The next afternoon, Wu Aizhen and Ren Qingfei went to Lake Center Park in City A, the largest aquatic park in the city. In a grove of green trees within the park there was a small ceramics workshop where visitors could design their own pottery. The first time they came here, the two of them had designed and made a lotus-shaped teapot and a pair of small lotus teacups together. When they came out of the kiln, the teapot handle was crooked, but Ren Qingfei treasured them as priceless keepsakes. It was also on that occasion that they confessed their feelings for each other and became a couple.
There were few visitors today because the sky had been heavily overcast since morning. Now it was past four in the afternoon and the rain still seemed to be gathering. The air was a little heavy, but when they sat on a boat out on the lake, the wind blowing across the water gave Wu Aizhen a touch of coolness.
Ren Qingfei had already ordered tea. The boat was moored in one place, with a gangplank connecting it to the shore so that visitors could sit on board, sip tea, and enjoy the view.
As the fragrance of Tieguanyin tea spread through their nostrils and lingered on their lips, the sky at last let fall a fine, gentle rain, soft and dense, scattering across the lake’s surface. The water, so long oppressed by the sultry heat, danced with delight, blooming into ring after ring of ripples.
“Watching rain from a boat seems even more beautiful than from the shore,” Ren Qingfei said, gazing through the rain-mist toward the lake bank, lost in thought.
“True! And a lovely companion for the viewing, a graceful beauty pouring the tea.” Hearing this, Ren Qingfei turned his eyes to the girl preparing tea beside them. She was about sixteen or seventeen, very pretty, dressed in a specially made spring-green Tang-style jacket and sitting upright beside them. Unaware of what they were saying, she was carefully following the sequence of boiling water and brewing tea. Her practiced technique and quiet, elegant poise were quite endearing and admirable; Wu Aizhen had been watching her quietly for a while already. Ren Qingfei seemed weighed down with cares today and did not joke with the girl as he usually did, conducting himself with the bearing of a gentleman. He lifted the teacup, took a light sip, and turned his gaze back to the lake.
“What a pity that the two of us are of such meager learning. Faced with a scene this beautiful, all we can do is sigh at the lake. If we were the ancients, we would surely be composing poems and lyrics to do justice to this lovely view, this fragrant tea, and this fair lady,” Ren Qingfei said, setting down his teacup.
“There is no harm in not being able to compose poetry, lyrics, or paintings—the ancients have ready-made ones for us. How about each of us recites one? But it must contain at least one of these: the lake, the rain, the boat, or the tea,” Wu Aizhen said, hoping to add some charm to the outing. She knew Ren Qingfei had committed reams of classical poetry to memory; reciting a few fitting the scene should not be difficult.
Sure enough, Ren Qingfei’s interest was piqued. After a moment’s reflection, he said, “All right. I will go first.
“When young, I listened to the rain in song halls, Red candles, dimly lit gauze bed curtains.
“In my prime, I listened to the rain in a traveler’s boat, The sky broad, clouds low, a lone wild goose cries in the west wind.
“Now I listen to the rain beneath a monk’s hut, My temples already flecked with white. Joy and sorrow, parting and reunion—always heartless. Let the drops fall on the steps till daybreak, as they please.”
“Good! That is ‘Listening to the Rain’ by Jiang Jie of the Southern Song. It has rain and a boat, so it fits the scene, but it does not quite fit the mood—it feels a little bleak and downcast,” Wu Aizhen said.
“Your turn. Give us one that fits both the scene and the mood,” Ren Qingfei said.
Wu Aizhen thought carefully for a moment, then said with a smile, “May I skip the poetry and tell a Chan gong’an about drinking tea instead?”
“That works too,” Ren Qingfei said.
“Once, three well-known Chan masters went to a tea house. The old woman selling tea was a lay practitioner of Chan for many years. She greeted them warmly, asked the three ‘accomplished masters’ to be seated, and then said, ‘Three great Chan masters, your reputations thunder in my ears. That you have come to this old woman’s humble tea shop today truly makes this shabby place shine. But I wonder if the three masters could demonstrate for me drinking tea with “spiritual penetrations.” If so, today’s tea is on me, as an offering to you.’
The three masters, accustomed to flattery, were quite puffed up at the thought that even this old tea-shop woman knew of their great names. But when they heard her later request, they looked at each other helplessly. One of them said, ‘Venerable lady, the essence of Chan practice lies in cultivating an ordinary mind. It does not speak of spiritual penetrations, so none of us three knows how to use them.’
The old woman gave a gentle smile and said, ‘These spiritual penetrations are really not so difficult, are they? If the three masters cannot do it, I can. How about I give you a demonstration right now?’
The three masters looked at each other in astonishment, wondering what sort of spiritual penetration the old woman would use to drink tea.
At these words, the old woman lifted her teacup and drained it in one gulp. The three masters had a sudden realization and said repeatedly, ‘Shame on us! Shame on us!’ Eating, drinking, defecating, urinating, sleeping, carrying firewood, drawing water—which one of these is not a person’s spiritual penetrations and wonderful functions? This is the ordinary mind. The principle they had on their lips every day—today they had lost to an old laywoman’s ordinary mind free of distinctions. The three masters rose from their seats, left, and from then on practiced cultivation in earnest.”
