Volume 1: A stone strikes a thousand waves, the world surrounds Li Daosheng Chapter 129: Monks should avoid stubbornness
"I didn't say I was a pilgrim." Li Si smiled and sat next to Yuanjie.
The white hem of the dress was rolled up on the ground, stained with a little dust.
"Then you'd better leave as soon as possible, benefactor." Yuanjie withdrew his gaze from Li Si, lowered his head again, and said softly.
"Oh, why?" Li Si asked, looking around with great interest.
After a closer look, he discovered that the eight Vajra Buddha statues standing in a circle in the hall were not standing upright. They were all slightly leaning over, as if they were approaching the people in the hall, with a kind of hidden pressure.
"Because this is not a good place." Monk Yuanjie replied, muttering to himself, probably reciting his Heart Sutra again.
"So what? I'm not a good person either." Li Si said with a smile, pretending not to notice the angry look from King Kong in the hall.
Yuanjie paused for a moment while reading the scripture, then he put down his hands that were clasped in front of him.
"Then, benefactor, are you here to do evil?"
The air around seemed to stagnate, and the anger in King Kong's eyes seemed to deepen, and the demon-subduing pestle in his hand reflected a cold light.
The tiger girl frowned and gently grasped the sword at her waist.
At this time, Li Si was sitting cross-legged, waving his hand casually and said.
"That's not the case. I just came here to find someone to help me."
There was silence in the hall for a while. Monk Yuanjie frowned for a moment, then relaxed his brows. He stopped chanting and just sat quietly and talked.
"In that case, you have come to the wrong place. There is no one here who can help you. If you want to be saved from suffering and evil, you can go to my senior brother Yuannian."
"No." Li Si shook his finger.
“It should be said that the only people in Shaolin who can help me are here. I do want to save people, but not those who suffer. What I want to save is life and death.”
The only one in Shaolin who can save the world from death is Yuanjie.
Why do I say so? Because when Li Si was a teenager, the old monk from Jinshan Temple once told him a story, a story about a murderous monk from Shaolin.
In this story, there were two monks in Shaolin who killed people. One was called Yuanyuan and the other was called Yuanjie. One of them killed enemies, and the other killed evil people.
Yuanyuan killed all his enemies, left Shaolin, and lived in seclusion. Yuanjie could not kill all the evildoers, so he returned to Shaolin and was willing to accept the punishment.
The origin of this story dates back a long, long time ago.
At that time, the abbot of Shaolin was not yet Yuannian, and Yuanyuan was still called Yuanyuan.
One day, their master called together several monks of the Yuan generation and said that they had practiced in the mountains long enough and it was time for them to go down the mountain and travel.
However, there is a requirement for this tour, that is, these monks can only look but cannot do anything.
They cannot hurt anyone, cannot save anyone, cannot have anything to do with anyone, and cannot be involved in anything.
They can only walk through this world once and then come back without being stained by dust.
Along the way, the only thing they need to understand is the word cause and effect.
Some of the monks didn't care, some seemed to understand, some had mixed thoughts, and some listened carefully.
But no matter what, that day, they all packed their bags and went down the mountain.
Two years later, the first monk returned.
His name is Yuan Zhen. He said that he was foolish because he saved one person but ended up harming another person.
The abbot tapped him on the head, said he was stupid, and made him kneel in the Buddhist hall for a day and a night.
Three years later, the second monk returned.
His name is Yuan Lu. He said that he was greedy and because he got involved in a worldly matter, he gained a bad reputation in the underworld.
The abbot knocked him on the head twice, said he was stupid, and then made him kneel in the Buddhist temple for two days and two nights.
Five years later, the third monk came back.
His name is Yuannian, and he said he had not committed any crime.
The abbot nodded, and it was unclear whether he was satisfied or not. He just asked him to sit next to him without punishing him.
But later, ten years passed, and the remaining two monks had not returned. Those two monks were Yuanyuan and Yuanjie.
The news sent back to Shaolin said that they had all committed crimes and killed people.
The abbot did not wait for them and closed the mountain gate.
After that, Yuanyuan hunted down his enemies everywhere and never returned to Shaolin.
I can’t remember how many years later, but Yuanjie went back.
He knelt in front of the mountain gate and said that he had been angry and had killed many evil people, but he could not save all the suffering and evil in this world.
At this time, he had already understood what cause and effect meant, so he came back and begged Shaolin to give him a result.
At that time, Yuannian had already become the abbot of Shaolin. He looked at Yuanjie, finally sighed, opened the mountain gate and let Yuanjie return to Shaolin.
He asked Yuanjie to become a monk who observed the precepts, and have him kneel in the precept hall to save himself from his karma.
Yuanjie did not refuse and knelt down, and he has been kneeling until now.
This is a story that all the Shaolin monks of the Yuan generation know, but in the story that Li Si heard, there was another scene.
Back then, the old monk actually went to see Yuanjie once.
It was a rainy night. When the old monk found Yuanjie, he was holding a long stick and fighting among a group of people holding swords.
His long stick splashed water everywhere, and the water surface on the ground was trampled by people, making the human figure reflected in it blurry.
In the heavy rain, every blow from Yuanjie's stick would almost always take a life, either breaking one person's head or smashing another's sternum.
Gradually, the blood dyed the ground red, mixed with the rain, and also dyed Yuanjie's monk's robes red. The smell of blood was so strong that even the heavy rain could not cover it.
But Yuanjie didn't stop. He just continued fighting, killing one person after another.
He waved the stick in his hand with red eyes, beating and asking at the same time.
“What is Buddha, what is Dharma, what is Sangha, and what is man?”
Unfortunately, no one could answer him, and he couldn't stop.
Only after he had killed everyone did he kneel weakly in the middle of the corpses, holding the long stick in his hand, panting.
At this time, the old monk walked up to him.
Yuanjie raised his head a little. In the rainy night, the rain and blood made his face look very mottled.
When he saw the old monk, he was stunned for a moment, then spoke.
"Senior Brother Yuanyuan..."
The old monk looked at him for a long time and said two words.
"Buddha is the Dharma, and man is the Sangha. You are attached to appearances."
After saying that, he turned and left, never looking back again.
Yuanjie knelt there alone, beside a corpse. After a long time, he let go of the stick in his hand, leaned down, and half buried his face in the water, which was unclear whether it was rain or blood.
The blood covered his eyes but not his mouth and nose.
He took a deep breath, then closed his eyes and shouted as if crying.
"ah!!!"
That night, the monk roared heart-wrenchingly.
But no one can explain clearly why he is so obsessed and why he cannot realize his mistake.
