Chapter 16: The Dilemma of Advance and Retreat

Chapter 16: The Dilemma of Advance and Retreat

Chapter 16: Dilemma of grievances and entanglements

In the third virtual reincarnation, Fashan was reborn as a hunter from Liangzhou named Zhang Qi. Once when he was out hunting, he met a young girl in the mountains.

He fell in love with the girl at first sight, and followed the girl and her maid to the mountain house, where they stayed temporarily. The two of them fell in love and soon became inseparable, living a warm and happy life.

The girl often went to Dahuang Mountain with her maid to visit her widowed sister-in-law. As a hunter, Zhang Qi knew that there were wolves in Dahuang Mountain, and wanted to follow them to protect them but was repeatedly rejected.

In order to protect his beloved, Zhang Qi prepared poison bait, carried a bow and arrow, and quietly went to Dahuang Mountain. He placed poison bait along the way, shot hungry wolves, and cleared the way.

After doing all this, Zhang Qi finally felt relieved and no longer worried that the girl would encounter danger on the road.

On this day, the girl set out for Dahuangshan again. Zhang Qi saw her off calmly and gave her a jade ring as a token of love before she left. They agreed to get married after the girl returned from this trip.

The girl happily agreed, but they did not return for a long time after they set out. Zhang Qi went to Dahuang Mountain to look for them, and saw the corpses of two wolves that had eaten poison bait and died at the foot of the mountain. The strange thing was that there were a lot of women's clothes scattered near the wolf corpses.

Zhang Qi identified carefully and found that the clothes were exactly what his beloved woman and the maid were wearing when they left. He thought that the two women were killed by the wolf, but there was no blood or signs of fighting near the wolf's corpse, and no human bones were found.

When he checked again, he found that one of the wolf corpses had a jade ring hanging around its neck that he had given to his beloved.

Zhang Qi already had a bad feeling in his heart, but everything was too bizarre for him to be sure. He returned to the house where he lived with the girl, but found that it had turned into a barren mountain and all the houses and bamboo fences had disappeared.

Zhang Qi wandered in this barren mountain for a long time, hoping that the girl would come back, but when all the food and fodder he brought with him ran out and there was no news, he realized that he had made a big mistake, so he returned home crying, never married again, and died in depression.

……

Fashan opened his eyes for the third time, and this time he was much calmer. He did not roar in anger nor murmur prayers, but his eyes revealed deep sorrow.

Wen Rui silently recorded on the jade slip without saying a word, waiting quietly.

"I firmly hold on to my self-image, lurking in my consciousness, playing with my sense organs without interruption." Fashan's eyes gradually became clear, he put his hands together and bowed his head slightly, saying, "Thank you, fellow Taoist, for showing me your reincarnation through three lifetimes. I have realized it..."

"Oh?" Wen Rui paused for a moment and asked, "Daoyou, what have you realized?"

"Those who cultivate the Way do not get rid of the ego, so they cannot enter into pure awakening. As long as there is a ego, sins will arise, and merits and blessings will be lost..."

"speak English."

Fashan was embarrassed after being interrupted, and smiled bitterly, "I finally understand that the reason why I don't treat the demons as equals, and I have prejudices against them, and even want to kill them, is because of my past karma and sins. The two reincarnations shown by my fellow Taoist must be the karma I created in my previous life, and I am suffering the consequences in this life. I can't get the love I want, but I feel hatred and kill the love of this life with my own hands. I blame everything on her nature as a demon. The evil obstacles blinded me and I took my anger out on the demons and committed endless killing karma."

"My Huangliang hat can not only extract memories into dreams, but also weave dreams. The last two reincarnation dreams are not your past lives, but bedtime stories I made up. Any similarities are purely coincidental."

"Hey, they're all fake, so what did I realize?"

Fashan was stunned. He never expected Wen Rui to say that. For a moment, his mind was stuck and he didn't know how to respond.

Thinking about it carefully, since the first reincarnation dream was real, Fashan naturally followed the inertia of thinking and believed that the next two dreams were also real and were his past life experiences. This gave him a real sense of experiencing the three reincarnations and he became enlightened after the reincarnations.

Now Wen Rui tells him that reincarnation in the next two lives is fake, so is everything he realized after enlightenment true or false?

"Don't worry about these details. Emptiness and color, reality and illusion, truth and falsehood are all mental phenomena. When truth is false, falsehood is true. When there is nothing, there is nothing. It is such a simple truth. Do you, a high monk of the Western Religion, need me, a remnant of the Jie Religion, to teach you?"

