Standing on the stone steps of the gate of Prajna Temple with a broom in hand, the spring breeze blew by, and the fragrance of the mountains of green grass rushed towards me.
They bowed their hands and saluted the believers who came to the temple to offer incense in early spring. The devout pilgrims also replied to Li Ye: "Thank you, little master."
Pedestrians coming up the mountain come in spring, and early birds chirp around the mountain gate.
Li Ye took some broken rice from his pocket and sprinkled it on the stone steps. He smiled and said, "I knew you were hungry. Eat quickly. Only when you are full can you have the strength to fly."
No leaves fell in the spring, only the catkins on the edge of the lotus pond outside the main hall were disturbed by the mountain breeze and swirled around Li Ye's footsteps.
Taking a deep breath, he tightened the broom in his hand, walked down the stone steps, looked at the catkins flying on the ground, and started sweeping gently.
He murmured: "Sweeping the floor... is really a way of practice. Even if you swept the Bodhi leaves all over the floor last year, the catkins this year will make you do it all over again, just like the state of mind you thought was calm last year."
A woman with gray hair and nearly fifty years old came forward and told Li Ye: "Little master, you can't sweep these catkins clean. If you sweep them hard now, they will come again soon. You just sweep them all day." It’s no use either?”
Li Ye scratched his head, looked at her and smiled.
He replied softly: "I know they will fly here again, but someone has to sweep this place, just like you came to the temple to burn incense last year and come again this year..."
The woman was stunned, lowered her head and pondered for a while, then raised her head and looked at Li Ye after a while.
He said with a solemn and serious expression: "Thank you, little master, for your advice. I never thought that a young man who cleans the floor in Prajna Temple could practice Buddhism so profoundly. It is really rare."
Li Ye smiled faintly and replied: "Cultivating Buddhism is just like eating and drinking. There is nothing to be proud of."
After saying that, he lowered his head and continued to clean the catkins on the floor.
The woman nodded and said with a smile: "That's right. I came last year, came again this year, and will come again next year. This is the same as the little master sweeping the floor. Amitabha, little master I'm leaving."
After speaking, he saluted Li Ye and walked up to the main hall in the square.
Looking at the old woman walking up the stone steps, Li Ye smiled and thought to himself that me sweeping the floor and you burning incense are both practices.
When Li Ye began to sweep the square in front of the main hall, the morning class in the Buddhist hall ended.
Master Minghui came up behind Li Ye quietly, followed at a distance by the round-faced Wuyou.
"I thought you wouldn't come back until fifteen, but I didn't expect you to come back to the temple so soon. Why didn't you say hello to me?"
Minghui looked at Li Ye who was sweeping the floor with his head down and said with a smile.
Li Ye stopped sweeping the floor and placed the broom on the ground.
Looking at Master Minghui with a kind face, he smiled and said: "After accompanying you, Mr. and Mrs., I will naturally come back to practice."
"Does it mean you can't practice in Xuantian Temple?" Minghui joked.
Li Ye raised his eyes to look at Ming Hui with a smile on his face, paused for a moment, and replied: "If you follow this principle of senior brother, then I can practice at the Great Buddhist Temple in Fengyun City, so why bother to come all the way to Fangcun Mountain?"
Minghui said again: "You have something to ask for!"
"Is there really a cultivator in the world who seeks nothing? Are you like this, senior brother?"
Li Ye looked at Minghui and asked seriously.
Master Minghui was stunned, turned to look at Wuyou behind him, and asked, "Wouyou, do you want anything from your practice?"
Wuyou who was following him was startled and looked up at him and Li Ye.
He rubbed the back of his head, thought for a while and said, "I don't know, I have been practicing in the temple since I can remember..."
Master Minghui turned to look at Li Ye and said with a smile, "Take a look."
Li Ye smiled faintly and replied: "Senior brother, have you forgotten his Dharma name? He lives here because he has no choice. Only when he has no choice, he will be worry-free."
Master Minghui was stunned, as if he were a cat with fried fur, and circled around Li Ye.
He asked in surprise: "Junior brother, you have only been away for less than a month. Why do I feel like you are a different person? What you say is getting more and more mysterious, and you are playing Zen with senior brother."
Li Ye looked at him speechlessly and said with a smile, "Senior brother, is he just like nephew Wuyou, asking for nothing?"
"Practice is timeless. Senior brother, I have long forgotten... Even if I once asked for something, now I have nothing to ask for."
Minghui raised her head and stared at the golden dome of the hall in a daze.
Li Ye thought for a while and stopped arguing with Ming Hui about this topic. Instead, he lowered his head and continued sweeping the floor.
There is no need to clean up the place if we continue to talk about the Tao in our hearts. We can just go to the Buddhist hall and discuss Taoism while making tea.
Wuyou looked at Master Minghui, thought for a while, walked up to Li Ye and asked, "How about you and my uncle go and have a chat, and I'll help you sweep the floor."
Hearing this, Li Ye became interested, looked at him and said, "What do you mean by this? Naturally, I can't trouble you anymore when I'm back."
Wuyou looked at Master Minghui, curled his lips, and whispered: "Then...I'm leaving. Uncle Master, call me when you're cooking porridge another day..."
After saying that, he didn't even say hello to Minghui, and ran all the way to the back of the hall.
"I have been in the monastery for decades and practiced for decades, but I have finally failed to enter the Tao. Is it because I don't have enough understanding?"
After a long silence, Minghui suddenly said: "Junior brother, do you think that senior brother is a stupid person?"
Li Ye thought for a while and said, "In my eyes, senior monk is as compassionate as my old monk at the Great Buddha Temple."
Although he accepted Master Minghui's words, the two of them moved further away, not out of disgust, but as he swept away the distance between them.
