荒墟牧神 - 第38章 古佛大乘渡迷途 - 錦書坊

At those words the young monk Chenghuai flew into a towering rage and rebuked him: "Blasphemy! How dare you insult the Buddha!" Shen Mu smiled, and his heart settled into perfect calm; an incomparable confidence flowed from his eyes. However strong this young monk might be, however refined his arts, he had already lost in the realm of the heart! The white-browed monk opposite Huo Ye wavered in indecision. Shen Mu's words had seemed utterly lawless—insulting not the Buddha alone but gods and demons alike—yet as they fell upon his ears they were no blasphemy at all, but the very words of truth! Only when there is no Buddha in the heart can one become a Buddha; once a Buddha dwells in the heart, one can never become a Buddha. Only when there is no demon in the heart can one become a demon; once a demon dwells in the heart, one can never become a demon. Chenghuai's cultivation had not yet reached that stage, and he could not grasp the words; the white-browed monk had grasped them to the bone. Only after stepping into the Heaven-Man realm had he come to understand their truth, yet even now, having cultivated all the way to the Life-and-Death realm, the Buddha in his heart remained unbroken. The deeper one's cultivation, the more one knows how terrible gods and demons are, and how vast the Tathagata. Easy to know, hard to do. That the same words should come from the mouth of a little child like Shen Mu seemed exceedingly strange; stranger still, this little child claimed to have shattered the gods and Buddhas in his heart! Shen Mu was far too young ever to have touched the truth of those words—and if he could not touch the truth, how could he possibly have shattered the gods and Buddhas within? To shatter them demands bitter cultivation and sudden enlightenment; otherwise the Buddha in the heart remains a Buddha, and the demon a demon. "Be that as it may, he never obtained the true supreme arts of our Great Tingming Temple. However lofty his state of heart, he will be no match for Chenghuai." The white-browed monk let his eyes rest on his nose and his nose on his heart, as though sunk in meditation, caring nothing for victory or defeat upon the platform. On the dueling platform a faint golden light rose about Chenghuai's tall, thin frame, and the young monk gave the uncanny impression of a living Buddha—holy, majestic, boundless—pressing upon the soul with incomparable weight! Below the platform, men and women, old and young, had gathered from every village, drawn to the spectacle; the din of voices had seethed like a boiling cauldron, but the moment golden light shone from Chenghuai's body every voice died away at once, till the hush was such that not a crow or sparrow stirred. Almost in the same instant they shut their mouths, as though each had received a head-on blow of the staff and a cry of awakening! This was the heart-method of the Buddhist school, the Tingming Mahayana Sutra. Its path differed from the heart-methods of other schools: it proceeded from the outer to the inner—the outer being the body, and the body a Tathagata; the inner being the heart, and the heart a Tathagata. The Buddhist school called these body-suchness and heart-suchness. Though Chenghuai had cultivated only the outermost layer of body-suchness, once the Buddha-aspect appeared he could strike others like a blow of the staff and a shout of awakening! Granny Zhu and the others grew anxious again. Chenghuai had not yet struck, but this aura alone could serve as an opening rebuke to Shen Mu, crushing his will to fight before the fight began. Ask yourself: who would dare raise a hand against a Buddha? But Shen Mu dared! Shen Mu joined body to heart, heart to intent, intent to fist, fist to breath, breath to body; and at the same moment his Spirit Fetus moved together with his flesh, body joined to spirit, as he unleashed the Nine Dragons Commanding Wind and Thunder! His footwork was the Lame Old Man's Sky-Sweeping Divine Legs, swift beyond measure: before C