You've only been cultivating for a few years, and you're already talking about cultivating

"You," the beggar asked, pointing casually at him, "have you come seeking the Dharma?"

Qi Fei asked, "What method?"

"The method of attaining enlightenment," the beggar said, his gaze sweeping over Qi Fei. "I see you are clear-headed and bright-eyed, yet lack self-restraint; your senses are keen, but your magical power is weak."

"Didn't you come here to seek proof of the Way?"

Qi Fei did not deny it.

The method of attaining enlightenment is the fundamental method of cultivation. Qi Fei is indeed searching for the method of attaining enlightenment, seeking a method of attaining enlightenment that suits him.

He thought for a moment, then asked in return, "Is the senior's method suitable for me?"

The beggar shook his head: "I don't know. Maybe it's suitable, maybe it isn't."

"Could you tell me about it, senior?" Qi Fei pressed.

The beggar was silent for a moment, then his eyes changed slightly. They were no longer lazy, cloudy, and sleepy, but rather a gentle, compassionate gaze with a touch of pity.

"My Dharma," he said, looking at the masses of people before him, "is the Dharma for saving people."

He watched as an old woman carrying a bundle of firewood trudged past him. The old woman's back was bent like a bow, and the bundle of firewood on her back was bigger than her whole body.

The beggar's gaze followed her until she disappeared around the street corner, then he slowly looked away.

"Cultivators go through the 'Observation of Truth' stage and the 'Tribulation' stage. Every step is extremely dangerous, and the slightest carelessness will result in death and the dissipation of one's cultivation."

Even so, cultivators are already the luckiest people in the world!

He stretched out his hand and pointed to the pedestrians on the street.

"But what about these people? They don't even know what 'observing the truth' is, they can't even see 'spiritual energy,' and they live their whole lives in the world they think they know, experiencing birth, old age, sickness, and death, separation from loved ones, encountering those they hate, not getting what they want, the five aggregates burning fiercely, and the eight sufferings entangled in their bodies until death."

"They are unaware of their suffering, the origin of their suffering, or the future of their suffering."

"I want to experience the suffering of all beings, and then find a way to help them."

Qi Fei asked, "Has the senior been found?"

The beggar shook his head.

"No," he said. "All beings are foolish and deluded, immersed in the eight sufferings. I cannot save them; I can only experience their suffering."

He was clearly a cultivator whom Qi Fei couldn't see through, yet he was lying in this muddy, filthy place, acting as a beggar.

It's true that he was covered in mud, his hair was messy, and flies were swarming around him.

He wasn't pretending to be a beggar; he *was* a beggar.

Qi Fei looked at the figures coming and going on the street and said, "People are different. Beggars, ordinary people, high-ranking officials, royalty. Although they are all people, they are not the same."

"Some people's suffering is even caused by others. Did our predecessors intend to relieve the suffering of all of them?"

"Yes," the beggar answered without hesitation. "So what if they are high-ranking officials or royalty? They are human beings too."

"Life and death are unpredictable. They may seem glamorous, but in the blink of an eye, their families can be destroyed and their lives ruined. Ordinary people, on the other hand, can live longer than them."

"All beings are sentient beings, all are drowning in the sea of ​​suffering."

After hearing this, Qi Fei knew that he had no way to communicate with the beggar.

Their ways of thinking are completely different. The beggar cannot see the conflicts between people, nor can he see who oppresses whom, or whose suffering is built on whose pain.

He simply categorized them all as "all living beings," using one word to encompass everyone.

That's not how sentient beings are categorized.

Qi Fei felt that the beggar's statement had a flavor of ignoring the facts and only looking at "the suffering of all beings," and was also somewhat like a kind of metaphysics in his previous life, which ignored the facts and only talked about logic and concepts.

So he said, "Senior, doing this is like trying to catch fish by climbing a tree."

The beggar shook his head: "You don't understand. All beings suffer; they are all sentient beings."

"That's unrealistic," Qi Fei said. "It can only exist in an unreal world."

There will always be conflicts in the real world; there will never be a world where everyone is perfectly fine.

"Yes," the beggar nodded, sighed, and said, "It seems that only in the Alaya consciousness can sentient beings see Amala and thus transcend."

The so-called Alaya is the bottom layer of all consciousness, the common, hidden, and unmanifested sea of ​​consciousness shared by all beings.

Whether human, cat, dog, bird, or beast, the deepest part of the minds of all sentient beings is connected.

The so-called Amara refers to the pure and undefiled original awareness.

Qi Fei stood up, brushed the dirt off his robes, looked down at the beggar still sitting in the mud, and said, "But... there is no Alaya in this world."

Alaya is what the beggars believe.

In fact, there is no common, hidden sea of ​​consciousness in the cultivation world.

That's just a concept, an idealistic concept.

The beggar remained silent.

He sat in the mud, still clutching the dry rations Qi Fei had given him, his gaze fixed on the distance and on the passersby on the street.

At this point, the two had nothing more to say to each other.

Qi Fei knew this, so he cupped his hands in farewell and said, "Senior, farewell."

He turned around and walked towards the other end of the street.

The beggar did not try to stop him.

He watched Qi Fei's figure grow smaller and smaller as it disappeared into the distance, shook his head, and muttered to himself, "There is no Alaya in the world. There really is no Alaya in the world."

"But anything is possible with human effort; just because it didn't happen in the past doesn't mean it won't happen in the future..."

"All beings are dull-witted... Only within the shared Alaya consciousness can one attain Amala..."

As if he had made up his mind, he closed his eyes and entered a meditative state.

In an instant, the surrounding noise faded away.

The sounds of street vendors hawking their wares, footsteps, and wheels rolling over stone slabs seemed to be peeled away layer by layer, growing farther and farther away, fainter and fainter, until they finally disappeared completely.

His consciousness sank into a strange void.

It was a space that didn't belong to any place.

There was no sky above, no ground beneath, and all around was boundless, soft light of an indescribable color.

The light was not dazzling or intense; it was like the intertwining of dawn and dusk, or like a rainbow broken up and scattered in the air.

Red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and violet—the seven colors are not arranged distinctly, but rather intertwined, like a flowing, luminous river that comes from and goes to an unseen distance.

The banks of the Guanghe River are covered with colorful plants and trees.

The leaves of those plants were glassy and transparent, and you could see golden sap flowing through their veins.

The flowers are as big as washbasins, with petals layered upon each other, each layer a different color: red to the point of purple, purple to the point of blue, blue to the point of emerald, emerald to the point of brilliance, and brilliance like lanterns that have been lit.

Tiny fairies, no bigger than a thumb, sit in the flower's heart. Their bodies are translucent, and they have dragonfly-like wings on their backs.

Its wings are painted with intricate patterns, and with each flap of its wings, it sprinkles down a shower of fine powder, like a never-ending golden rain.