Great Love for All Heavens Begins with Huang Yaoshi

Chapter 48: The Dharma Destroys the Five Evils and the Turbid World
As the sun sets.

A young monk in plain white robes walked into the Sutra Library, then walked to a secluded corner on the first floor with familiarity, then bent down and found a few decent Buddhist scriptures.

He just sat cross-legged and read leisurely.

After a while, a skinny old monk in a worn green robe came over, sweeping with a broom in hand.

"Old monk, why do I always feel that you are doing this on purpose?" Zhuang Buyan said without raising his head.

"Every time he chooses the time when I am reading Buddhist scriptures to come and clean the house."

The few sparse hairs on the old monk's beard were already completely white. He moved slowly, looking exhausted as he swept the floor.
"I have read Buddhist scriptures for most of my life, but I have never seen a scripture that begins with the line 'Qian Kun is the gateway to the Book of Changes and the parent of all hexagrams.'"

"Even more so, I've never seen a Buddhist scripture that pursues the beauty of the dynamic harmony of time and space between heaven, earth, and human beings in the name of peace."

"You old monk are so rude! How dare you rummage through other people's things?" The young monk didn't care and replied with a smile.

"You are a Buddhist disciple, why do you only read scriptures that only Taoists would read?" The skinny old monk said with a hint of surprise.

Zhuang Bu Ran raised his eyes and asked with a smile:
"If I say that Buddha is the Tao, will the old monk want to slap me to death?"

The skinny old monk sighed:

"Alas, no one in the temple could have imagined that the young Master Xuzhu, who was always clear-minded, approachable yet dignified, and had profound Buddhist cultivation, would be so lazy in private."

"What the old monk said is not quite right. My master has known since I was a child that I have no desire for progress and just want to get by." Zhuang Bu Ran corrected lazily.

"Not striving for progress, just muddling through?" The skinny old monk showed a trace of helplessness:
"You only started learning martial arts at the age of 22, and you only know one set of Luohan Fist. Are you really a complete you?"

The young monk said slowly:

"My fellow disciples and uncles in the temple, everyone knows that I have a weak foundation and mediocre aptitude for martial arts. Learning one boxing technique a year is already my best effort."

"You are telling lies like this. Do you know that you have violated the precepts?" The skinny old monk shook his head slightly.

"But what I said is a fact known to everyone in the temple!"

Seeing the skinny old monk remained silent, the young monk closed the scripture in his hand and said:

"Well, then I must tell you the truth. I became a monk at a young age and have been with the ancient Buddha for twenty-three years. By the time I was twenty, I had already mastered many Buddhist scriptures. Therefore, there was nothing left for me to read, so I could only find some Taoist scriptures to read."

The corners of his eyes were slightly raised, with a hint of a smile:
"Is this answer satisfactory to the old monk?"

"Just talking?" The skinny old monk stopped and looked over.

"Old monk, I look like I am eternally young. How come I just said that?" The young monk seemed puzzled.

The skinny old monk didn't know whether he believed it or not, he just said:
"Everyone in the temple says that you have a deep connection with Buddhism and have accumulated many merits in your past lives, which has led to the changes in your facial features. I never thought that you cultivated this appearance after thoroughly studying many Buddhist scriptures."

Zhuang Bu Ran smiled and asked without any context:
"Old monk, besides Bodhidharma, is there anyone in the world who can possess all seventy-two unique skills?"

"Although the manual of the seventy-two unique skills has always been in this pavilion, and has never been prohibited for disciples to browse, since the founding of Shaolin Temple, from ancient times to the present, only the founder of the temple, Bodhidharma, has mastered all the unique skills."

The skinny old monk spoke slowly and non-stop:
"Because each of the seventy-two unique skills can injure a person's vital points or even take their life, they are fierce and brutal, and can greatly disrupt the harmony of nature. Therefore, each practice must be balanced with the corresponding compassionate Buddhist teachings."

"Unfortunately, not everyone in the temple knows this truth. Only after practicing four or five unique skills and gaining some understanding of Zen principles can one sense the obstacles."