Fashan was stunned again, then nodded and said, "Yes, yes... I am obsessed... Daoist friend, are you really a disciple of Jiejiao? Could it be that you are the incarnation of a Bodhisattva who has come to enlighten me?"

"Tsk, I don't have the bad taste like you Western Buddhist Bodhisattvas, who like to dress up as Mama-san's daughters to play tricks on the cadres."

Wen Rui curled his lips and said, "I told you long ago that this is a virtual reincarnation. The important thing is to use subconscious hypnosis to guide you and draw out the deepest secret in your heart. You may have deliberately forgotten this secret, but you are still here struggling with the truth and my identity."

"Why, the reincarnation dream is fake? My status is low, so I am not worthy of teaching you? How arrogant you are! You just said that you realized that all beings are equal. If you regard me as a bodhisattva, I will naturally be able to use the bodhi means to save you. If you regard me as a demon, then I will become a demon and not a human."

"So, you have realized nothing. Keep on learning!"

"Yes Yes……"

The series of stinging rebukes left Fashan speechless and he could only nod his head in agreement, as if he had returned to his youth when he was a young monk and was reprimanded by the abbot for making mistakes.

"Actually, I quite like the way you were so unruly just now."

Seeing that he was becoming more obedient, Wen Rui continued, "Speak out, speak out, tell me what exactly is the sin that you have hidden the most deeply."

Fashan was embarrassed and hesitated to speak. He was too ashamed to speak out such secrets. But thinking back to Wenrui's admonition, he could not deny that what he said was in line with Buddhist principles.

If one keeps it hidden and does not reveal it, he will never be able to break his ego. Then how can he become a Buddha? If one continues to practice with ego, the three poisons of greed, anger and ignorance will continue to infect him. If he does not become a Buddha, he will eventually become a demon.

"Alas..." Fashan sighed and said, "That was before I became a monk. The snowy mountains were poor and miserable, and children of a few years old had to go out to find food. I also worked as a hunter, but because I was young and weak, I could only set traps to catch pikas and pheasants." "Once, I went to check the lasso and found that I had caught a snow fox. The fur of the snow fox was white and smooth. If I skinned it and gave it to the headman, I could at least get a large bag of barley, and my family could spend the whole winter safely."

"But when I was about to kill it, the snow fox burst into tears of fear, and its spiritual eyes were filled with despair. I just couldn't bear to kill it, so I untied the lasso and let it go."

"After that, I always met it when I went into the mountains. It even gave me the mountain mice it caught out of gratitude. We gradually became familiar with each other and became close. We often hunted and played together..."

At this point, Fashan's mouth corners couldn't help but slightly raise, which shows that this pure and beautiful childhood memory is precious.

"Later, I was spotted by a passing guru and taken to the Jinlun Temple in the Great Snow Mountain to study Buddhist scriptures. I thought my fate with the snow fox ended there, until five years later, when I was practicing 'Tumo Samadhi' in the cold pool of Tianchi in the Snow Mountain, something went wrong and the cold air invaded my lungs, and my life was hanging by a thread..."

At this point, Fashan paused and showed a rare look of shame.

Wen Rui was not in a hurry. He stopped writing and waited patiently. He Lingyun, who was enjoying the melon beside him, was a little embarrassed. She wanted to urge him but felt it was too undignified and her pretty face turned slightly red.

"When I was about to freeze to death, the snow fox appeared. She had become a spirit, transformed into the appearance of a young girl, and hugged me, who was frozen stiff, and used her body temperature to dispel the coldness in my body. As the Kundalini meditation went astray, the coldness that suppressed the fire in my heart dissipated, and I became so hot that I couldn't help myself..."

Snow-capped mountains, cold ponds, the vast and bleak world, a monk who observes precepts, an ignorant fox demon, and a pair of childhood sweethearts who cannot help but fall in love, the collision of destinies bursts out the exciting sparks of life.

He Lingyun imagined the scene with great imagery and felt infinite yearning for it. He thought it was so romantic.

"When I woke up, I couldn't face her, who was as beautiful as a snow lotus. By then, I had studied the sutras for five years, and my Buddha nature was gradually developing."

Fashan continued in a depressed tone, "I have become a monk and devoted myself to Buddhism. How can I indulge in women? I can't make any promises to her. I said some excessive words and told her that humans and demons are different. Moreover, I am a cultivator and cannot make the same mistake again. I cruelly drove her away."

"Humph, men!" He Lingyun, who was eating melons nearby, stamped his feet in anger and said angrily, "They are either big liars or heartless men. None of them are good!"

Wen Rui turned around and glared at her, signaling her to be quiet. He Lingyun glared back angrily, looking unconvinced, but also stopped talking.

