Datou didn't know what scripture Chang Sheng was talking about about Xifa, but he knew that these words should also be engraved on the back of the box lid. He opened the lid and checked, and sure enough, he saw Xifa from behind the lid of one of the boxes. The words of the scripture, "Here, my lord."
Changsheng walked over and picked up a scripture and read it casually. The scriptures in this box were also damp and moldy. It was a little difficult to turn the pages. Fortunately, the handwriting was still clear. What he was most worried about was that these scriptures were written in Sanskrit, because he I can't read Sanskrit, but fortunately the scriptures are written in Chinese, so there is no problem in reading them.
The so-called Xifa, to be precise, should be Xifa. It records the rare and rare supernatural powers and auspicious signs that happened to the Buddha and his disciples. To put it bluntly, they are some miraculous things, such as which Buddha came from his mother’s armpit. When you are born, which Bodhisattva gives a golden light when preaching, which Arhat turns into a rainbow when he passes away, and so on, and so on.
Seeing that it was inconvenient for Changsheng to stand and read, Datou pushed a small box nearby and said, "Sir, sit down and read."
"Inappropriate." Changsheng shook his head. Although he did not believe in Buddhism, he did not want to sit on Buddhist scriptures.
Hearing Chang Sheng's words, Da Tou hurriedly turned around and ran to the second floor. He brought an empty box down from upstairs and said, "Sir, sit here."
Changsheng sat down and read through it. There were quite a lot of scriptures in this box, and he would definitely not be able to finish them all in a short time.
Worried that the darkness in the room would affect Chang Sheng's reading, Datou wanted to set the wooden frame on fire again. After being stopped by Chang Sheng and doing nothing, he turned his attention to the black snake coiled at the door. He brought a lot of dry food in his bag, which he had fed before. After passing the black snake, I knew it was eating, so I took out the dry food, broke it into small pieces, and threw it to feed.
Changsheng read them very carefully at first, but after reading some, he speeded up the reading because he found that many of these scriptures exaggerated the truth, and some were even nonsense, and the credibility was not high. Don't talk about anything else, just say that the Buddha was born from his mother's armpit. Isn't this pure nonsense? He was born wherever he should be. How can he deliberately lie and deceive people in order to highlight his unique holiness?
I have read several Xifa Sutras, and some of the anecdotes in them were indeed eye-opening to Chang Sheng, but what touched him the most was the extreme enthusiasm revealed in the words. To put it bluntly, Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are good at everything, and the good ones cannot be better. , even a fart is delicious. Buddhas and Bodhisattvas can do everything. They can know the past and future lives with just a glance, and they can change the day with a cough.
Although Taoism and Buddhism seem to be on the same page, in fact everyone knows that they are not easy to deal with. Because the doctrines are contradictory and conflicting, it is inevitable not to deal with them. Therefore, Taoists say that Buddhist scriptures are not good, no matter what they say. Even if it was fair and just, there would be suspicions of slander and attack, but he really couldn't stand these scriptures. First of all, no matter when the truth had to be told, although the realm of gods and Buddhas was higher than that of ordinary people, they could not have no shortcomings at all. How could they? Because of the fanaticism and loss of reason and calmness due to worshiping anyone. Secondly, gods and Buddhas are not omnipotent. No matter how powerful the gods are, they cannot know what people are thinking in their hearts. They can only know what people are doing secretly.
They say that Buddhism is tolerant, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Buddhism demands that the world's people have no distracting thoughts. Even if you see a beautiful woman on the road and feel admiration for it, it is a heinous crime. You have to recite sutras to atone for your sins. In the long run, you don't have to do anything else. I am busy reflecting and blaming myself every day.
In contrast, Taoism is more humane. It does not distinguish good from evil based on empty thoughts, but only determines merit and demerit based on true words and deeds. You must know that as long as you are human, you will have selfish and distracting thoughts. If selfish and distracting thoughts are also wrong, then there will be no good people in the world, and all of them will be damned sinners.
Although he disagreed with these scriptures, Changsheng still patiently read through them one by one. Everything has a yin and yang side. We can question the authenticity of the visions and wonders mentioned in these Buddhist scriptures, but we cannot deny that most of what Buddhists do is Good deeds, and indeed there are many eminent monks with great wisdom and supernatural powers.
Changsheng is familiar with the Shangqing classics. When reading Buddhist scriptures, he cannot help but secretly compare them in his mind. There is a saying that one family does not belong to the same family. It may be due to different standpoints. He still feels that Taoist classics are more authentic than others. Speaking of the content of the scriptures, Taoists rarely fanatically worship a specific immortal and push it to a state of perfection and omnipotence. Taoists believe that immortals are also human beings, and they also have human nature, joy, anger, sorrow, and joy.
Seeing that Changsheng was frowning all the time, Datou did not dare to disturb him, but cautiously asked him if he wanted to drink water at the fourth watch. After Changsheng shook his head, Datou returned to the door, sat on the threshold and looked at the black snake.
The reason why Changsheng looked through the scriptures was to find clues about supernatural powers. However, Buddhism emphasizes that the four elements are empty. They do not consciously practice certain Taoist techniques like Taoist priests. Monks will immediately develop some magical powers after their great enlightenment. Superpowers, to put it bluntly, even the monks themselves do not know what kind of supernatural powers they will have in the future. The reason why this happens is because they do not practice Buddhism to obtain supernatural powers. From this perspective alone, it is indeed consistent with the meaning of the four elements. Selfless and selfless.
At some point, Datou suddenly said, "Sir, it's gone."
"Huh?" Changsheng looked up blankly.
