"And who decides what constitutes wisdom, master?" he asked, his staff beginning to glow with a light that was somehow both golden and transparent, as if illuminated by the accumulated understanding of every choice he had ever made, every consequence he had ever accepted, every moment when he had chosen difficulty over comfort because it was right. "Who determines the boundaries of acceptable love? Who gets to define the difference between order and oppression?"
The questions weren't accusations—they were invitations, extended with the patience of someone who had learned that true teaching came not from providing answers but from helping others discover that they had been asking the wrong questions all along.
"The wise," Buddha replied, but his voice lacked its usual certainty, each word seeming to require conscious effort to produce. "Those who have transcended selfish desire, who have learned to see beyond individual need to cosmic necessity, who have—"
