He Is Heaven and Earth

In a golden Buddhist realm, lotus flowers carpeted the ground and lapis lazuli formed the trees. At the center sat an immense Buddha. Tier upon tier, expanse upon expanse beneath his seat, disciples gathered to hear the scriptures, appearing in all manner of sizes—the largest were no bigger than his palm, while the smallest were like ants. Whenever the lecture reached a magnificent passage, Buddhist voices and Zen chanting reverberated throughout the world, and boundless flower petals fluttered down from above. The Buddha reached forward with one hand, and countless lotus seeds materialized out of thin air, tumbling into his palm. The gathered disciples rejoiced and sang his praises. After showing them to the assembly, the Buddha gently turned his palm over. The countless lotus seeds rained down, transforming into a clear pond before his throne. In the blink of an eye, lotus blossoms bloomed across the water, purity arising of its own accord. Golden light spread outward, expanding the Buddhist realm of Shakya yet further. The disciples were filled with awe. The Buddha spoke in a measured voice: "...The worldly always think the sea of suffering refers to the various affairs of the mortal world. Little do they know that the sea of suffering is boundless. This realm is a sea of suffering; the myriad heavens and realms are a sea of suffering; the evil demons beyond the boundary are also a sea of suffering. In this boundless sea of suffering, one can only ferry oneself... "If one cannot even ferry oneself, how can one ferry all living beings?" He had only spoken half his thought when a small novice monk suddenly appeared, standing upon his shoulder and whispering a few words into his ear. The Buddha chuckled. "Those fellows from the Pure Land always make an unnecessary fuss. Very well. If they want to find Yunjian Temple, then I shall tell them where it is. Let them seek it!" *** Following a crash of thunder, torrential rain poured down. The mountain storm arrived fast and fierce. Though it was only early afternoon, the sky had turned as black as the bottom of a pot. Amid tangled woods and howling winds, a mountain trail lay obscured beneath the chaotic canopy. A young monk, thoroughly drenched, braved the wind and rain as he trudged along the path with great difficulty. After stumbling several times along the way, he finally reached the entrance of a small temple. The temple consisted of merely a main hall, a side room, and a combined kitchen and storeroom. The side room was divided into north and south sections, one containing a single bed and the other three. The main hall was dim, illuminated only by a blue lamp before the Buddha that cast a bean-sized halo of light. The young monk closed the courtyard gate and dashed into the main hall, wiping the rainwater from his face and body with his hands. Inside the hall sat an old monk chanting scriptures. At that moment, he sighed softly and said in a measured voice, "Why bother coming?" The young monk stared in confusion. "Master, where else could I go if not back to the temple? There isn't a soul within dozens of li around here." The old monk shook his head. "An esteemed guest has arrived." Sensing something, the young monk turned around. Standing in the courtyard was a little monk clad in a moon-white robe; the driving mountain rain passed through his body without wetting him in the slightest. The little monk looked up at the plaque hanging above the main hall. Three words gradually surfaced upon the wooden board: Yunjian Temple. The moment the temple's name appeared, all the wind and rain passed straight through the structure. The roofs and courtyard walls offered no resistance, yet the storm left no trace behind. The temple seemed to exist in that place, yet also seemed absent. The little monk smiled faintly. "It was once a famous sanctuary across the realms. Why present it in such humble form? Does the Master not feel that this, too, is clinging to appearances?" Without looking back, the old monk answered steadily, "Throughout this old monk's life, I have been dull-witted and shallow in the Buddha's teachings. In debating the scriptures, I am naturally no match for the Buddha Child. Moving the temple here was only to seek a little peace and quiet. Why must you still come?" The little monk replied, "Senior Brother, that is where you are wrong. Back then, you and I listened to the scriptures together before the Tathagata and received different teachings. This is a great karmic bond—how could escaping the world allow one to avoid it? Senior Brother entered Yunjian Temple, where you were meant to be unreachable. Yet now I stand here; this, too, is karma." "You have already taken Jingru away to embody a Buddhist land and deliver hundreds of millions of people. Is that not enough? What more karma do you seek?" The little monk sighed. "What Senior Brother says is true. But the