Day and night tour

Chapter 314 Twenty-one Zen

"Where is your helper? Let me see."

Zhou Xuan walked out of the store, and Yun Ziliang followed him out seeing that Yazi's story was very convincing.

Lao Yun looked up at the moon in the sky.

The moon was bright and the stars were sparse. The white moon was not covered by clouds. Lao Yun looked up and took a closer look. Then he turned around and slapped Zhao Wuya on the back of his head, cursing, "Are you crazy? The moon is nothing but white light. How can there be four helpers as you said?"

"I didn't say there was one on the moon."

Zhao Wuya felt a little aggrieved.

"You're squatting here like a mouse, looking up at something but the moon."

Yun Ziliang said unhappily.

Zhao Wuya pointed in a certain direction and said, "I'm looking there."

In the distance is the phantom of a mountain, but because it is so far away, it looks unreal.

Zhou Xuan looked in the direction where Zhao Wuya pointed, but he didn't see any helpers, only a huge red door.

Ju Men seemed to be hidden in the shadow of the mountain, and was stained by the inky night. The originally bright red color appeared dim and uncertain.

"I'll come as soon as I go."

Even the Taoist priests praised Zhou Xuan's courage and bravery. He didn't care about anything, and his soul left his body, stepped on the edge of the clouds, and headed towards the huge gate.

The soul was traveling at an extremely fast speed, but Zhou Xuan felt that the door could also move. He traveled thousands of miles a day, and the door retreated thousands of miles.

Coming and going, Jumen is still so far away.

Seeing that the pursuit was hopeless, Zhou Xuan had no choice but to return to the store the next day.

"What a magical giant gate."

"You saw it, too?"

Zhao Wuya asked.

"Ah."

"Did you see the two big characters hanging on the door? Light... Dark!"

"Is there writing on the door?"

Zhou Xuan turned his head and looked at Zhao Wuya.

"So you didn't see it." Zhao Wuya's face was quite happy, with a satisfied expression on his face, and he said: "In the past, it was Brother Xuan who could see everything, and I couldn't see anything. Today, it's a change."

He sat on a bamboo chair, crossed his legs, and said proudly: "Since you can't even see the word "time", then you must not be able to see my four helpers.
They are four great monks, and countless magpies are holding them up, with their hands pointing to their ears, in the mudra of asking for Buddha’s initiation.”

Zhao Wuya's words made Yun Ziliang so angry that he kept blowing his beard. He said unhappily: "You are a little Taoist who seeks dragons. You have a deep understanding of Buddhism. You even know the "initiation hand seal". If you ask me, then the Buddha is also hypocritical. What initiation is nothing more than a little monk raising an old glutton."

His words were full of sarcasm and riddles...

Zhou Xuan asked, "Lao Yun, you seemed to have some hidden meaning in your words just now. What old Taotie? What initiation hand seal? Tell me in detail, you touched on my blind spot in knowledge."

"The matter of the old Taotie is actually a deduction of our Xunlong Hall. From my personal point of view, this matter is seven parts false and three parts true. Perhaps, it is a kind of inheritance of Buddhism. Come... Brother, let me tell you, my little junior brother who has just entered Xunlong Hall, the mystery of it..."

"Shut up, you are not allowed to talk."

Yun Ziliang scolded Zhao Wuya, then changed the subject and said, "Let me tell you."

"Bah, old Taoist priest, you are trying to steal my limelight."

Zhao Wuya "went crazy" on the spot and spoke disrespectfully to Yun Ziliang.

Every few days, he would commit a crime of insubordination, and every time he did so, he would be severely beaten by Yun Ziliang.
But this time, Yun Ziliang seemed surprisingly calm. Not only did he not take off his shoes, but he pulled a chair, sat down and started to talk: "How was Canglong Mountain destroyed? How did Xuanzi get targeted by the Zoroastrianism?
Isn't it because you touched a secret? You are still young, some secrets can be known by others, but it is not your turn to talk about them.
I am a lonely ghost, with no future to speak of. There are some secrets that I should tell, and if someone investigates me later, I will take the responsibility."

Yun Ziliang's sudden heartwarming words stunned Zhao Wuya.

"Grandpa Master, it turns out you are also a warm-hearted person?"

"If I hadn't shown some tenderness, I would have already beaten your rebellious and stupid apprentice into a second-class cripple."

Yun Ziliang gave Zhao Wuya a look and said to Zhou Xuan, "The initiation seal is a mural in the Snow Mountain Zen Temple."

In order to make it easier for Zhou Xuan to understand, Yun Ziliang did not go straight to the end, but instead introduced the major schools of Buddhism in Jingguo.

