally some clothing; sedentary and well fed for a change, he had even put on a little weight.
Occasionally she would simply come without bringing anything, and sat in the cave quietly, watching him meditate. He wondered whether she too wished to become a meditating ascetic, unusual that might be for a woman, but he did not ask; whatever she wished to do with her life, whether to marry a village boy and start a family, the husband plowing and she weaving, or to live alone all her life, was for her to choose on her own. He was however happy to see her. As an ascetic, he had no use for a woman, but was pleased to see her interest in his search and, apparently, sharing in the spirit of it.
Now and then they fell into a conversation, and he told her about his past search, about him seeing the bote tree under which Buddha attained enlightenment, now in this great temple that many pilgrims visited each day to touch the tree and see the other things Buddha left behind, such that the monks were busy running an enterprise and had no time for contemplation, which they thought unnecessary since what they were doing were already good for spreading the message of Buddha and helping others to achieve enlightenment for themselves. He also told her about the monk from China he met, who told him about Xuanzhuang and White Horse Monastery, and how he came to make the same journey of the White Horse that carried the hundreds of sutra books to China, simply to share the experience as part of his search.
One day a couple of young men came to the cave; they prostrated themselves on the ground before him and called him master, to which he objected: Buddha did not believe in prostration and idol worship; they told him they had moved into the area from a neighbouring village after hearing about the hermit monk from the west meditating in this cave; they had built themselves a hut in a grassy alcove around the corner and invited him to live in their hut as their teacher and master, because they wished to learn from him the right way to live and to achieve Nirvana; Dhama declined, and told them that it is for each to seek his own way and he had nothing to teach them; but he commended them on their desire and wished them well.
The boys were not at all discouraged: the master's humble reply only revealed his depth and profundity. They stuck around but did not bother him in any way. When the village people heard that the master monk from the west now had two disciples living next to him, they began to bring alms for them too; further, the boys, with help from villagers, cleared some land on a nearby slope and made a terrace field out of it, planting some vegetables and seed grains brought by a villager, and fertilizing the crop with their own manure; soon other boys, some from very far away, began to arrive - they too heard about the strange western monk and wanted to learn from him; receiving the same rebuff but also not discouraged, they built more huts and cultivated more land; before long, a small community had been sprung up in the hills, with the villagers contributing towards its upkeep in just small ways; some of the boys even started to perform for their patron villagers chanting sessions and rituals, which were quite strange to Dhama but were presumably familiar to Chinese disciples of Buddha.
Dhama did not involve himself in any of these activities, but now and then looked at them from a distance, often with the girl following him as he went around. Sometimes she would bring him news that yet another group of boys had arrived, and take him to where the newcomers had settled down. The community had by then spread over a wide area, and the hill slopes around the cave had become almost like another village. The earliest boys had taken on the role of planners, directing newcomers to suitable sites for huts and farm plots, organizing the distribution of seeds and tools, the storage of the vegetables and grains harvested, and cooking/eating in a mess hut which was also used for group chantings and sutra studies. Through it all Dhama, vaguely looked up to by the community from a distance, continued to lead his own separate ways.

4.
Another day, he was walking along the stone path and was pleased to find the girl coming to see him; as she came closer, she stumbled a little and he stretched out his hand to steady her. He found her continuing to sway forward, her soft body closely touching his bosom, her curves he could feel through her thin summer dress. Instead of springing back, she continued to lean against him, and he felt stirrings inside him he had never felt before.
Gently he pushed her away from him, wondering if she might be suddenly feeling weak or fainting, but she looked perfectly fine, in fact radiant. She smiled at him in a way he had never seen before, and he felt the inside stirring even stronger than just now. It frightened him. She turned around to leave, but as he watched her go down the path, she turned back several times, flashing the same smile at him, till she turned the corner and he could no longer see her. Yet, he stood there on the path for a long time, till it started to get dark.
He turned into the cave and got ready for bed, but heard a sound at the entrance. It was the girl returning. As she saw him, she removed her dress and revealed to him her silky smooth skin and jade like curves. He started to tremble and pant. Kneeling before him, she removed his trousers and placed his throbbing manhood into her mouth. In a matter of seconds, the cumulated desire of so many years, which he did not even know was there, had been drained out of him. Just as quickly, she put her dress back on and left.
As he layed in his bed, still trembling, he remembered stories about the fox fairy that turned into beautiful maidens to seduce young men and collect their life spirits; hermits and ascetic monks would also be visited by the fairies, for the life spirits of the holy men were much more powerful than that of an ordinary young man. So this is what happened to him? A life time's seeking and asceticism destroyed in one moment? Flesh has won over spirit?
After a sleepless night, he went out of his cave to walk around, hoping to clear his head; the thriving village was all round him, boys going about their daily business, all disciples of the holy master from a foreign land; yet he had nothing to say to them, no part to play in their life; they at least believed in what they were doing; did he? He caught sight of the girl, and she ignored him, but was closely following the boy who started it all, whom now everyone was addressing as the "abbot", as he very much deserved to be called. She flashed to the "abbot" the same smile shown to Dhama the day before.
Stopping next to the poisonous spring, Dhama watched birds chirping away bathing in its water, and realized that his quest had come to an end; stooping down, he scooped up the water again and again, gulping it down...
Many days later, villagers bringing alms found him dead in his cave; he was sitting upright in his usual meditation posture, but his soul had departed while he was meditating. To the villagers, it was obvious Dhama found nirvana.
No one dared to touch the holy body, and it did not decay; the poison in the spring water had over many days of drinking seeped throughout his body, preserving it from the rotten elements, the perfect sacred relic for the future Hua Hills White Horse Monastery, one of the greatest monasteries of China.