Ren Qingfei silently savored his tea. After hearing Wu Aizhen out, he pondered for a while and said, “‘The ordinary mind is the Way’—every student of Chan can say it, but when it comes to actually applying it, it is very hard to keep an ordinary mind. How many can truly understand the miraculous greatness within the ordinary?”
“Yes!” Wu Aizhen drank a cup of tea. “If we apply this gong’an to the poem you just recited—listening to the rain in youth, in middle age, in old age—though the circumstances change, the mind is still the same mind. Why should the mind turn with its circumstances? ‘The sky broad, clouds low, a lone wild goose cries in the west wind’ is just a kind of scenery, or one of life’s vicissitudes. Face it with equanimity and you will not be wounded by the scene, overcome with a thousand feelings.”
Ren Qingfei looked at Wu Aizhen and frowned slightly. “Jiang Jie was a young gentleman of leisure in his youth. In middle age he served as an official, but that happened to be a time when the country was broken and the family destroyed—many people had no fixed abode, drifting and wandering. That is why the scene stirred his emotions, why he wrote about listening to the rain in a traveler’s boat, the sky broad, clouds low, a lone wild goose crying in the west wind. Later he resigned from office and lived in seclusion on Mount Bamboo by West Lake, probably practicing Chan or Daoism as well, hoping his body and mind could find liberation. The three phases of a man’s life truly make one sigh. Especially in his prime, facing ‘the country broken, yet the mountains and rivers remain,’ the unbearable memory of his homeland’s ways—how could a man of full talent and grand ambition not be wounded by such scenes? And what would a Chan practitioner make of this scene? Could he face the ruin of his country and family unmoved? Could he be without emotion?”
Wu Aizhen smiled. “A Chan practitioner is not without emotion, but without mind. Because there is no mind, the Chan practitioner must be actively engaged in the world. They actively bring the world-transcending Dharma into the red dust—using a ‘world-transcending mind’ to do ‘world-entering work.’ Only in this way can a Chan practitioner throw themselves into every task with total, pure commitment of body and mind. And only in this way, when facing circumstances that cannot be changed, do they not respond with passivity and sentimentality but instead give rise to boundless, inexhaustible compassion, and through that open the wisdom of liberation from ‘this world’s impermanence.’ And by virtue of that compassion and wisdom, they earnestly exhort people to face cause and effect squarely—cause and effect in the human realm is never lost.”
“Preaching the Dharma again,” Ren Qingfei said, replacing the now-cold tea in front of Wu Aizhen. “You are right, but this mind that can abide nowhere, cling to no appearances, not turn with circumstances, function at any moment and leave no trace afterward—a mind of ‘no-mind’—is so terribly hard to attain! So many things one cannot pick up, and yet cannot let go of!”
“Then you might as well go cultivate the Way!” Wu Aizhen said with a laugh.
“Cultivating the Way requires laying some groundwork first, does it not? For instance, very practically, saving up some money. Otherwise, what will you live on, what will you drink?”
“How much saved is enough? And you do not know how many years it will take to reach attainment!”
“Do not say it like that. In truth, my aspiration for the Way is also very strong. Who would not want the life of a carefree immortal? But one must be realistic. In this human world, things do not come true just because you wish them to. Romantic idealism and passion alone cannot solve problems.”
“Your reasoning is correct. Each person chooses a different path of cultivation. Since you want to enter the red dust first, to save money, then when you face the disappointments and setbacks of the red dust, do not grieve too deeply, do not sink into a place you cannot pull yourself out of. Remember that the purpose of your ‘entering the red dust’ is to leave the world, to cultivate the Way and attain enlightenment in the future. That way, the red dust’s many temptations and desires will not drag you down so deep that you lose the strength to free yourself and thus wander through birth and death.”
“Cultivation!” Ren Qingfei gazed at the mist-shrouded lake surface after the rain had cleared. “How does one cultivate? My heart feels empty, adrift, utterly lost. I have read some Buddhist scriptures, and I have met people who, in the fine name of renunciation, have been cultivating for a long time. Oh, not you, of course! But are they not all the same, living in the crack between reality and renunciation? Not only is the path terribly difficult, but their cultivation is only on their lips.”
“Some people’s resolve is impure; they are just fame-seekers and reputation-hunters. Some stumbled into the Buddha’s gate through certain causes and conditions without a good teacher to guide them into right view and right understanding, and so they have cultivated a long time without seeing any dawn, and the farther they go the harder it gets. And still more people have chosen the right Dharma doors and the right path for their cultivation and realization, but a qualitative leap requires a quantitative accumulation—the increase of merit and virtue, the growth of blessings, the opening of the heart’s capacity, and so on—and these things cannot be accomplished in a short time. A human life is not long. Apart from eating, drinking, defecating, urinating, and sleeping, the time one can use for cultivation in a lifetime is pitifully little. If one wants to attain enlightenment, one can only seize every minute and every second to do the work. For example, starting right now, correct your body, your speech, and your mind. Devote your whole body and mind to savoring this tea. Cast away all memories of the past and thoughts of the future. Let your mind rest as much as possible within your own body and mind. Whatever happens around you, be a bystander—including observing every movement of this body: pouring tea, drinking tea, speaking, perceiving the tea’s flavor, and so on. If you can observe all of this with perfect clarity, then you are cultivating right at this moment. It is not that you must wait until you have saved enough money and carried it off to the mountains before it counts as cultivation.”