"The snake is gone." Big Tou pointed to the door.
Following what Big Head was pointing, Changsheng turned to look outside the door and saw the black snake winding its way eastward.
"I want to follow it and see where it is going." Datou asked for instructions.
At this time, it was already bright outside, and Changsheng nodded in agreement, "Go, be careful."
After receiving Changsheng's permission, Datou followed him out.
Changsheng withdrew his gaze and continued to read Buddhist scriptures.
After looking at it for a while, Changsheng suddenly came to his senses. No, these Buddhist scriptures record strange things that happened to the Buddha and his disciples. What he needs is the experience and insights of the eminent monks who have obtained supernatural powers, and similar Naturally, the matter will not be recorded in the official Buddhist scriptures.
Thinking of this, he put down the Buddhist scriptures in his hands and opened the wooden boxes one by one, looking at the words behind the lids. There were eighteen large and small wooden boxes on the floor. In addition to the twelve volumes of Tripitaka, there were three boxes with no words on the lids. Text.
Different from other boxes, although these three boxes also contain books, they are not scriptures, but temple chronicles that record the history of Wuxiang Temple.
Seeing the temple records, immortality is like finding a treasure, this is what he needs.
Wuxiang Temple is a thousand-year-old temple. So many things have happened in the temple over the years, and many eminent monks have appeared. The temple chronicles record the major events that happened in the temple and the eminent monks who appeared in the past dynasties.
These temple chronicles were neatly stacked according to the year, with specific dates on the book covers. Changsheng did not start reading from the beginning of the temple construction, but found the part of the temple chronicles before and after the Huichang Buddhist Tragedy three hundred years ago, because according to the According to the clues provided by Song Cai and others, three hundred years ago, a virtuous and eminent monk who was good at using magical powers to subjugate demons appeared in Wuxiang Temple.
Even though it spans a hundred years, there are still more than 30 volumes of relevant temple chronicles. Changsheng looked through them one by one, but at first he did not find any useful clues. Most of the records in the temple chronicles were how much incense was donated to a certain pilgrim, and when it was done. What rituals were performed to pray for blessings and misfortunes for the court and the people, and what new buildings were built in the temple, and so on.
But there are also some interesting things. More than 300 years ago, during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Yizhou, where Wuxiang Temple is located, belonged to Nanliang. At that time, the emperor of Liang was Xiao Yan. Xiao Yan advocated Buddhism and learned that Bodhidharma, a monk from the Western Regions, was in Wuxiang. The director of Xiangsi Temple once came to Wuxiang Temple in person to meet with the Bodhidharma monk from the Western Regions.
Monk Bodhidharma is described in the temple chronicles as proficient in martial arts, knowledgeable and eloquent. Monk Bodhidharma has been living in Wuxiang Temple for more than a month. In addition to debating Buddhism with the monks in the temple, he also participated in martial arts competitions. However, The results of the competition are not recorded in the temple records. If you win, it will be written down. If you don't write it down, it means you can't beat others.
The temple chronicles also record the meeting between Emperor Xiao Yan and Monk Bodhidharma. Xiao Yan came here in good spirits and returned in disgrace. The reason was that Monk Bodhidharma did not like him. Xiao Yan built a large temple in the southern country. He believed that his merits were immeasurable and he never wanted to talk to Bodhidharma about this matter. However, Bodhidharma said that he had a good intention but was not sincere and had no merit at all.
These words must have choked Xiao Yan, who not only walked away in anger, but also informed the abbot before leaving, asking them to drive away Bodhidharma and prevent this arrogant and rude monk from the Western Regions from staying in the Liang Kingdom.
Since big events don't happen every day, another interesting story is recorded on the following page. Although the emperor issued an order to expel guests, Wuxiang Temple was still very polite to Bodhidharma. Instead of forcefully expelling him, he asked Bodhidharma politely. Where to go next.
Bodhidharma did not make it difficult for Wuxiang Temple, so he took the initiative to say goodbye. He only said that there was a fellow named Tuoba who served as the abbot from Shaolin. He wanted to leave here and go north to meet him.
Knowing that Bodhidharma was going north to Shaolin, Wuxiang Temple sent monks to escort him all the way to the river. There were many rivers and lakes in China. In ancient times, rivers referred to the two largest rivers in China, and other rivers were usually called water. .
A group of people by the river were overtaken by an envoy sent by Xiao Yan. Xiao Yan may have come to his senses and knew that this person was an enlightened monk and wanted to invite him back. However, Bodhidharma had already decided to go and stepped on a tree. Reeds cross the river from south to north.
After this incident, there were many pages without much information, but it did mention the blood relics of the Buddha. According to the records of the temple, two important pieces of information can be obtained. One is that Wuxiang Temple does enshrine the true body relics of the Buddha, and how many of them there are. Blood relics. Second, these relics had been in the temple many years ago and were not brought by Bodhidharma.
According to the temple records, the Buddha's relics were brought out during the Buddha's birthday celebration. This shows that the Buddha's blood relics were not placed outside on weekdays. As for where they were placed, the temple records did not mention it.
After that, nothing major happened for a long time, and Chang Sheng looked at it with little interest and lacked energy.
After going through several temple chronicles again, useful clues finally emerged. Xiao Yan was in chaos in his later years. During this period, a monk named Xu Yin appeared in Wuxiang Temple. This man was extremely talented and had extraordinary understanding. When he was more than ten years old, he understood the essence of Buddhism and realized the supreme supernatural power.
After seeing these words, Chang Sheng was full of energy, and he was about to read them quickly, but suddenly he heard Big Head's voice coming from a distance, "Sir, come and take a look..."
