Chapter 399: Seven Days of Eternal Night, Maitreya Buddha
Master Sanle opened his heart, sat on the ground, and calmly told everyone a story, a tortuous and bizarre story.
During the Jin Dynasty more than 300 years ago, the sky suddenly changed. There was a night lasting seven days, the sun, moon and stars all disappeared, blood rain fell from the sky, and cracks appeared on the statues of gods enshrined in Taoist temples and Buddhist temples across the country.
From that time on, gods and Buddhas no longer responded to the prayers of mortals, and those mortal monks who were once recorded as having ascended to heaven no longer responded to their descendants.
This even included the Heavenly Master Xu Xun who had just ascended to heaven.
All the gods and Buddhas in the sky seemed to have suddenly disappeared.
As gods and Buddhas disappeared, the order of the underworld collapsed, and countless evil spirits fled to the human world, causing chaos in the world, leading to the infamous Five Barbarians Invasion.
Later, order on earth was gradually restored, but gods and Buddhas withdrew from the stage of history and there was no response from them anymore.
However, what people do not know is that there are a very small number of individual gods and Buddhas who built tombs for themselves on earth and buried their real bodies there, but their souls have disappeared.
The remains of one of the ancient Buddhas was buried deep under the sea, and his name was Maitreya.
Maitreya is the future Buddha among the Three Buddhas of Age, Present and Future, and holds a high status, equivalent to the successor of the Buddha. His golden body remains immortal under the sea, and has survived the test of time, and gradually a new will has been born.
In other words, the body automatically cultivated and transformed into a spirit, giving birth to life.
This sounds ridiculous, but flowers, birds, insects, fish, rocks, and plants can all become spirits, and the golden body of Maitreya Buddha is a rare treasure in the world. It is not surprising that they can develop consciousness over time.
The newborn Maitreya was in a daze and ignorant about everything in the world. It was not known whether it was fortunate or unfortunate that he met a guide, a mentor-like person.
The man's name was Mara. He claimed to be the new Buddha of heaven and earth. He founded the Mara religion and appointed Maitreya as its deputy leader.
He gave Maitreya a new name, called Three Precepts, the first precept is to avoid hatred among sentient beings, the second precept is to avoid greed among sentient beings, and the third precept is to avoid suffering among sentient beings.
Mara taught the practice of the Three Precepts and imparted his own understanding of the Dharma.
He believed that the suffering of all living beings was caused by greed, anger and resentment , and that these could not be eradicated by themselves. The only way was for him to become the only true Buddha believed in by everyone in the world, and to eliminate all those with impure beliefs, just like farmers selecting out seeds that are not suitable for planting.
At that time, with devout faith, his words will be regarded as golden rules by the world. If he says to be merciful, there will be no more war in the world. If he says to do good, there will be no more evil in the world.
Only in this way can we truly realize the supreme state of "all sentient beings are Buddhas" in Mahayana Buddhism and accomplish a feat that even the Buddha of the past could not accomplish.
Sanjie, who was still a blank slate at the time, quickly accepted Mara's teachings and served as the deputy leader. However, he was a life born from the golden body of Maitreya after all, with a pure and kind nature and a childlike heart. After personally reading a large number of Buddhist scriptures, he always felt that there were some problems with Mara's ideas.
So he left Mara temporarily and chose to travel around the world alone, wanting to see this world for himself.
What he saw and heard along the way made Sanjie fall into deep confusion and pain.
On the one hand, he found that this world was indeed as Mara had said, filled with hatred, killing, violence, debauchery and countless other evils. His natural compassion made him take action many times, trying to convert those evil people and let them put down their butcher knives.
But the results were all failures without exception. The evildoers were always stubborn and refused to turn back or put down their knives.
It seems that all this is just as Mara said. They can never become "Buddha" by themselves. If they want to save all living beings, there must be a true Buddha that everyone can kneel down and worship devoutly.
But on the other hand, Sanjie discovered that there are many beautiful things in this world that are touching and admirable.
There were barefoot doctors who carried bamboo baskets and risked their lives to climb mountains to collect herbs and treat poor people.
There was a girl who couldn't even fill her own stomach, but was willing to break a piece of bread in half and give it to a beggar.
There was a young man who resolutely joined the army to defend his country. He was only twelve years old and was almost suffocated by the heavy armor.
Sanjie was very surprised to find that most of these people could not even read a single word, let alone read Buddhist scriptures, and many of them did not believe in Buddha.
According to Moruo's plan, these people who did not believe in him were undoubtedly bad seeds who needed to be screened out, but they were so kind and tenacious, which was admirable.
For the first time, Sanjie began to doubt Moro's ideas.
Later he continued to travel, and after many years, he met the first close friend of his life, Bodhidharma.
Bodhidharma came from South India. The two met each other too late and sat and discussed Buddhism for seven days and seven nights. After that, they traveled together for a long time. During this period, Sanjie's understanding of Buddhism became more and more profound, and he became more and more skeptical of Mara's ideas.
However, Moro had taught him for a long time and held a very special place in his heart, so the relationship had not yet broken down until something happened.
At that time, Bodhidharma was preparing to face the wall to attain enlightenment, so Sanjie said goodbye to him and continued his travels. Ten years later, he suddenly received a message from Mara, asking him to rush to meet him.
When Sanjie saw Mara again, he found that there was a person beside Mara, a person who was familiar yet unfamiliar to him, the former Bodhidharma, now Maha.
Maha was just like when he was newly born with intelligence, looking at him ignorantly with a hint of timidity in his eyes.
Maro said that he was injured and would sleep for a while, and asked Sanjie to take care of and teach Maha.
Sanjie felt heartbroken when he looked at the body of his former best friend, which was now possessed by a snake demon. He wanted to kill it many times, but looking at Maha's increasingly dependent and trusting eyes, he finally couldn't bring himself to do it.
Maha told him that he heard Sanskrit sounds every day and was very painful.
Sanjie then interpreted the Buddhist scriptures for him, hoping to guide him to be truly kind and become a true eminent monk.
But gradually he discovered that Maha was different from him. Maha had no interest or spirituality in the Buddhist scriptures, and even had disgust in his heart. His so-called great aspiration was only to reduce the pain brought by the Sanskrit sound.
Later, when Sanjie tried to get him to leave the Mara religion, Maha seemed very surprised and expressed strong opposition and deep admiration for Mara.
In desperation, Sanjie finally had to rebel against the Mara Sect alone and changed his name to Sanle. He then traveled around the world, saving people with his limited ability while studying Buddhism. He had no fixed place to live and traveled around the world.
Until he met Xuanzang in Yuzhang City.
…
When Sanle told everything, a look of relief appeared on his face.
It seemed that these secrets had been weighing on his mind for a long time.
Li Daoxuan and others who heard all this had different expressions and could not calm down for a long time.
Especially Li Daoxuan, the look in his eyes when he stared at Master Sanle was very strange.
In other words, the one sitting in front of him now is the legendary future Buddha, the true body of Maitreya?
He had always thought that Master Sanle just looked like Maitreya, but he never imagined that the other party was actually Maitreya himself!
It is said that eating Tang Monk's flesh can make one immortal. If it is Maitreya Buddha...
Sanle looked at Li Daoxuan in surprise and frowned slightly. It was strange. Why was Li Xiaoyou staring at me and swallowing his saliva?