Ren Qingfei sat quietly for a while, then said, “Ah! Poor me—thought after thought, I am either in the past or contemplating the future, or else scattered, disheartened, or fixated on the scene before me. It is very hard to settle.”
“If you truly observe clearly like this, knowing distinctly and without confusion what the mind is thinking and what state it is dwelling on, without making distinctions, without turning with circumstances—this is precisely the practice of calming and insight. Persist over the long term and you can attain samadhi. For a person, from coarse consciousness to subtle consciousness, thought after thought does not abide, all like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow. This is ‘calming without a single thought that dwells.’ That is, although there are waves of consciousness, they are ultimately empty in nature and so have never truly arisen. (For beginners in Chan samadhi, however, this means stopping all false thoughts and achieving calm-abiding ability.) And ‘insight without a single thought that is abandoned’ means that every single thought must be distinctly and clearly known—distinctly and clearly knowing the ‘existence’ that arises within this ’emptiness.’ This is the Great Vehicle Bodhisattva’s method of calming and insight in daily life—walking, standing, sitting, and lying down. It can accomplish the dharmakaya. But it also has four ‘auxiliary practices’: giving, upholding precepts, patience, and vigor. These are the necessary conditions for a Great Vehicle practitioner to enter Chan samadhi and awaken to the wisdom of the dharma body Vairocana Buddha. Without these four auxiliary practices, it is very difficult for a Great Vehicle practitioner to accumulate enough blessings and provisions to open the heart’s capacity, to embrace the Three Realms, and to return to the ‘Mind of the Dharma Realm.'”
“Fine, I will cultivate seriously. But when I return to the red dust, when I face situations and people, the mind slips away. Perhaps I only have an aspiration for the Way when I am idle, but what my heart truly craves most right now is not yet cultivation.”
“Contemplate the impermanence of this world more often. Life is so fragile; calamity and fortune may come at any dawn or dusk. Even if we live out our natural span, it is but a hundred years, and the days fly past in eating, drinking, and merrymaking. Where do we come from? Why have we come? Where do we go after death? What splendors exist in this world beyond the realms we can see, hear, feel, and know—we are utterly ignorant. To explore the unknown in a finite life, to probe the mysteries of existence, is also a profoundly meaningful endeavor. We may not have the knowledge of scientists, but the Buddha has told us that each of us possesses the same wisdom as the Buddha. By relying on this ‘leisure and endowment’ body we already have, we can attain this wisdom. Moreover, this wisdom can not only guide our present life, enabling us to live with greater joy and ease as human beings, but can also lead us beyond the realm of birth and death, so we never again revolve through the Six Paths of Rebirth. This should be something every one of us needs and longs for, and it is something everyone can possibly accomplish if they apply themselves. Why do we not treat it as the most important thing? In this world, is there anything else more worthy of devoting our entire lives to? Merits and achievements spanning a thousand years, a name renowned for ten thousand generations, earth-shaking, heaven-moving love—all of these are just more entanglements of gratitude and resentment created in the human realm, more karmic bonds. Fame, fortune, and impermanent emotions can never truly bring us satisfaction or happiness. Those who step into the vast ocean of the Buddhadharma are fortunate. Cultivation is only a ladder; gaining what we truly want is what matters most. And what we as human beings truly want is the Buddha’s power, wisdom, and the great loving-kindness and great compassion—a love that never fades. And this can be achieved by generating Bodhicitta and by practicing the Dharma doors of the Buddhadharma.”
Ren Qingfei watched Wu Aizhen in silence. Seeing her growing more and more excited as she spoke, he cut her off.
“Hey! I understand all these grand principles too, but I just cannot live up to them yet. Right now I am only thinking about getting married, getting promoted, a salary raise, buying a house, buying a car—that is how real it is. Otherwise my heart knows no peace.”
“Can’t you broaden your vision a bit and open your heart a little wider? Can’t you give rise to the Bodhi Mind? The Three Realms are full of such suffering, and they need a Bodhisattva’s deliverance — especially the beings in the Three Lower Realms. The cosmic field needs purification. The moral decay of people’s hearts directly affects the survival and propagation of countless living beings. Do you really feel no trace of personal responsibility for any of that?”
“Do I even have that kind of power? Having a sense of purpose is one thing, but what can I actually do? In this churning red dust, I, Ren Qingfei, am so insignificant that I’m not even worth mentioning. The best I can do is cultivate myself, follow the law, and do my best to do some good deeds. What else can I do?”
“I’m not blaming you for anything. Your strength is small right now, but you can at least make a vow, can’t you? Something like, every day, wishing peace, joy, and happiness for all sentient beings.”