"It was precisely because of this that your great-grandmaster, Xuancheng, possessed extraordinary martial arts skills. Despite forcing himself to cultivate thirteen unique techniques and being recognized by the senior monks as the temple's foremost martial artist of the past two hundred years, his tendons and veins were severed overnight, leaving him crippled." "It was because his Buddhist cultivation was insufficient, yet he forced himself to learn numerous advanced martial arts, ultimately leading to his demise."

When he said this, his eyes fell on the young monk:
"Everyone who comes to the Sutra Library in the temple first searches for their favorite of the seventy-two unique skills. When I first saw you, I saw you walking around the library, looking around, searching non-stop. I thought you were here to look for a unique skill as well."

"But he ended up throwing all his special skills aside and focusing on reading Buddhist scriptures."

"Hahaha, didn't the old monk take a new look at me at that time, thinking that I was a promising talent who would become a great monk or a saint in the future?"

Zhuang Bu Ran changed the subject:
"Old monk, over the past twenty years, I have read all the Buddhist scriptures you have read, and I have also read all the Buddhist scriptures you have not read."

"We're all monks. We should use compassionate Buddhist teachings to reconcile and dissolve the hostility generated by practicing unique skills."

"You can deceive people outside the temple, or pretend to be a master and coax the monks inside the temple. You will definitely be able to deceive them with one trick."

"What do you think, young monk?" The skinny old monk remained expressionless.

"People outside the temple don't understand the various terms of our Buddhist school. They practice with their own innate abilities, and the more they practice, the more serious their illnesses will become."

"The people in the temple lack talent and understanding, yet they insist on practicing multiple unique skills. How can they avoid going astray?"

"As the saying goes, self-knowledge is the most important thing for a person. If you don't know your own strengths and weaknesses, you will end up burning yourself."

"Among the seventy-two unique skills of this temple, apart from the Yijing and Xisuijing, I have seen every unique skill. They are simply divided into the body and the application."

Zhuang Bu Ran said quietly:
"Old monk, do you know that although I may not have a good foundation, I believe that my understanding is not inferior to anyone else in the world."

As if he was afraid that the skinny old monk didn't understand his meaning, he continued meaningfully:

"Whether in ancient times, today, or in the future, no one is inferior to others."

"Little monk, you are going to break the precepts again." The skinny old monk reminded him.

"I'm just telling the truth, how can I violate the rule of praising myself and criticizing others?" Zhuang Bu Ran said nonchalantly:
"In fact, I don't even need to come to the Sutra Library to see any special skills. There are countless living secret manuals in the temple. Just watching them practice will make me understand everything."

"Therefore, these years have not been in vain. I have used various unique skills to completely perfect the martial arts technique I created."

The skinny old monk did not show any surprise on his face and said:
"It seems that what the old monk predicted was correct. The young monk has indeed mastered extraordinary martial arts, which is why he has such a blessed appearance today."

"Old monk, you wouldn't think that I have gained eternal youth through this technique." Zhuang Bu Ran chuckled.
"With my level of understanding, how could I have only created one technique?"

"Martial arts in this world begin with refining the essence, that is, training the body, then training the qi, cultivating the inner qi, and reaching the pinnacle, only then can one refine the spirit. In the words of my Buddhists, this is to enlighten the mind and see the nature, breaking through ignorance and illuminating the true nature."

He sat in half-lotus position, placing his left foot on top of his right foot, with his left toes level with his right knee and his right toes level with his left knee.

"I will use all the unique skills in the temple to transform them into the thirty-two aspects of my skill, making it more profound and extensive, no longer limited to myself. And this 'Great Vajra Divine Power' is the ultimate skill that can refine the spirit."

The young monk's energy suddenly surged, and an inexplicable divine power lingered around his body, making the skinny old monk feel as if a strange force had invaded his heart meridians, burning his mind. He felt as if he had fallen into hell and was in unbearable pain.

"This is the state where my skills are close to perfection."

Zhuang Buyan said calmly:
"The five grave sins are the cause of the Avici Hell. Those who commit these sins will fall into the Avici Hell after death. This is called the cessation of the Dharma, the five heinous crimes, and the defiled world."

(End of this chapter)