Treasures of the Templars 神殿骑士的宝藏

1.
James de Molay, who had just been handed the Templar Grand Master's sword with its six-pointed handle by his predecessor Theobauld Gaudin, and proclaimed as their leader by the knights gathered in the Temple chapel, was following Theobauld into the Grand Master's study. Everyone understood that the new leader was to be told The Secret.
Every member of the order (and many people outside) knew that the Order of the Knights of the Temple kept a great secret, but only the Grand Masters knew what it was. Rumours and speculations would surface now and then, neither confirmed nor denied. Some said the Templars found the True Cross, the Holy Grail or the Treasure of Solomon in the Jerusalem temple when the Crusaders first conquered the city; some said they were nursing a great heresy, that Pope was not appointed by Christ to be the head of Christendom because Jesus entrusted it to Mary Magdalene, whom he secretly married; some said the Templars engaged in devil worship in their secret rites, or nursed other heretical ideas. However, with special dispensation from the Pope himself, the order was not open to scrutiny by priests and bishops in the areas where they operate, and the knights confessed to their own chiefs and obtain absolution from their sins without having to speak to chaplins or vicars appointed by other church authorities. Outsiders simply had no means to look into the Templar Order and satisfy themselves of their good behaviour and good heart.
In fact, merely by joining the order, a knight was absolved of all past sins including the most serious sin of all, heresy; hence, there were members who harbored quite different ideas from those endorsed by the church, and it was easy for them to wonder about each other's beliefs, and about what might be going on in other locations of the Order, or when another group of knights gathered for a secret meeting of some kind.
Once upon a time, such circulated slanders were but a whisper, completely outshined by the Order's great reputation as fighters and as an effective organization. Not only were the knights better trained in individual fighting skills, they deployed new military tactics, coordinating their knights on horses and men on ground so that the lancemen and arrow shooters provided each other with protection as they advanced together. Further, being multi-national by nature and recruiting men and receiving donations from all the European countries, they established a pan-European network that could transfer messages and money in security. Pilgrims would deposit gold and silver in a Templar stronghold in one city as they set out for the Holy Land, and receive the equivalent amount (minus charges) in Jerusalem using the documents issued by the Templars when the money was deposited, in addition to receiving military protection on route. Templar castles were securely defended, such that even royalties began to use them as depositories for their own funds, turning the strongholds into bank vaults; in turn, they also borrowed money from Templars, who were by the end of the crusades more a banking and fund transfer organization in Europe than a military one.
In the mean time, the military situation in the Holy Land had gone from bad o worse. Having lost Jerusalem to Saladin in 1187 and making futile efforts to recover it, the crusaders lost Acre, their last stronghold, in 1291, and the Templars had to retreat to Cyprus.
The year 1293 was therefore not an auspicious time to succeed to the leadership of the Knights Templars, especially for a man already past the mid 50s in age, neither well educated nor well connected.