“What the hell good would that do!” Ren Qingfei said coarsely, though with an oddly bookish air. “You’re getting more and more naive.”
“If everyone in the whole world made that vow, it would work. It’s better than filling your mind with impure thoughts.” Wu Aizhen blushed.
“Fine! It works! From now on I’ll think that way and recite that way every day. Hey — think it can stop Iraq from going to war? Think it can make terrorist organizations find their conscience and stop killing innocent people as revenge?”
“It can!” Wu Aizhen said with certainty, then smiled. Ren Qingfei reached out and patted the top of her head. “You really do have the heart of a Bodhisattva. If I can make you happy every day, that’s merit beyond measure for me.”
A thread of warmth flowed through Wu Aizhen’s heart. She fell silent.
“You’ve been cultivating ever since college — that’s, what, eight or nine years now? And you’re still living in the crack between the worldly and the transcendent. That love you hunger for, that holiness you long for, that life ’emerging from the mud without stain’ — hasn’t reality smashed it to pieces time and again? It’s not like I haven’t seen you cry your eyes out.”
“With a nature like mine, do you think I’d be better off now if I hadn’t cultivated? I might have ‘died young.’ Without the Buddha’s wisdom to guide me, I’d probably have drowned in some whirlpool of the red dust by now. I believe a Bodhisattva in the red dust may behave outwardly just like everyone else — she too cries and laughs, eats and drinks, and has to use the toilet — but because her vow-power and her initial resolve are different, everything she does is done for that love of great kindness and great compassion, not just to satisfy personal desires. Before her attainment is perfected, she too still has emotional desires. But when the welfare of sentient beings comes into conflict with her private desires and romantic attachments, she uses the sword of wisdom to cut the threads of passion, renouncing her own private desires to bring about the happiness of beings. This is the conduct of a truly great person, the great love of a Bodhisattva.”
“In this world, nobody really needs a Bodhisattva’s deliverance. What people mostly want is a Bodhisattva who can help them satisfy their private desires. The temptations of the red dust are so vast, the poison of the Five Desires in sentient beings runs so deep — how many people genuinely give rise to the intention to transcend it all? And even if a few do, throughout the whole path of cultivation, aren’t they still circling inside greed, anger, delusion, arrogance, and doubt, unable to step over any threshold where their ‘self’ is at stake? It’s like a drug addict trying to quit. And this drug isn’t something external — it’s inherent to life itself, the karmic poison accumulated life after life after life. How easy do you think attainment is? At a time like this, even if a Bodhisattva smashed her body to dust and offered herself up in giving, what good would it do? Sentient beings don’t want to transcend, and the ones who do want to transcend cling stubbornly to the ‘self.’ So what do you want? To dress yourself up as some kind of savior? You can’t touch anyone’s habitual tendencies or desires even a little bit — so how do you deliver them? Better to pour your whole heart and body into cultivating yourself. You yourself are also a sentient being. Freeing yourself is freeing one member of sentient beings. Why spend all day on impractical fine-sounding words?”
“That’s not right. It’s precisely because every day I keep the sufferings and joys of beings in the Six Paths in my thoughts — even though I haven’t truly helped them in any concrete way — that in Chan samadhi, obstacles I couldn’t surmount sometimes break apart in an instant because compassion suddenly arises, dissolving ego-clinging on the spot and bringing a leap forward. In the states of Chan samadhi, there’s no subjective consciousness. It’s like Buddha-recitation in the intermediate state — everything depends on the traces imprinted on the nature of mind through constant permeation in daily life. That’s why my master always says that because I have ‘a firm foundation of great compassion,’ I advance without defeat in cultivation and certification. And so, what a cultivator thinks, reflects on, sees, and hears in daily life is all critically important. Sometimes it directly determines the success or failure of one’s cultivation — especially one’s initial resolve. ‘Cultivating for the benefit of all living beings’ is a vow that a practitioner of the Great Vehicle path must keep on her lips and in her heart at all times. Only then will it one day bear the fruit of the dharma body Vairocana Buddha.”
Ren Qingfei said no more. The young woman sitting beside them — though whether she could follow their conversation was anyone’s guess — had long since filled the teacups in front of them with steeped tea and was now staring at Wu Aizhen with a pair of innocent, bewildered eyes. When she saw that Wu Aizhen had noticed her, she smiled timidly and lowered her head.
The rain had long since stopped. There was no wind, and the air lacked that refreshed feeling that follows rain. The tourists along the shore and on the boats seemed more numerous than before the rain, since the park stayed open until after ten at night. At the park entrance stood a park restaurant called Hundred-Flavor Congee House, which simmered dozens of distinctively flavored rice porridges and served an array of exquisite little pastries — a draw for visitors who came in the evening to stroll the park, have congee, and sip tea.
“Let’s go have congee at the Hundred-Flavor Congee House,” Wu Aizhen said.
Ren Qingfei glanced at his watch. “Let’s go at six on the dot. It’s only five-thirty now. Are you hungry?”
“Not hungry. I just suddenly thought of the congee we had last time. The flavor was quite good.”
