An epic journey of love and transformation, this novel follows a young girl’s path to universal compassion and culminates in the authentic, powerful diary of Master Yang Ning’s own realization of complete enlightenment.
Author: Yang Ning All living beings possess the wisdom and virtuous characteristics of the Tathagata , but cannot realize it due to discrimination and attachment. This is the wisdom of the dharma body Vairocana Buddha ; this wisdom is exactly the Mind of the Dharma Realm. Author May 20, 2008 Part One: Flowers in the … Read more
… It was the third day after New Year’s. Wu Aizhen had just seen off a few visiting friends and was arranging the flowers they had brought into two large vases when the telephone rang sharply. It was Zheng Meiqin. “Dr. Wu, I knew you’d be working overtime again. I have huge, wonderful news: I’m … Read more
The next afternoon, after attending to some trivial matters, Ding Yiming began leafing through Wu Aizhen’s third diary, One Hundred Days of Closed-Door Cultivation at the Zhongnan Mountains. October 4 In morning sitting meditation, an awareness arose in samadhi that I had never left the “hall of the Buddha‑Dharma,” that I had never been born … Read more
He turned to Wu Aizhen’s second diary, “Journey to Tibet.” May 22 Today I shared a chartered car with others to return to Chengdu from Larung Gar Buddhist Academy. The driver kept chanting mantras the whole way (he said it was the mind mantra of Padmasambhava). The road was fairly open at first; I sat … Read more
On New Year’s Day, Ding Yiming had three days off. He had declined his friends’ invitation to travel together. After breakfast, he went into his study, wanting to use these three days to read Wu Aizhen’s cultivation journals. Zheng Meiqin had been paging through them the night before and said they had moved her. Ding … Read more
After one year and seven months, Wu Aizhen returned to City A and stood before her window. In her eyes, the world of emotion and the ocean of desire had vanished. Ordinary people were doing ordinary things, yet everything was miraculous: seeds sprouted, babies smiled, flowers bloomed, the old milkman delivered the milk on time, … Read more
A few days later, Wu Aizhen left City A. Shouldering her pack, she set out on her cultivation journey once again, resolved to systematically organize, practice, and realize each of her teacher’s daily teachings. In the year that followed, Mount Tai, Mount Wutai, Tibet, and the Zhongnan Mountains all bore witness to her brief retreats. … Read more
The next day, when Wu Aizhen gave the two letters to Keiko and asked her to pass the other one to Ren Qingfei, Keiko was both thrilled and amazed, as if she had received two urgent dispatches, and said she would read them with Ren Qingfei on Jizu Mountain. Wu Aizhen saw off Keiko, who … Read more
A few days later, Wu Aizhen needed to return to City A to help a friend with some matters, and a publisher wanted to meet with her about one of her own books, which was about to be released. When she told Akikawa about it, he stayed silent. But Wu Aizhen said she had already … Read more
Keiko and Mayumi had returned. Keiko was jubilant, like a lark, chattering on endlessly about everything she had seen and heard, about the places she and Ren Qingfei had visited together… Akikawa Yamaguchi and Wu Aizhen were absorbed in their own love; neither of them noticed the admiration and lingering fondness in Keiko’s voice when … Read more