"The Jingguo Zen sect has three main branches. The most important branch is naturally the Xueshan Zen Temple in Xueshan Prefecture. The name of the Xueshan is "Zhuanlun Xueshan". This school is called "Zhuanlun Zen".
The second tributary originated from Huangyuan Prefecture. The monks of Huangyuan Prefecture believed that the sufferings in the world were a fixed total. They ate less of the sufferings in the world, and the others suffered less.
They are called "Ku Shan Zen".
The third branch is much more secretive and prefers to live in caves. These monks do not build temples, go to the secular world to beg for alms, or save ordinary people from suffering. Most of them live in caves, under the surface of the earth, and stay in darkness for a long time.

Over time, their eyesight deteriorated, and some people simply lost their eyes.

This Zen school is called "Closed-Eye Zen."

Yun Ziliang said: "Whether it is 'Closed Eyes Zen', 'Wheel-Turning Zen', or 'Ku Shan Zen', their ancestors were all the twenty-one first-generation Zen masters who received initiation from the ancient Buddha.
Jingguo called them the "Twenty-one Zens."

After explaining the general Zen context to Zhou Xuan, Yun Ziliang extended the topic to a deeper level and said, "These twenty-one Zens are famous all over the world, and they all started with the 'Initiation Hand Seal'.
It is said that in ancient times, a giant hand spanning several mountain peaks appeared in the Zhuanlun Snow Mountain.

The huge hand was filled with the sound of Buddhist chants and golden light.
Guided by the Buddhist chants and golden light, countless believers entered the snowy mountains to meet the giant hand and called it Buddha - it is also the most important figure in the legend of Jingguo, the Ancient Buddha. "

"The ancient Buddha is not an eternal body. At a certain time, facing the five decays of heaven and earth, the Buddha's body is constantly decaying.

After the incomparably huge body had decayed to a certain extent, the unpleasant smell of death filled the entire Snow Mountain Mansion."

Yun Ziliang pointed in the direction of the Snow Mountain Mansion and said, "The ancient Buddha has many followers, including many capable and intelligent people. They tried every possible way to rescue the ancient Buddha, but none of them worked.
The monks could only watch their faith die...and at this moment, tens of millions of magpies took off in the Snow Mountain Palace.

The magpie scattered in the direction of the nine prefectures of Jing State. When it came back, it brought with it twenty-one "fools".
They sat on the backs of magpies, babbling nonsense, just like children learning to speak. To call them fools is neither a compliment nor an insult, it is simply a statement of fact.

These twenty-one fools were brought to the ancient Buddha by the magpie, and they simultaneously made a hand seal... pointing their fingers at their ears. "

Yun Ziliang repeated this action and said, “As soon as this hand seal was made, the corrupted ancient Buddha once again struggled to chant the Sanskrit sound.

The Sanskrit sound rang in their ears, and the twenty-one fools were unexpectedly given initiation by the ancient Buddha at the same time. They became smart for no reason, and their research on Zen naturally made great progress.

In the month after the initiation, Twenty-one Zen studied the scriptures diligently and became quite accomplished in Buddhism. Together, they realized the eternal meditation and helped the ancient Buddha successfully pass through the five decays of heaven and earth..."

“Since then, Twenty-One Chan has become the founder of the Zen sect of Buddhism and his name will be known through the ages.”

Yun Ziliang said: "The Snow Mountain Zen Temple recorded the glorious deeds of the Twenty-One Zen in the form of murals, and renamed the hand gesture of pointing both hands to the ears as the "Initiation Seal", which means sudden enlightenment."

"So this is the origin of the initiation mudra. It sounds a bit mysterious."

"It's mysterious, but the history we trace back to is always vague... According to the two thousand years of inheritance of Xunlong Hall, the Twenty-One Zen may be true, but... whether the 'eternal meditation' discussed by the Twenty-One Zen is the supreme Buddhist Dharma and the profound wisdom of Zen that ordinary people talk about is another matter."

The expression on Yun Ziliang's face when he said this was so intense that he almost blurted out - this is all bullshit.

"Xunlongtangkou, is there any different saying?"

Zhou Xuan asked.

Yun Ziliang said, "I just said that there are three branches of Zen Buddhism in the world, starting from Xueshan Prefecture in the west, Dongguan Prefecture in the north, and Huangyuan Prefecture in the middle. These three prefectures were all found in a hidden place by the Dragon Seeker.

The Dragon Seeker discovered a glacier on the Damanan Peak of the Zhuanlun Snow Mountain.

There are countless remains of monks in the glacier, and each of them has signs of being eaten.

A underground temple was excavated in Dongguan Prefecture. The temple was vast and boundless, but it was filled with corpses and bones piled up.

Judging from the style of the temple and the content of the murals, they also come from Zen Buddhism.