external demons are fierce, leaving little room for peaceful seclusion." "That man wrote his own scriptures and received a response from the Great Dao. How is it that in your words, he has become an external demon? This is nothing more than a conflict over lineage." "It is a contention of Daos, not a contention of lineages. Senior Brother might as well look upon Spirit Mountain." Before the little monk, an image appeared: Spirit Mountain with shattered lotus thrones, foul water flowing in torrents, and its rock face splitting apart. The old monk trembled slightly, yet still said, "This remains a dispute over scriptural tenets. In the past, when the King Buddha attained his spiritual status, Spirit Mountain sank by three thousand zhang." The little monk sighed. "His tenets... cannot succeed. Both you and I know this. It is merely that his vision is narrow; he does not understand the terror of the demons beyond the boundary. Since it cannot succeed, he is an external demon." "What if it does succeed?" "Are the golden bodies and spiritual statuses of numerous Bodhisattvas, the resting place of thousands of true spirits from the Buddhist realms, all to be cast aside? Just for his one-in-a-million chance? Senior Brother also knows that it is only a one-in-a-million chance!" The old monk sighed once more. "Then what do you want?" "A single Jingru is far from enough. Junior Brother has come to borrow the Buddha-realm in the Palm." The old monk fell silent for a long time before finally chanting a Buddhist name. *** Deep in an unknown mountain stood a temple of unknown name. Enshrined within were neither Buddhas nor Bodhisattvas, but only eight Vajras. The temple was dilapidated and neglected for years. An old man walked along a narrow trail and entered the small building. He was a villager from nearby who, following ancestral customs, came every seven days to burn three sticks of pure incense here. Yet as he stepped into the main hall, he froze in astonishment. The eight enshrined Vajras had vanished without a trace. In terror, the old man stumbled backward, missed his footing, and fell flat on his back. Beneath his head, a pool of blood slowly seeped out. Across the realm, Buddhist statues in countless temples vanished into thin air. Only the temples in Northern Qi remained untouched. *** Qingming, the military city. "In what is called the contention of Daos, the Dao is the foundation, and contention is the application. A contention without a Dao leaves you ignorant of why you won even in victory. A Dao without contention leaves you unable to win at all, bound to end in losing the Dao." Cui Yu stood on the dais, his voice clear and resonant. Seated below were over a hundred cultivators, all newly formed Golden Pellets from this year. "Today is an age of great contention. What are we contending for? It is the Dao. The very first thing you must understand upon joining the army is what the Dao is—which is to say, you must know what you are fighting for!" An elderly cultivator spoke with composed ease. "To protect our clan and family." A younger cultivator shouted, "To fight for Qingming, for the Realm Lord!" A fierce woman scoffed scornfully. "Why all this nonsense? Whomever the Lord tells us to hit, we beat them within an inch of their lives and call it a day!" Voices rose and fell one after another. Only after Cui Yu had heard dozens of answers did he say, "All of you are right, and all of you are wrong. For our generation, cultivating the Dao and joining the army can simply be said to be for the sake of Qingming. What is within Qingming? There is heaven, there is earth, there is you, there is me, and there are all living beings. Without you, me, and all living beings, heaven and earth alone are incomplete. "And what is cultivating immortality? An immortal is a thief of heaven and earth..." Hearing this concept for the first time, the cultivators gradually listened with rapt attention. From this starting point, Cui Yu elaborated and explained step by step. In the blink of an eye, half a day slipped by. Cui Yu finally concluded his lecture and said, "Today was about expounding the Dao; tomorrow begins the contention. Weapons, Dao, arts, dharmas, and application—all will be taught. These three months will be exceptionally tight, so do not slacken. If you can thoroughly master it all, our Qingming Golden Pellets will not fall short against ordinary dharma idols when stepping out to battle!" The Golden Pellets cheered in unison, thoroughly thrilled. For a long time, Golden Pellet dharma idols had been regarded as an anomaly; not prefixing 'rubbish' or 'useless' before the words 'Golden Pellet' was already considered respectful. Who would have guessed that the Qingming Army would suddenly assemble all Golden Pellet dharma idols for specialized combat training? In the past, the armies of the nine nations each possessed their own circulating Dao methods