2.
Across the table, Theobauld said" I will now tell you the Order's great secret and pass to you our sacred object. You will safeguard this, keeping it with you wherever you are; take it with you whenever you travel to another place, till the time comes when you hand it to the next Grand Master and reveal its secret to him."
" If I go to battle, I may not return and there will be no one to tell the next Grand Master"
"Yes this is the tricky part; you need to write down the secret beforehand, in a pouch to be opened only after his election"
Theobauld took out a key, passed to James de Molay, and pointed at the old wooden box that he always had with him, in his study or carried around when he moved somewhere - people thought it had important documents, since it was not heavy enough to contain money or jewelry: "open it; in it lies the Order's great secret"; opening the box, all he saw was a small roll of papyrus and a clay tablet; a treasure map? directions to a secret shrine for Jesus? a set of catechisms? "Actually, I do not know the meaning of what is on the roll; nor did the earlier Grand Masters; they only said we must wait for a message from God to tell us what it means" replied Theobauld.
Scribed on the papyrus were some writings in an unknown language; at the top there was the picture of a compass imposed on a right angle, forming a six-pointed star, and at the bottom that of a coiled serpent swallowing its own tail. The clay tablet had just the two figures and a small number of signs scattered round them.
"This box was found in the inner sanctum, with the big scrolls of Hebrew books, when Hugo of Payns fought his way into the Temple; at first nobody thought it was important, but then one of the old men there was trying to sneak out with it and was stopped by Hugo, who realized that it must be more precious than the other objects; the old man gave his life trying to hold on to it; before he died, he said the box was made with wood from the same tree that was used for the Ark in the first Jerusalem temple, built by David and Solomon, and on the scroll was the most sacred message from God, whose meaning will only be revealed when He decides it should be."
"Hugo did not ask anyone about this?"
"It would not be much use asking a knight or a priest from Rome, but he did ask some of the old men in the Temple; all they could say was that not everything in the Book was true. Later he found some of those Hebrew hermits scattered here and there; they told him various bits of wild things: the world is much older than what the Book says; Adam and Eve did not commit sin; they just worshiped the snake because they wanted to have children..."
"which means men need not cleanse their sin by following Jesus? That fellow was denying Jesus as the True Prophet - but of course he is a Jew"
"Quite so, and they said the compass is heaven because it draws round, the square draws earth so earth is square; all that stuff has something to do with this scroll and this tablet, but I guess I will not live to find out"
"About the age of the world, I did often wonder whether there was enough time, after people dispersed from the Tower of Babel, to go to Egypt and learn to build all these pyramids"
"Actually, in Jerico the people say their town walls are 8000 years old. But they may have got it wrong"
"Well those ancient Jewish writers could have got it wrong too; even the four Gospels are different from each other"
"Oh my; I think we should be careful what we say; I am a bit deaf these days; I did not hear what you just said"

3.
How strong are my beliefs? James de Molay asked himself.

Templars were special people; they were both monks and knights; as monks, they were sworn to celebacy, poverty and a deeply religious life; as knights, they were trained to defend the sites sacred to Christianity in Jerusalem and protect pilgrims who came to seek a share of the holiness of these places.
Coming to Palestine had been an enlightening experience to all of them. Compared to the cold windswept land of western Europe, balmy Palestine was a land of milk and honey. They were accustomed to a diet of bread, wine and some meat, but here the abundant produce, with their strong fragrance and syropy sweetness, was a real change. In Europe, taking a bath was a rare event and wearing the same dirty, lice ridden shirt for hundreds of days was a sign of manly endurance, in the east mediterrenean area the lifestyle previously considered effeminine and extragant was standard. The new environment changed one's outlook, including the religious outlook. The saracen infidels, however one disagreed with them over religious doctrines, seemed genuinely dedicated in their beliefs, and often acted with greater honour than some of the Templars' own Christian friends.
The military reverses, often due to the crusaders' own incompetence, had a double effect on the Templars: the crusaders wondered why God did not seem to be showering them with blessings and helping with winning the war; they often resorted to uttering curses and blashmous remarks in their frustration, while the nobles and churchmen back in Europe looked for blame, that the crusaders had not shown sufficient religious dedication and had too often tried to enter into deals and compromises with the saracens. Much of the suspicion fell on the military orders, in particular the highly secretive, often independent minded, yet privileged and supposedly very wealthy Templars.
But James de Molay had no doubt about his own standing as a good Christian, maybe he was an even better Christian than the pious churchmen and the scholarly monks, because he had seen the sacred places and fought for them; he had known the places where Christianity started, and known something about its religious sources that went back much, much further. God was not just the God of Jesus, but also the God of Abraham and earlier.

4.
Another crusade; that's what the Pope said; that's what Templars would like to do. James de Molay looked at the new fleet of six ships, which the Order just purchased from Venice, with satisfaction. His assistant Count Beaujeu, standing next to him, also glowed with pride. Nice ships, but expensive; the Templar income was not as great as it used to be, and many debtors had been slow in repaying their loans from the Order, including King of France, Philip the Fair. It was nearly all the cash they had on hand that was used to pay Venice.
Ah all those stories people told about the fabulous wealth of the Templars. Sure there were generous donations when the crusades were hot in everyone's heart, and properties that new members gave to the Order when they took their oath of poverty. Templars also got a share of the land and castles when helping to reconquer spain and portugal from saracens. But the financial commitments of the Order were great too. Today Templars had to finance its fighting corps in the Levant, its organization, and its charity work, from its income out of European properties. And all those stories about these horrible sins they commit in secret.
"I hear there have been a new set of complaints about us at the French court." said Count of Beaujeus.
"We are directly under the Pope; only he can initiate proceedings against us"
"There have been scandal mongering in Avignon too"
"But he needs us for his next crusade"
"Sure, but still.."
Remembering Theobauld's advice of leaving behind word about the Secret before any expedition, James de Molay went to his quarters, wrote down the information, and placed the sheet in a sealed pouch which he gave to Beaujeus: "In case I do not return from the crusade; let it be opened by the next Grand Master."