Under the Huangyuan Prefecture, the Dragon Seeker saw a hidden river.
I don't know how deep the underground river is. When I dive into the water, I can see countless corpses of monks.

Because the temperature of the underground river is extremely low, the bodies have not decayed for thousands of years. From the remains of the bodies, it is not difficult to deduce what happened to them in their lifetime. "

Yun Ziliang pointed to his arm and described vividly, "The bones of those corpses are covered with blood and veins. They must have been cannibalized when they were alive. There are bowl-sized holes on their skulls. I'm afraid their brains have been sucked out."

"These corpses... are the truth of "eternal meditation"? "

Zhou Xuan had already vaguely guessed something.

"The Ancient Buddha is one of the Four Great Celestial Lords of the Jing Kingdom. He was helpless in the face of the Five Decays of Heaven and Earth. If the Twenty-One Zen Masters do not have extraordinary means, how can they turn the tide in the Five Decays of Heaven and Earth?"

Yun Ziliang said: "According to the summary of generations of great celestial masters in Xunlong Hall, eternal meditation is achieved by using the flesh and blood of Zen followers, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of monks, with a bone, a mouthful of flesh, a ball of blood, and their lives to feed the ancient Buddha.

The Twenty-One Zens are highly respected within the Zen sect, but in Xunlong Hall, everyone sneers at them. "

After Yun Ziliang finished speaking, he spat on the ground to show his disdain and contempt for "eternal meditation". "So, the Zen Buddhism of Jing Country must be quite weird, right?"

"Are there any of those stinky monks who are not evil?"

When Yun Ziliang said this, he felt that he was generalizing a little, so he corrected the topic and said, "How many monks are not evil?"

At least the Lotus Goddess of Pingshui Prefecture, this insignificant Zen disciple, is not evil.

"Everyone says that the ancient Buddha is the founder of the Well Country. Storytellers have been singing this tale for generations, asking the day and night wandering gods to find the head of the ancient Buddha, inherit the power of the ancient Buddha, and hunt the aliens... Hehe, if the ancient Buddha is really found,
I'm afraid that the peaceful days of Jingguo are about to go backwards."

Yun Ziliang sat up from the bench and asked Zhao Wuya: "Ya Zi, there are four monks who performed the initiation hand seal on you in the world of time. Could it be that the four of them are also fools, waiting for you, a person with great Buddha affinity, to enlighten them..."

"If you are not a fool, can't you ask me for enlightenment? I am very smart and have a great affinity with Buddha."

Zhao Wuya was a little narcissistic, but Zhou Xuan felt that he was right and said, "Old Yun, those four people are most likely the Xunbo monks from the Buddhist Kingdom."

"Is it the Buddhist kingdom in the Wuxiang Prison—Xunbo Monk?"

"Ah."

Zhou Xuan nodded and said, "The Buddhist Kingdom has built a passage that can continuously transport Buddhists to the Well Kingdom. This passage is guarded by four Xunbo monks, and the passage is in the World of Time."

The Realm of Time, the four monks... all fit in well with what Zhao Wuya saw today. Zhou Xuan didn't believe it was a coincidence.

"If they are Buddhist monks, they are all experts from the Buddhist country."

Yun Ziliang used the strength of the "Three-headed Stone Buddha" to infer the strength of the Xunbo monk.

Needless to say, the great king Xunbo, who is in charge of the Xunbo team, is stronger than gods.

The three-headed stone Buddha, as a member of the Xunbo monks, has peak combat power that is at least as strong as Peng Hou at his peak, and is also a god-level figure.

In this case, the other four Xunbo monks are at least at the god level.

Having reached this level, looking from afar, making the "initiation hand seal" to Zhao Wuya, praying for Zhao Wuya to enlighten the four of them, it sounded a bit "unbelievable".

"Enlightening a god-level monk, can this be a problem for Yazi?" Yun Ziliang didn't believe it.

Zhao Wuya, on the other hand, patted his body and said, "I guess it's all because of the Seven-Leaf Venerable in my body. Maybe the four monks who are looking for waves are targeting this Venerable who broke the rules."

He did not look down upon the Venerable in his body, and even because of the Venerable's bad reputation, he insisted that he was a complete Taoist priest.

When Zhou Xuan heard this, he just shook his hands and said, "Seven Leaf Reverend? Old Yun, when Seven Leaf Reverend was still in the sky, wasn't he the most powerful god-level?"

The gods in heaven are also divided into strong and weak.

For example, Zhou Xuan’s new enemy "Gong Zheng" is a powerful god-level. When he went to the sky to snatch the godhood, it could be seen that many god-level beings in the sky were more or less afraid of Gong Zheng.