and secret arts, but on the whole, cultivators still relied primarily on self-cultivation. Concentrating all dharma idol cultivators for training like Qingming was unprecedented. Before dispersing, the fierce woman suddenly spoke up: "Grand General Cui, why did you only talk about heaven, earth, and living beings, without mentioning the Realm Lord even once? Are you trying to rebel?" The gathering of Golden Pellet dharma idols looked at Cui Yu with suspicion. Such notions were indeed completely different from their prior common knowledge. In the nine nations, the military and the court owed loyalty to the king, while sects worshipped their patriarchs. Cui Yu merely smiled and offered no reply to the question. An assisting general beside him snapped, "You bunch lack talent, but sure have plenty of rotten questions! The Grand General doesn't care to indulge you, but out of the goodness of my heart, I'll explain it clearly to you—just this once! "When the Realm Lord attains the Dao and becomes an immortal, he is heaven, and he is earth..." *** "Clearly, I am not!" Wei Yuan slapped an official document onto the desk, snapping irritably, "What kind of nonsense are you teaching them?!" Cui Yu laughed. "I remember many of the things you've said. Besides, when you ascend to immortality, could a realm as vast as Qingming be hoisted entirely into Immortal Heaven? Obviously, you must establish a domain in Immortal Heaven, linking heaven and earth until they are refined into one. So by then, heaven is you, and earth is you..." Wei Yuan did not know whether to laugh or cry. "There's a world of difference!" "What difference? If you don't write it down, how can I have a template? Otherwise, what am I supposed to teach those Golden Pellets? Still, I noticed a few among them seem eager to worship you. How about letting them switch to cultivating the god-worshipping method?" Wei Yuan glared at Cui Yu; that was obviously out of the question. But now was not the time to bring out the Three Realms Ruyi Sutra either. For one, the scripture was far from finished, with many details still needing expansion, and it could not yet fully justify itself. Furthermore, the contention of Daos against the Tianbaohua Pure Land was right ahead. Wei Yuan did not want people suddenly finding out that he had written a Buddhist scripture. Cutting Cui Yu off, Wei Yuan asked, "Is anyone in the army practicing the god-worshipping method?" "Not at all. I have strictly forbidden it. Some time ago, two fellows lost their minds and tried to teach soldiers the god-worshipping method, even though you were the one they were worshipping. I arrested both of them, threw all their disciples and followers into prison, and sealed their places of worship. With those two precedents set, no one should dare break the rule again." Wei Yuan nodded. "The sudden rise of the god-worshipping method feels somewhat abnormal to me. In short, the army must not fall into chaos." "Rest assured!" Wei Yuan naturally trusted Cui Yu's capabilities. Once Cui Yu left, Feng Chutang walked in and said, "The restrictions on worshipping altars over the past few months have been quite effective. The total number of people worshipping gods has only increased by forty percent, currently standing at just over two million. Aside from the few places we already knew about, we haven't found any evidence linking them to the Pure Land for now." Wei Yuan nodded. "Then keep the restrictions in place for now and watch how things develop." Feng Chutang hesitated for a moment before speaking: "Crossing Eastern Jin to strike Northern Qi might not be a wise move." "Then what should we do? Conquer Eastern Jin first before attacking Northern Qi?" Feng Chutang had no answer to that, and could only take his leave. After Feng Chutang departed, Wei Yuan picked up the records on the various worshipping altars and examined them carefully. At first glance, there seemed to be nothing wrong with any of the files. While reading, Wei Yuan's heart suddenly stirred. He felt as though someone was calling out to him through the unseen void. With his formidable divine sense, he quickly seized upon the anomaly, and the world before his eyes shifted. It was a dark, small room, everything inside dilapidated and long abandoned. Inside the room knelt a boy of barely ten, kowtowing repeatedly while crying, "Please, save my sister! Save—" Crash! A wall suddenly shattered, and the roof was ripped away. An eye larger than the entire room appeared, peering inside. As daylight poured in, one could see a young woman lying beside the boy, covered in wounds and completely motionless. Revealing only a profile of her face, she was unmistakably Ji Liuli! The eye in the sky shifted away. Then, a golden finger as thick as the entire room descended, pressing down upon the young woman, and gave a twist. With a soft squelch, fresh blood slowly seeped out from under the fingertip.