Chapter 254 — The Bodhi Heart of Compassion

Monk Chenghuai came to the state of Jingping: clouds still hung in the sky, the shadow of the snow disaster had not yet lifted, government troops were still rushing about with relief work, refugees were still fleeing the famine, and yet bands of thieves and robbers were pillaging homes in every direction while starving people scattered in flight - truly, the people had no way to live. "There's a plump, fair-skinned monk here! " Some starving folk caught sight of him and cried out in delight, "We can eat him without even washing him!

" Monk Chenghuai took to his heels in panic; the starving folk, having gone hungry for who knew how many days after all, could not catch him and had to give up, muttering, "We told you not to shout - if you had only waited till he came close and grabbed him for a bite, this plump white monk could never have gotten away.

" Monk Chenghuai passed his days in terror; hungry for two or three days, he could not find so much as a crumb to fill his belly and was hunted and set upon by starving refugees more than a dozen times over.

The Heart Sutra he had brought was useless as well - it could not solve the problem of an empty stomach. This place was remote, the refugees were many, and the imperial court's reach was too short to extend so far; corpses of the starved lay scattered every which way along the roads, and some wild wolves and stray dogs, feeding on human remains, had turned into demons, roving in packs and hunting down the living for food in every direction.

Dogs were tame creatures by nature, but in a year of famine dogs, too, ate men - and they bred fast, proving fiercer than wolves!

"This is hell. .

.

" Monk Chenghuai looked at the demons and monsters on every side, the corpses on every side, and wept. "Monk, do you have a child?

" A sallow, emaciated refugee seized his robes, a child clutched in his arms and hunger written all over his face: "Give me your child and I'll give you mine - you eat mine, I'll eat yours.

.

.

" Monk Chenghuai cried out, tore himself free, and fled in panic.

"Tathagata! " Chenghuai ran till he did not know how many li he had covered, until he could run no more, then fell to his knees and cried out in anguish: "You are in the Great Thunderclap Temple - can You not see this world of men?

" Dazed and stumbling, he staggered on until a temple appeared before him; Chenghuai burst in and saw several men hanging from the temple beams, head down and feet up, their skins flayed off, while a few monks crouched in a corner holding iron basins and eating meat.

At the sight of him the monks started in alarm and cried in haste, "Abbot, abbot, a monk has come, all by himself!

" The old abbot hurried out and said, "Monk, where have you come from?

Our rations are running low here as well - even the very topsoil has been gnawed bare again and again by the starving. Yuanding, give him a bowl of food and send him on his way. Buddha be merciful. " A basin of human flesh was set before him, and Monk Chenghuai stood frozen; in that instant he felt the Buddha within his mind topple and crumble.

He leapt up, hammered wildly at the Buddha statue, pushed it over, and smashed it to pieces, while the other monks rushed to stop him, crying in fury, "You are mad, monk - you have fallen into demonic possession! Blaspheming the Buddha, betraying your master, destroying your patriarch!

" Monk Chenghuai let them beat him without raising a hand in return, and soon he was a bloody blur of flesh; at that very moment a force of soldiers charged in and cut down the monks of the temple.

"These monks eat people - there is no law left under heaven! .

. .

General, here is another monk, beaten out of all human shape. Why, he is still breathing!

" The soldiers carried him over, and the general took one look at him and said, "He won't die. Monk, I can see you have some skill - why, when they meant to kill you, did you not fight back?

" Monk Chenghuai said woodenly, "My whole body is full of openings.

. . " The general laughed: "A body full of openings - that's a fine thing; who does not have a few openings?

Only the man who knows his own openings can be called a master.

You have skill.

Come along with me - we are going to guard the seedlings.

These refugees gnaw even at the turf; we can't have them stripping the newly planted grain as well.

Men, burn this temple down!

" The soldiers set fire to it, and soon the temple was ablaze. Monk Chenghuai nodded, then faltered, and suddenly rushed frantically into the flames: "My sutra! " The general ordered his men to hold him back and said, "What sutra? How thick is it?

" "Only two pages.

" "In this freezing cold, a sutra that thin isn't even enough to warm you at the fire.

" The general raised one finger, with a compassion for the world in his eyes: "So long as we can bring in one season's harvest, and the people under heaven have food and no longer go hungry, then this human world will be a human world and not a hell.

That is why guarding the seedlings is of the utmost importance - they must not be ruined by the refugees!

Once the world is at peace, you can read your Buddhist scriptures again. Then I will give you a whole basket of scriptures - read whichever one you please!

" Monk Chenghuai stood stunned.

Only when the world was at peace could one read scriptures? Then how could these scriptures rescue the suffering and deliver all living beings?

If they were useless in a time of chaos, of what use were they for saving the suffering and delivering all beings only after peace had already come? "Hierarch Shen was not wrong - the one who wrote the scriptures was indeed not the Tathagata.

" In his hempen robe and straw sandals, his pristine clerical garment now stained with blood, Monk Chenghuai departed with that band of soldiers: "From this day on, I am my own Tathagata - I shall write my own scriptures! " The Great Thunderclap Temple. The bell sounded long and slow; Shen Mu looked west, where lay the wasteland sunk deep in calamity, and he looked east, where lay Jingping in the grip of the snow disaster.

The Great Thunderclap Temple sat wedged between the two, spared from disaster, spared from tribulation - a good place indeed, where the monks on the mountain, free of every care, devoted their single minds to the study of the Dharma, untroubled by any catastrophe. "The Great Thunderclap Temple has more than four thousand halls," said Old Master Huo. "The Hall of Heavenly Dragons and the Heart Zen Hall are among the higher-ranking halls.

Each hall is responsible for different matters, and what is awakened there differs accordingly. If a disciple is exceptionally gifted, he is taught by a white-browed monk and need not wander from hall to hall.

Take that Monk Chenghuai, for instance - he was instructed solely by Monk Jingming and cultivated under his master's guidance; these are for the most part the most outstanding of the monks.

And those with the highest aptitude, insight, and Buddha-nature are taught directly by the Tathagata himself. " Shen Mu looked down and saw the mountain peaks like lotus petals encircling the golden summit at the center - a thousand temples, ten thousand monasteries, the smoke of incense rising thick and prosperous. "The Great Thunderclap Temple does indeed have its strengths," Shen Mu nodded. "In instructing disciples it shares common ground with the Imperial Tutor of Jingping.

" Old Master Huo led them on a tour toward a Buddhist pagoda of imposing grandeur, saying, "In the Hall of All Heavens, the first heaven is the Hall of King Yama; the second heaven is the Hall of Sagara, the Dragon King - they embody the successive states of mind of the Thunderclap Mahayana Sutra.

At the very top are the Hall of Shakra and the Hall of Great Brahma. If one counts from the top down, the Hall of Great Brahma is the first heaven.