Fortunately, both of them have developed spiritual consciousness, so communication is not affected even if they are separated by a few feet.
Minghui lowered his head and sighed, relaxing the clenched fists behind his back.
Said: "In the way of spiritual practice, compassion alone is not enough."
"I also know this truth, so the old monk from the Great Buddha Temple is still my master."
Li Ye replied quietly, that means that the old monk, like you, is still practicing hard and has not reached the realm of breaking the void monk.
"What nonsense words? Junior brother, I can't understand what you are saying more and more. Can you speak more clearly?"
Minghui looked at Li Ye who was getting further and further away from her, thinking about whether she should follow him or not.
Looking at the catkins flying in the sky, Minghui frowned.
He looked at Li Ye and said, "Junior brother, it's useless for you to sweep the floor like this. If you sweep in front, catkins will fly down from behind. What's the difference between sweeping and not sweeping?"
Li Ye raised his head and glanced at Minghui. He didn't reply immediately, but lowered his head and continued sweeping the floor.
Minghui's words reminded him of those days when he was sweeping the floors of the Buddhist Scripture Pavilion at the Great Buddha Temple.
The same topic, except the leaves are replaced by catkins.
After struggling for a moment, Li Ye looked at Minghui and replied softly: "There is still some difference between sweeping and not sweeping... If I don't sweep, won't the catkins accumulate more and more?"
"Isn't that the truth?" Ming Hui looked at him and asked.
Li Ye shook his head and continued: "If I sweep it once, there will be less catkins on the ground. My old monk at the Great Buddhist Temple once said that the dust on the ground is like the dust in our hearts. Sweeping it frequently will always be beneficial. of......"
Master Minghui was stunned and stared blankly at Li Ye, who was sweeping the floor with his head lowered. He was speechless for a long time.
It took a long time before he managed to squeeze out a sentence: "Junior brother, you can be my master... I'll leave first and treat you to tea another day..."
Before he finished speaking, the man ran away without a trace of the image of an enlightened monk.
Li Ye looked at his hurried away figure and couldn't help but murmur to himself: "What did I say wrong? Isn't it just sweeping catkins on the ground? Is it necessary for senior brother to react so strongly?"
"I have mastered the seventh-level mental method, and now I have to practice it seriously. But do I want to tell my senior brother about this, or should I wait?"
While Li Ye was thinking about his own affairs, he gently swept up the dancing catkins along the perimeter of the square.
...
He wanted to see Minghui, but was rejected for several days.
The next day I went there and the temple was closed.
On the third day, the temple was closed.
On the fifth day, there was no one in the temple.
On the seventh day, rumbling thunder came from the back mountain of Prajna Temple, but Fangcun Mountain was empty...
Finally, a practicing monk shouted: "Which senior brother or uncle is overcoming the tribulation in the back mountain? It seems that another eminent monk in our temple has broken through."
"This thunder is so scary. I wonder which uncle is going through the Nine Tribulations?"
"Wouyou, is this your master?"
"Is it the abbot master who is overcoming the tribulation?"
The monks in the temple inquired one after another. For every practitioner, transcending tribulation is something that is both expected and feared. If you are not careful, you will be wiped out in a thunder tribulation.
At this time, Li Ye was sitting in his small courtyard, listening to the rumbling thunder, thinking secretly in his heart, could it be that Senior Brother Minghui broke through after enlightenment?
It's just that Minghui has already passed through the six tribulations of the eminent monk. If he survives the seventh tribulation again, he will no longer be far away from Poxu's ascension.
"This... is really a burst of thunder, the spring thunder is rumbling, and everything is beneficial to life."
Li Ye murmured. Thinking about it carefully, I have never broken through the border since I came down from Tianshan Mountain.
Naturally, I have never suffered another thunderstorm. Today, when I heard the thunder in the mountains behind Prajna Temple, I actually felt a sense of joy at seeing each other again after a long absence.
Mu Mu's master Bai Susu left Tianshan after surviving the Nine Tribulations. The two seniors, Lao Yuan and Lao Lang, had probably already completed the Nine Tribulations and left to find Bai Susu in another world.
And it is said that Ouyang Dongli, his new master, will also go through the Nine Tribulations ten years from now.
Unknowingly, the people Li Ye knew were lining up to survive the tribulation one after another, and there were more people than the practitioners in the Five Realms who had ascended in hundreds of years.
I wonder if I have caught up with a glorious era?
But he also knew in his heart that no matter what era he was in, practicing hard was inevitable.
Except for Xiaoqing, Xiaobai and Mu Mu, the people around them had to practice diligently to the realm of transcending tribulations, and they could break through the void and leave after surviving the nine tribulations.
Wait for the thunder to subside, take a nap, and then go to Minghui's Buddhist hall after Shenshi. First, you can congratulate him, and second, you can discuss the cultivation of the seventh level of the formless dharma body.
I lifted the quilt and lay on the bed, murmuring softly in my heart: The days are long and I am not in a hurry.
Listening to the thunder on the mountain, it was hard to believe that this was the thunder disaster of Brother Minghui. He thought to himself: "I never thought that I would have the opportunity to witness the eminent monks of Prajna Temple survive the disaster. If such a day comes, I don't know how many people will come to the temple. The monk wants to take a look."
If you are an ordinary practitioner, you will definitely be very excited if you can see with your own eyes the seniors who have reached the realm of nine tribulations.
Thinking of this, Li Ye closed his eyes.
He didn't look at Bai Susu as he crossed over, but he left before the two old apes crossed over.
It seems that I have been struck by lightning since I was a child, and I have long been numb to these things.
If Brother Minghui goes through the tribulation before he leaves, should he follow him to the top of the mountain?