"I was determined to sever our fate, but she transformed herself into a human and sneaked into the villages outside the Jinlun Temple. Whenever the temple held a blessing ceremony, she would sneak into the crowd under the pretext of making an alms and come to the temple to look for me, begging me to give up studying the sutras and elope with her. She kept pestering me like this for a long time, and no matter how cruel and heartless I said, she would not give up..."

"Oh I see!"

He Lingyun narrowed his eyes and thought, "You once said that you killed her with your own hands. I guess you were afraid that your affair with the fox girl would be exposed and you would not be able to become a monk, so you tricked her into going to a deserted place under the pretext of eloping and then killed her to silence her!"

Facing He Lingyun's questioning, Fashan just smiled bitterly and shook his head helplessly.

He Lingyun insisted, "Humph, you still don't admit it! I was almost murdered by a villain to silence me, I know this very well."

"Junior sister, take care of your broken mouth." Wen Rui said in an annoyed tone: "Here, if you have nothing to do with your mouth, try this."

As he spoke, he took out a bag of cakes from his bag and handed it to He Lingyun. The girl took the bag subconsciously and was about to scold Wen Rui for treating her like a child, but she was attracted by the sweet smell coming out of the bag.

Practitioners can practice fasting and also enjoy delicious food. For example, the Queen Mother of the West always holds a Peach Banquet to invite all the gods to eat and drink. That is because the gods also like to enjoy delicious food to satisfy their cravings and are quite passionate about this.

Now it is the Western Zhou Dynasty, and the food of the common people is very poor. The same is true for practitioners. Even though the ingredients are of better quality and more abundant, the cooking methods are very crude.

He Lingyun, who usually satisfied her craving by secretly running to the mountain stream, transforming back into her original form, catching two small fish and eating them raw, had never smelled such an aroma in her life. She quickly took a piece out of the bag, tasted it in small bites, and found it sweet and soft. Then she took a big bite and ate the middle layer of the pastry. The milky aroma and the smooth and tasseled cream hit her taste buds, and the sweet taste made her eyes sparkle.

Fashan was not angry at He Lingyun's rebuke. He explained calmly and patiently, "Although I didn't practice Buddhism for a long time, I have good roots and a flawless nature. Even if I was harassed by a strange female demon, I would not have any evil thoughts. Moreover, she was my childhood playmate and she saved my life. I know that she loves me deeply. But I am torn in my heart. I don't want to let her down, but I don't want to abandon the Dharma. I am in a dilemma and the pain is beyond words."

At this point, Fashan bowed his head in shame and said, "Fellow Daoist, please forgive me for making fun of you. We are both practitioners, but I am not good enough in cultivating my mind. I am really ashamed."

Wen Rui comforted him casually, "All sentient beings have their own natures, such as food and sex. There is nothing to be ashamed of. Must practitioners be inhuman? This kind of distress is very common among practitioners. As the poem says: 'I once worried that my love would damage my Buddhist practice. I was afraid that I would leave the city when I entered the mountains. How can I have both in this world? I will not let down the Tathagata and you.'"

Fashan was stunned for a long while after hearing this, and then he stammered, "What a great poem, 'I will not disappoint the Tathagata, I will not disappoint you'. Daoist friend, you are so talented. The poem you just chanted expresses my complicated mood back then."

He Lingyun, who was eating pastries, heard the poems and looked at Wen Rui with stars in her beautiful eyes. This kind of elegant poetry and literature really hit the G-spot of a fairy like her who was in the form of a crane.

If Wen Rui had not deceived and threatened her before, with the delicious food in her mouth and the poetry in her ears, accompanied by some elegant music, it would have been a perfect tea party. She would have been unable to resist exposing her nature as a crane and would have danced to join in the fun.

"The big liar is just good at sweet talk. Don't be fooled. Don't let your imagination run wild!" The girl suppressed her thoughts and secretly warned herself in her heart.

After being comforted by Wen Rui's clever words, Fashan completely let down his guard and continued to narrate in a hoarse voice: "She secretly met with me more often, which was indeed inappropriate. The monks in the temple seemed to have noticed something was wrong, which made me even more distressed. Until that day, a big change happened, which brought about a great disaster..."

When He Lingyun heard this, he suddenly became nervous. He couldn't help but wonder if Fashan's master had caught the monk and the demon meeting on the spot, and Fashan was forced by the Buddhist precepts to kill the fox girl and exterminate the demon to prove his truth.

But this time her mouth was so full of pastries that she had no time to speak. She could only keep her doubts in her heart and wait for Fashan to reveal the answer.

(End of this chapter)