The tea girl had just steeped the last bag of tea and reminded them, “There’s no more tea. Would you like to order more?”
“No need. We’ll be off once we’ve drunk this pot,” Ren Qingfei said. Then: “Bodhisattva, tell a story. One of those Dharma stories you’ve heard from your master.”
“All right, I’ll tell one. But after I finish, no criticizing it by saying it sounds like a myth.”
“Once upon a time, there was a small town. The town sat at the foot of a great mountain, and on that mountain there were two caves.” The moment Wu Aizhen got this far, Ren Qingfei burst out laughing and sprayed a mouthful of tea onto the deck of the boat. Wu Aizhen closed her mouth and stared at him, completely baffled. He pressed a napkin to his mouth, then wagged his head from side to side and intoned, “Once upon a time there was a mountain, and on the mountain there was a cave, and in the cave there lived an old monk. And the old monk said, Once upon a time there was a mountain…”
The tea girl let out a giggle, clapped a hand over her mouth, and glanced at Wu Aizhen, her face red.
“You really underestimate me. My story is nothing like that. Since your attitude toward listening to a story is not serious, I won’t tell it.” Wu Aizhen drank a cup of tea and fell silent.
“Fine! My attitude was not serious. Bodhisattva, please proceed. The little shramanera is all ears.” Ren Qingfei dabbed a bit of water onto his fingers and touched them to his ears.
The two caves, however, were not home to two old monks. One cave was inhabited by an attained master — the townspeople often brought him food and clothing as offerings and called him the Venerable Kongxing. The other cave was inhabited by an ill-tempered fire dragon, something the townspeople knew nothing of.
The fire dragon took a single nap, and a hundred human years passed. One day it woke and suddenly felt a ravenous hunger. It poked its head out of the cave mouth, spotted two men coming down the mountain carrying firewood, and swallowed them in a single mouthful. It ate several more animals before its belly was full. From then on, it regularly ate the people who came up the mountain to cut wood and hunt, until gradually the townsfolk all knew there was a man-eating monster in the mountains and no one dared enter anymore. When the fire dragon had gone a long time without eating anyone, it would slip out of the mountain at night after everyone was asleep and creep into people’s homes to feed. At the sight of the dragon, people would beat basins and grab hoes and shovels to fight it, but the dragon was both cunning and savage. Though nearly the whole town would turn out to battle it, every time a few villagers still ended up in the dragon’s jaws. Once it had eaten its fill, it would disappear back into the cave in a blaze of firelight. The cave was unfathomably deep, leaving the townspeople utterly helpless.
The townsfolk thought of the Venerable Kongxing in the other cave on the mountain, thinking the master might have the ability to capture that fire dragon. As it happened, the town was fated to suffer this tribulation. During this period, the Venerable Kongxing had been away, roaming in an out-of-body state while in deep samadhi. He had only just returned to his cave when the villagers came to him weeping and pleading their case.
The Venerable Kongxing comforted the villagers at length and told them not to come up the mountain again. He would inform them once he had subdued the dragon.
The Venerable Kongxing fashioned a clay figure and placed inside its belly a Nine-Headed Pipa Hook made of rattan and branches. Then he set the clay figure not far from the mouth of the fire dragon’s cave.
Several days later, on an evening when the moon hung high in the sky, the fire dragon set out again to hunt for food. As soon as it emerged from the cave, it saw a figure standing with its back to it, not far away. Its heart stirred with pleasure — but then it stopped short. Something was wrong. For a long time now, no one had dared come up the mountain. How could someone be brazen enough to stand at the mouth of its cave this late at night? Could this person have come to capture it? At this thought, the dragon kept its guard up. It watched only from a distance, observing that motionless figure in secret, refusing to swallow it.
The Venerable Kongxing possessed the knowledge of others’ thoughts and knew exactly what was in the fire dragon’s mind. He was crouching in the brush beside the clay figure. Seeing the dragon craning its neck and peering suspiciously from the cave mouth, he promptly pushed the clay figure forward and shouted, “Brazen fire dragon! Are you afraid of me?” The moment the dragon heard a human voice and saw what looked like the clay figure lunging toward it, its fury blazed sky-high. With a thunderous roar, it shot out a column of fire and sucked the clay figure into its belly. The figure was reduced to ash inside, but the Nine-Headed Pipa Hook, empowered with talismanic spells, firmly snagged the dragon’s internal organs. The fire dragon was a numinous creature that had cultivated its dragon form over tens of thousands of years in that mountain cave. Finding its body hooked, it tried the trick of the cicada shedding its shell, transforming its dragon body into a beam of red light in an attempt to flee. But the Nine-Headed Pipa Hook did not only hook the body — the incantation on it could lock down the mind as well. The fire dragon was subdued and crawled obediently to the mouth of the cave. The Venerable Kongxing performed the Taking Refuge in the Three Jewels for it and then told it that the Nine-Headed Pipa Hook would not fall away on its own until the dragon’s cultivation reached a certain level. He would become its teacher and guide its practice. As for its hunger, he explained, that was because it had stirred up desire. If it could abide in samadhi, drawing nourishment from the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, it would have no need to emerge and hunt for food. The fire dragon listened, then crawled back into the cave, and the Venerable Kongxing sealed the cave mouth with a mantra.