After Yun Ziliang carefully recalled for a while, he said: "It is a little bit stronger, but not particularly strong, at least weaker than Gong Zheng.
Gong Zheng is an ancient god who has lived for two thousand years. Before you killed his clone, apart from the "Sixteen Forces" linked behind Wu Wen Mountain, who dared to say that they could definitely defeat Gong Zheng?"

"Since he is not very strong, then I think... Venerable Qiye is not qualified to enlighten the four Xunbo monks."

Zhou Xuan said.

"Even Venerable Qiye is not qualified? Then what other mysteries do I have that can induce them to perform the initiation hand seal on me?"

Zhao Wuya also said: "When I saw them, an idea actually sprouted in my body."

"What idea?"

Zhou Xuan asked hurriedly.

"I feel like I can travel back and forth between time and space if I want to."

"You have a new hallucination?"

Yun Ziliang gave Zhao Wuya a proper slap on the back of his head and scolded him, "Did you drink tonight? Are you playing tricks here and teasing us?"

The Realm of Time is a particularly terrifying place in the Well Country. To enter the Realm of Time, one must be at least eight incense sticks old.

Only when eight incense sticks have passed will one be summoned by the will of the world of time. This summons is like an admission ticket.

However, many of the eight incense sticks from the human world went to the Time Realm, but none returned. It can be said to be a very dangerous place.

Zhao Wuya said that he could go in and out of the "Time Realm"...

"My thoughts are real."

Zhao Wuya said: "It's like I'm thirsty, so I want to get a teapot to drink water. The most important thing is the desire to drive me. The second most important thing is that I have enough confidence in my body - as long as I take a few steps forward, I can get the teapot.
Going in and out of the world of time, my thoughts told me, was no harder than drinking water from a teapot.

Zhao Wuya demonstrated what he was doing when he went to the store to get a teapot. He tripped over the threshold with a clang and fell flat on his face.

Zhou Xuan was amused and said, "It seems that it is not that easy for you to hold a teapot."

"It's a little embarrassing, don't worry about the details."

Zhao Wuya smiled awkwardly, stood up, took the teapot, and walked to the door of the store to chat.

He asked Zhou Xuan: "Brother Xuan, please help me think about why those strange things happened to me today? Since even the Seven Leaf Venerable is not qualified, those four Xunbo monks took the initiative to seek my initiation... There must be some other reason."

"I'm not omnipotent and can't guess everything."

Zhou Xuan said unhappily.

If he knew everything, he would first calculate his two Yama hexagrams.

Two sets of Yama Gua,

As if he wanted to find Xu Jingshan, the great literary saint from 220 years ago.
He wanted to find the ancient Buddha and answer the questions of Venerable Qiye...

"Ugh?"

Zhou Xuan suddenly thought of something and stood there in a daze. After he came to his senses, he turned around abruptly and stared at Zhao Wuya.

His burning gaze actually made Zhao Wuya feel creepy all over.

"Brother Xuan, what are you looking at me for?"

"This riddle is actually right there on the surface."

Zhou Xuan pulled Zhao Wuya and Yun Ziliang into the house and closed the door with a clang.
Although closing the door has no effect, there are many ways to prevent "walls have ears" in Jingguo, but the first thing to do is to rule out the wrong answer of "closing the door".

"Lao Yun, Yazi, the two of you, come to my secret realm."

Zhou Xuan said.

"What are you doing going to your secret place all of a sudden?"

"Let's talk after you come in."

Zhou Xuan said in a veiled manner that what he was about to tell had to be kept secret, so secret that no one else in the world would know about it except the three of them.

"Come in."

After Zhou Xuan finished speaking, a bloody vortex appeared under his feet, and two bloody hands pulled Yun Ziliang and Zhao Wuya into the Chenghuang Taoist Temple.

"What on earth are you going to talk about? You're so mysterious."

It was the first time that Zhao Wuya entered someone else’s secret realm. Seeing the boundless black water and the magnificent Chenghuang Taoist temple, he felt very envious.

"Brother Xuan's secret realm is really magnificent. My little temple secret realm cannot compare at all."

"Yazi, don't talk yet."

After Zhou Xuan persuaded Zhao Wuya to stop, he told Yun Ziliang: "Old Yun... I suspect that in Yazi's body, not only does the Seven Leaf Venerable live, but there is also a Great Buddha who is even higher than the Seven Leaf Venerable."

"One level higher than the Seven-Leaf Venerable? Twenty-one Zen?"

Yun Ziliang asked.

Zhou Xuan nodded, then shook his head and said, "There is a possibility of the Twenty-One Zen, but there are also other possibilities... maybe a little higher than the Twenty-One Zen."

"The only one who is higher than the Twenty-One Zen is probably the Ancient Buddha."

Snapped!
Zhou Xuan struck with both palms and said, "This is what I want to say... Is there still an ancient Buddha living in Yazi's body?"

(End of this chapter)