Chapter 14 Bodhicitta (Part 1)
The mountain behind Daming Temple is the place where the abbots of the Daming Temple have gone into retreat, and where the practice of Jianzhen is practiced:
Dark, extremely dark, as if it were an all-consuming darkness;
Quiet, with the sound of falling hair, as quiet as time standing still;
In the center of the secret room, on a worn futon, an old monk sat with his feet crossed. This old monk has a ruddy complexion, without a single wrinkle, but he has a white beard, kind eyes, and a majestic appearance. He looks like an enlightened monk, which makes people feel friendly and holy at the first sight.
But now the old monk is motionless, without any breath of life in his body, as if he has passed away. However, this does not mean that he has truly passed away, but that he has entered an extremely rare state of cultivation, which is Buddhist practice. The "realm of silence" that can be encountered but cannot be sought.
After an unknown amount of time, a fragrant and sacred sandalwood fragrance suddenly emitted from the dark and silent chamber. The source of the sandalwood fragrance turned out to be the old monk. Gradually, as the sandalwood fragrance became stronger and stronger, it seemed that he was not satisfied with emitting the sandalwood fragrance. The old monk's body began to emit golden Buddha light. The Buddha's light grew from weak to strong, like a sea of suffering. The bright lamp cuts through the endless darkness and brings light.
Upon closer inspection, the Buddha's light actually emanates from inside the old monk's body, mainly on his head and abdomen. The Buddha's light has miraculous penetrating power and illuminates the inside of the old monk's body clearly:
The three meridians, seven chakras, and eight extraordinary meridians of the old monk's body flow with golden true essence. The golden true essence circulates in the meridians in a mysterious way. Every time the true essence circulates in one circle, it will thicken by one point, and then slowly slow down. Slowly inject into the light source of the abdomen and head.
The light source on the old monk's belly turned out to be the shadow of a golden lotus! The lotus keeps turning and growing by absorbing the golden essence. As the amount of essence absorbed increases, the image of the lotus becomes more and more realistic;
Another light source is on the old monk's head, and the image is even more magical; under the golden Buddha light, the old monk's head seems to have turned into a transparent crystal, and the center of the light source is exactly at the Lingtai acupoint of the human body, also known as " "Lunmen" is where the practitioner's soul is. At this time, there is a chicken-sized, white relic inside the "Lunmen". Outside the relic, there is a golden miniature version of the old monk. This is the old monk's hard training. The Buddhist relics and souls came out.
The Yuan Shen formed a seal with his hands, sat down, and shot three white beams of light, two thin and one thick, from the palms of his hands and forehead respectively, and injected them into the relics in front of him. With the injection of the light pillar, the relic became larger and larger, and became more and more solid, while the soul became smaller and smaller, and the color became lighter and lighter. Finally, it completely transformed itself into a ray of light and injected it into the relic; at the same time, the old spirit became smaller and smaller, and the color became lighter and lighter. The golden lotus shadow in the monk's belly also absorbed all the golden essence in his body, turning it into a solid golden lotus that looked like gold.
Just as the old monk's true energy and soul disappeared, his heart beat "dong", and then the heartbeats began to become coherent. With the heartbeat of "dong, dong, dong, dong", his heart moved up and down. Two beams of light were shot out to cover the golden lotus and the spiritual relics in the belly; the golden lotus and the relics also began to move towards the heart. Gradually, the golden lotus and the relics finally arrived at the heart at the same time. The rotation of the golden lotus slowly slowed down. Finally it stopped and began to bloom slowly; and the relics also landed in the center of the golden lotus platform after the golden lotus bloomed.
At the moment when the relic came into contact with the golden lotus, some strange reaction occurred. The two simultaneously burst out with white-gold light. The white-gold light came out from the old monk's body, illuminating the secret room of the retreat as if it were daytime. After a while, the platinum light gradually converged, and the brightness in the room gradually dimmed, and earth-shaking changes also occurred in the old monk's body!
In the belly of the old monk, a Buddha statue appeared. The Buddha statue was golden in color, with limbs, mouth, nose, eyes and ears. His hands were in a mudra, and he was sitting down. His face was filled with compassion, and his appearance was solemn. He looked like a shrunken old monk.
The Buddha statue fell down and sat on a nine-level lotus platform. The lotus platform was as white as snow, as fresh as water, and the nine-level flowers bloomed lifelike. They were transformed from the original golden lotus.
With the appearance of the Buddha statue, the scent of sandalwood in the secret room also stopped emitting, and most of the Buddha's light was thrown into the old monk's head, transformed by the spiritual platform and emitted from the back of the head, forming a circle of colorful Buddha's light behind the head.
With a movement of his brows, the old monk had woken up from the "realm of annihilation". At the same time, a burst of joyful laughter came from outside the door: "Haha, dear brother, you are indeed a rare talent for cultivating Buddhism in a thousand years." , you have achieved such an achievement in just a few decades. Congratulations on taking your cultivation to a higher level. You have already developed the bodhicitta and are one step closer to becoming a Buddha."
That's right, the old monk is the current abbot of Dayun Temple, Jianzhen, and the only one who talked to him so cordially was Yun Canghai.
Jianzhen opened his eyes. Although he was a little excited, but he had been an abbot for decades, he still said slowly: "Amitabha, Brother Yun is so grateful. I would like to thank you for your advice. Otherwise, how could I have done it?" How about combining the "Void Tibetan Sutra" and the "Great Light Prajna Sutra" to create the "Nirvana and Buddha Transformation" and cultivate the 'nine-level bodhicitta' that others have accumulated for thousands of years and can only be cultivated in nine reincarnations?"
Buddhist practice is completely different from Taoist practice:
Taoists cultivate golden elixirs and Yuanying, while Buddhists cultivate relics and dharma images.
Taoism pays attention to the duality of life and life, so most practitioners inhale spiritual energy, refine the physical body, refine lead and mercury externally, adjust dragons and tigers internally, and finally conceive a baby, survive the catastrophe, get rid of karma, and ascend to immortality. The soul and body practice together.
What Buddhism cultivates is Buddhism and character. Most Buddhist practitioners meditate and practice meditation to realize the Zen state and strengthen their Buddha mind; or they travel around the world, experience their state of mind in the world of mortals, break away karma, and understand the Buddha's teachings; or they do good deeds. Accumulate virtue, save all sentient beings, and experience the way of compassion and merit from the merit gained. As long as your realm and merits reach a certain level, you can take off your physical body and ascend immediately, so the physical body is not important to those who practice Buddhism.
Compared with Taoism, Buddhism pays more attention to sudden enlightenment and merit; sudden enlightenment can enhance the realm and condense the spirit; merit can enhance luck, and some Buddhist techniques can even absorb merit to condense the golden body and Buddhist relics.