At first, the fire dragon was consumed by rage. It tried every conceivable means to free itself from the hook’s bondage, but nothing worked. After starving for a stretch of days, its fiery temper subsided a little. Then it shifted to bitter resentment, gnashing its teeth and vowing that the day it regained its freedom, it would devour every last person in the town — and the very first one it would finish off would be the “master” who had tricked it. It nursed this hatred for a long while, but it still changed nothing, and what’s more, it discovered that whenever it grew furious or resentful, the incantation would bind its heart so tightly that the pain was excruciating. If it thought of nothing at all, it actually felt a little more at ease instead. So it lay sprawled in the cave, hoping to fall asleep. But everything that had happened kept churning in its mind, tangled and chaotic, making even sleep restless. After enough time had passed — escape being impossible no matter what — it remembered what the Venerable Kongxing had told it. If it cultivated to a certain level, it could be freed from the spell. It decided there was no harm in trying and began to practice samadhi. Every day, on schedule, it breathed in energy and absorbed qi, laboring to quiet its agitated and restless mind. In the early days of its cultivation, the cave would blaze with brightness from the light of its own body. The red glow gradually turned to blue, the blue light became white light, and when the cave was lit as bright as day, it felt utterly ethereal in that state, as if it had already attained the Way. It thought smugly, I’m close to breaking free of the spell. I can have my revenge. But the very instant that single thought stirred, the light around its body suddenly vanished. The cave turned dark and cold, and even the fiery glow it had always possessed was gone. Having grown accustomed to the brightness of the cave, it could not bear the cold, the darkness, and the damp. It thrashed wildly around the cave, ramming its head against the walls, its heart blazing with such rage it felt about to shatter into pieces. At that moment, a voice suddenly came from the dark emptiness: “Do not be impatient. You have cultivated well. But you must rid yourself of anger and hatred and sincerely repent of what you have done. Then your heart will regain its light.”
Hearing that voice, which seemed to belong to its “Master Kongxing,” the fire dragon suddenly felt like weeping. In the darkness, it felt lonely. So that master still remembered it. In its most agonizing moment, the master had appeared. All along, he had been watching over it. True, it was he who had placed the spell upon it. But thinking it over, the dragon had to admit it had indeed eaten many people. The fault had been its own from the start. Had the master not possessed such high spiritual power, even he would long since have ended up in its belly. With these thoughts, it said through tears, “I was wrong, Master. Please help me.”
Master Kongxing suddenly appeared inside the cave and gently stroked the crown of its head with his hand. “Your cold yin energy is nearly refined away. When all your yin energy has been purged and you have transformed into a body of pure yang, you will be promoted to the rank of Dharma-protecting divine dragon among the Eight Classes of Devas and Nāgas. At that point, the spell will lift of its own accord. But during this period, what you hold in your heart and mind is of the utmost importance. You must keep your thoughts on goodness and earnestly repent of your past wrongdoings, so as to remove the adverse conditions that obstruct the Path.” By now, the fire dragon was completely subdued by the Venerable Kongxing. It pressed its enormous head against the master’s chest and silently wept tears of remorse and gratitude.
Later, the Sky-Traveling Master attained the Ten Grounds of the Bodhisattva on earth and entered Nirvana, becoming a Buddha in another world. The fire dragon also ascended to become a Dharma-protecting divine dragon among the eight classes of devas and nāgas and successfully broke the mantra on its own.
When Wu Aizhen reached this point, she paused and looked at her empty teacup. The girl who was refilling the tea was listening intently, lost in the story.
“Is that the end?” Ren Qingfei asked.
“Not yet.” Wu Aizhen said she wanted some water. The girl came back to herself, smiled apologetically, and immediately poured the freshly brewed tea into her cup.
After drinking her tea, “Do you still want to listen?” she asked.
“How can you tell a story only halfway? Keep going. It’s still not time for congee.”
After the Sky-Traveling Master had realized the fruit in other worlds, he kept thinking of the time he had cultivated in a cave in the human world, and how the townspeople at the foot of the mountain had constantly made offerings and given alms, enabling him to achieve the Way within that cave. Using his supranormal powers, he looked upon the town and saw that the inhabitants no longer heard the Buddhadharma; their hearts had sunk into depravity, selfishness, ingratitude, betrayal, and kin turning against kin. Women were wanton and licentious, men abandoned their families, gambling had become a common practice. Even young boys were forming gangs, brawling, murdering, setting fires, abusing drugs; the entire town was shrouded in the light of a living hell where no daylight could reach. People whose consciences had not yet died were crying out in the darkness, struggling, powerless to pull themselves free. The Sky-Traveling Master gave rise to great compassion and immediately vowed to go to that town to spread the Buddhadharma, to save the descendants of those who had once been kind to him. But the townspeople were already deeply poisoned by the five desires; one person alone would be too weak. So the Sky-Traveling Master sought out other Bodhisattvas and Dharma protectors who shared the same aspiration to return to the human world and deliver sentient beings. He soon found many Bodhisattvas of the same vow-power and heavenly Dharma protectors, one of whom was that fire dragon. They made a pact: should they become lost in the human realm, whoever woke up first would not forget to find and awaken the others. Then together they took rebirth in the human world.
The fire dragon and the Sky-Traveling Master, their connection to that town being especially deep, both took rebirth there. The fire dragon was reborn as a beautiful woman, and the Sky-Traveling Master as a male lay practitioner cultivating the Way. Because the fire dragon had been a bit hasty in taking rebirth, she was one year older than the male lay cultivator the Sky-Traveling Master had become.
Who would have thought that the poison of the five desires in the “hearts” of the townspeople would be so strong—it could rot one’s bones and melt one’s soul. The fire dragon’s level of practice was shallow; the moment she left the womb, she was utterly lost. Not only did she forget completely the purpose for which she had come, but all the habitual tendencies from her past lives, before she had begun cultivation in the cave, were drawn out by the poison, as if she were suffering a drug craving. Because of her exquisite beauty, her boldness and meticulous care, her cleverness and resourcefulness, she indulged in every kind of pleasure from a very young age, and there was almost nothing she set her mind to that she couldn’t accomplish. By the age of twenty-three, she had made a great deal of money, but in one round-the-clock gambling frenzy she suddenly lost it all. She had had several lovers at first, but later she discovered that not one of them truly cared for her; they were all after her physical beauty. Because all her habitual tendencies had been reawakened, the adverse conditions from her past lives all came looking for her—and in those former lives, she had almost no positive karmic connections in the town. Thus by the age of thirty, she had been abandoned by everyone; her parents, brothers, and sisters would not acknowledge her, her relatives and friends all reviled her. Her heart grew ever colder and darker, and she often retaliated against and tormented those she dealt with, not sparing even her own family. Gradually she became completely alone.
The Sky-Traveling Master’s level of practice was somewhat deeper. After coming into the world of red dust, he was at times bewildered, at times awakened; fortunately, he had many wholesome karmic connections with the townspeople, and so he often received help from others. This allowed him to cultivate smoothly for five or six years, until at last he remembered the task for which he had come. He immediately began searching the town for his companions from that time, and first found the fire dragon in a tavern. The “fire dragon” was drunk and unsteady on her feet, stumbling and crashing right into the chest of the Sky-Traveling Master as he was entering the tavern. As he steadied her, he recognized her. But getting her to remember the past was no easy matter; first she had to begin cultivation. Yet the Sky-Traveling Master still carried the poison of desire and could not abide constantly in the stage of attainment; his habitual tendencies and cravings had not been exhausted. And the “fire dragon” had not only unleashed all her former bad habits but had also acquired new ones. She had become suspicious and full of anger, so their adverse karmic connection ripened first. When the Sky-Traveling Master wanted to help her, deep in her subconscious there was still the mark of the time when he had, to protect the townspeople, injured her and made her swallow the nine-headed pipa hook; now all her long-held fury, resentment, and desire for revenge erupted. Yet because of her latent spiritual faculties from former lives, she quickly took a liking to the life of cultivation and became the Sky-Traveling Master’s disciple.
In that past life, their adverse karmic connection had arisen from “love”—the Sky-Traveling Master had wounded the fire dragon to protect the townspeople, punishing evil and promoting good. In this life, the adverse condition ripened, again, through “love”: the fire dragon fell in love with the Sky-Traveling Master. Because of her repeated romantic failures, her heart longed all the more for genuine feeling, but her suspicion and anger made her always suspect that the other disciples beside him would snatch the Master away from her. Thus anyone the Sky-Traveling Master liked or appreciated would unwittingly stir up her anger and hostility. She drove away every disciple around him and was extremely unfriendly to his family and friends. The Sky-Traveling Master reasoned with her, but she refused to hear it, and every such attempt led to fierce quarrels. Whenever he sighed with sorrow at this, he felt as though nine iron hooks were gripping his heart. He possessed the knowledge of former lives and could understand the karmic causes, but his mind could not abide in the stage of attainment of emptiness, so he was still constantly undergoing karmic retribution. Yet he could not just abandon the fire dragon. Finally, one day, this “fire dragon,” raging like a shrew in full roar, flew into a fury at the Sky-Traveling Master over some trifle. Instead of arguing back, the Master turned inward and reflected on his past-life conduct. He recalled that the fire dragon had come out to seek food driven by animal instinct, because she was hungry. Although what he had done was to subdue demons in the human world and punish evil while promoting good, from a personal emotional standpoint, he had hooked her with the nine-headed pipa hook and confined her in the cave with a mantra, forcing her to cultivate. In the beginning, she must have suffered terribly; her anger and desire for revenge were only natural. Since he had done this for the sake of the townspeople, he would calmly accept the karmic retribution. After that, whenever the “fire dragon” spat out harsh words and flew into a rage, the Sky-Traveling Master no longer argued back but merely smiled, saying silently in his heart: “I am sorry. I had no choice but to harm you. If you truly cannot let go of this resentment, then take it out on me.” As he thought this, the Master’s heart opened, and he no longer felt the pipa hook gripping his heart, because the experience of karmic retribution came from his own anger and his stubborn insistence that what he had done was right and that she should not harbor resentment and a desire for revenge. But when the “fire dragon” was in pain, she would feel anger—and this was not a question of should or shouldn’t.
The Sky-Traveling Master then said to this woman: “You need not worry. I love every one of my disciples, and that includes you. Furthermore, for the harm I caused you and the wounds I left when I tried to protect others, I sincerely apologize, and I am willing to take responsibility for it. You have now also begun to cultivate; abandoning evil and turning to good is an essential condition for attaining the fruit. I hope you will also reflect on what you have done.”
That “woman” was at first not much moved and continued to act willfully as before. Although she followed her teacher in cultivation, she never showed him respect; as soon as she felt that some action of his threatened her interests, she would either deliver biting sarcasm or fly into a violent rage. But when she saw that the Sky-Traveling Master no longer argued with her, no longer debated who was right and who was wrong, and only smiled and regarded her kindly while she vented her anger, she slowly calmed down inside. She came to feel that her teacher treated her well enough; in his heart he did not despise her for her habitual tendencies, and she knew herself that she had many bad traits—in fact, she sometimes felt very inferior. Now that her teacher no longer picked at her faults, that he could embrace her with the same forbearance he showed his other disciples, she at last sensed that her teacher treated her and the others equally. A trace of gratitude arose in her heart, and she began to learn to appreciate her teacher’s difficulties and understand his actions. Moreover, she started to practice with vigor according to his instructions.
Finally, one day, she recalled everything from her past lives, and she woke from the dream of the human world. She understood what she had come to do. And the Sky-Traveling Master, because he had accepted the karmic retribution with equanimity and practiced patience for the sake of sentient beings, returned to abide in the stage of attainment of emptiness.
In the human realm, the Sky-Traveling Master and his disciples together displayed the whole process of cultivating the Way and realizing the Way from within the world of emotion and the ocean of desire blazing with the five poisons, and many people saw in their accomplishment a hope of liberation from all the sufferings of human life and glimpsed the light of the Buddhadharma.
“Finished?” Ren Qingfei asked.
“Pretty much.” Wu Aizhen stopped.
“The second half must be your own invention again. No matter how I listen, all I hear is Buddhadharma. Still, I’ve gained a lot. I used to think that when great Bodhisattvas return, they’d be surrounded entirely by supporting conditions, having amassed good karma life after life, so cultivating the Way and attaining its fruit would be easy. Now I understand: when great Bodhisattvas return, they often offend demonic beings because of their ‘love’ for sentient beings, and until they have perfectly fulfilled their attainment, they too must undergo karmic retribution. They really do endure retribution on behalf of sentient beings, because their adverse karmic conditions were formed precisely for the benefit of sentient beings. What I find deeply moving is that even knowing full well this karmic destiny, knowing this exact retribution, they still come back to this world of emotion and ocean of desire, accept the retribution with composure, without complaint or regret, never losing that love for sentient beings in their hearts. And toward the ‘demonic nature’ in sentient beings, they also hold a measure of tolerance and understanding, and respond with the practice of patience. The conduct of Bodhisattvas makes those of us who ‘cultivate ourselves in solitude and self-righteously consider ourselves gentlemen’ sweat with embarrassment and feel deep shame.
“Another thing I’ve learned from your story: before Bodhisattvas attain perfection, adverse karmic conditions exist between Bodhisattvas, between Dharma protectors, or between a Bodhisattva and a Dharma protector. I used to assume that if two beings returned as Bodhisattvas, they would surely become soulmates, their minds resonating in unspoken understanding, helping each other to do what needed to be done. But now I see that before they are fully perfected, it may not necessarily be so. The law of cause and effect in the human realm is truly mysterious—not something you can just assume you understand through ordinary cleverness.” Ren Qingfei offered his reflections on the story.
Wu Aizhen laughed and said, “Did I tell it clearly? I was afraid you wouldn’t get it. But don’t worry. Those who truly return having already attained the fruit—even if they have many adverse karmic conditions in the human world, all will melt away and crumble to nothing because of their attainment. If they can abide in the stage of the fruit of emptiness, then even when they manifest the appearance of undergoing retribution in the human realm, their minds are no longer in the suffering of that retribution. In truth, for a great Bodhisattva who has realized the fruit, all beings in the Six Paths are manifestations within the Dharma Realm. Every single person is the complete expression of his perfected ‘mind of the Dharma Realm,’ and he attains Buddhahood precisely because he does not abandon a single sentient being.”
“Alright, let’s go eat!” Ren Qingfei stood up, stretched, and said this. His mood had clearly lightened, and his face no longer wore the troubled, weighed-down look he’d come with; it had brightened, like a sky after the rain when the dark clouds have dispersed…
“Thank you, little sister.” Wu Aizhen said goodbye to the girl who had been pouring the tea, then left the teahouse on the boat together with Ren Qingfei…
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