I sat quietly by the lake, just like that, thinking about nothing and doing nothing.

I also seemed to unconsciously blend into this silent beauty, forgetting the time, forgetting myself, forgetting everything.

I don't know how long later, a cool breeze pulled my mind back to my body, and when I turned back, it was already sunset, and two birds flew by in the air.

The breeze came and the wildflowers fluttered gently, and a cluster of reeds at the water's edge was bent by the wind towards the surface of the lake to wet the leaves, and the surface of the lake was slightly wrinkled, and a pool of fine sunset shimmered.

I stood up, took a deep breath, glanced at the glow of the sky, and turned to return.

"Phew...... Wow...... "At this moment...... there was a sudden ringing of bells in the distance, and I looked back for the sound, and in the glow I saw that on the other side of the lake, a little far away on the mountainside, there was a dark house, and the outline was actually a temple!

Even from a distance, I could still see the old and shabby of the temple, with a flock of pigeons on the ridge of the temple leaving a string of silhouettes fluttering in the setting sun.

After meditating for a long time, I was so immersed in the lake and the shadows that I didn't even notice this temple, and at this moment I suddenly wanted to visit that temple, so I really stepped on the sunset and walked towards the temple.

Climbing the rugged and winding mountain path, I finally saw this temple clearly, there was only one Buddha hall inside the shoulder-high wall, compared to those big temples, it was much more shabby here, and I was a little surprised that such a simple temple actually had monks practicing.

The temple door is hidden, and there is no plaque on the door beam. I pushed the door in, and there was a monk in the courtyard who was wearing a gray monk's robe and was thin, and he was sitting on a bench made of stone bars in the courtyard, and he was sprinkling grain-like things on the ground with a bowl in his hand, and a flock of pigeons were pecking at the ground, and he was feeding the pigeons.

Seeing me come in, the old monk stood up and smiled at me and said, "It turns out that there are guests here, please take a seat." He gestured to me on the bench he had just sat on.

I hurriedly said, "I heard the master's bell ringing in the distance, so I came here to disturb the master's cultivation!" "I sat down on a stone bench, and the doves on the ground continued to peck at me.

"I can't talk about Qing Xiu, I'm just looking for a pure place to escape the world, so where to start with bothering! It's just that the small place is poor, and I'm afraid that I will neglect the donor! ”

"Whatever the master said, I just walked here casually and felt curious, so I came to take a look!"

"Hehe, no one has been here for a long time, and I don't remember what the outside world is like." The old monk said slowly and leisurely, and sat down beside me.

"Has the master been here for a long time?"

"It's been a long time, I can't remember how long, I just remember that when I came here, I still had the strength to build this temple, but now it takes a lot of effort to clean it." The old monk spoke slowly, speaking standard Chinese, which made me think that he must have come here from a long way away to practice.

I was a little surprised, I didn't expect him to come here for so long, and even this temple was built by him, and I couldn't help but have more admiration for this old monk.

"This is a holy place for Buddhism, and there are many temples, why doesn't the master practice in those temples to receive incense offerings, why do you come here alone to build a temple and cultivate?"

I finally asked the question in my heart, I thought that the conditions for practicing in those big monasteries must be better than those here, and those are famous Buddhist holy places in the country, and they can be worshiped by the world, but he came here to practice unconventionally, which really puzzled me.

The old monk grabbed a handful of millet in the bowl and sprinkled it on the ground, turned his head to look at me, and said with a smile: "Since you have come here, you must have been to the monasteries you mentioned, and have you ever seen pigeons there?" ”

I was stunned for a moment, not knowing what he meant, and shook my head as I thought about the temple I had been to in the morning.

"Then do you know why there are no pigeons there?" He asked again.

Of course, I know how those places are full of tourists every day, how can they go to those places, and how dare they go to those places. Thinking of this, I suddenly froze, I seemed to understand something, looked up at the old monk, the old monk looked at me with a smile, I knew that he had seen my face just now

(This chapter is not finished, please turn the page)

Changing expressions.

"The Buddhist doctrine is to treat all things in the world with a compassionate heart, the so-called Buddhist practice is just to purify oneself and educate the world from the sea of suffering, those places you said don't even dare to go, but they all fly to me, I hold them in my hands and they will not be afraid, where do you think is the place of practice?"

As he spoke, he really grabbed a pigeon from his feet and held it in the palm of his hand, the pigeon tilted its head and stretched its neck twice, as if he did not understand the old monk's intentions, and flapped its wings and jumped back to the ground to continue pecking.

I realized that if I wanted to come to this old monk, I must have felt that those places were no longer places to practice, so I chose to come here to escape the world and participate in Zen, and sure enough, the masters were hidden in the world.

The sky is getting dark, the pigeons are full of food, and they gradually flapping their wings and flying up to the roof to perch. I got up and bowed to the old monk and wanted to go back, but the old monk said, "It's getting late, if the donor doesn't dislike it, why don't you stay and eat and go again!" ”

I didn't want to bother anymore, I just wanted to postpone it, but my stomach rumbled, and I thought about it, I hadn't eaten anything that day. I feel a little hungry at the thought of eating.

I was a little embarrassed, swallowed back the words I just wanted to say, and said, "Then disturb the master!" ”

The old monk let me into the main hall, and directly above it was a Buddha statue with a solemn and compassionate expression. In front of the Buddha statue is an incense burner, in which stand several bunches of incense that are about to burn out, and there are two candlesticks on both sides of the incense burner.

The old monk flicked the oil splash on the wick of the candle with his withered fingers, and the hall suddenly brightened a lot. He said to me: "Seeing each other is fate, give the Buddha a pillar of incense, the world is suffering, may the Buddha show you the way!" ”

I took the incense he handed me carefully, lit it in the candle flame and inserted it into the censer and bowed down, but I didn't know what to pray. Everyone may have their own wishes, but at this time, I really didn't know what I wanted, so I had to give up for a moment.

The old monk had already brought the food and put it on the table, which was a plate of green vegetables and a few naan cakes. I sat opposite the old monk, the naan cake was slightly dry and I swallowed the tea, the green vegetables were slightly bitter in the mouth, but they also had their own taste.

After eating, I thanked the old monk and wanted to resign, the old monk got up to see him off, walked outside the temple, and the old monk stopped and said: "Look at the donor's appearance is not like a local, I don't know if the donor is here to play?" ”

I didn't know why he asked this, so I replied respectfully: "I came from afar, but I didn't come to play, but my life has changed somewhat, I can't stay where I used to be, and I don't know where I'm going, I came here by chance, but I don't know if I can live here again!" ”

"The end is the beginning, if you can let go of your obsession, you will be a new life anywhere!" The old monk always spoke softly, but said that every sentence was full of supreme Zen power, and I think he was probably a lonely person who could feel it this way.

"What if you don't let go, the past grievances are too entangled, I can't clear up every one in order to be innocent, I can't afford to ask for anything anymore, so I choose to stay away from the past, even if I have some nostalgia, I can only let time and distance slowly dilute, I just want to live again." Thinking of my past, I don't say without sadness.

The old monk sighed, and said for a long time: "The red dust is chaotic, nothing more than chasing fame and fortune, life is short for decades, there are a few people who can see their own ending, nothing more than a handful of dry bones and dust, nothing can be taken away, no matter how much you get, you will eventually lose, and everyone in the world is bitter!" Alas! At the end, he sighed and shook his head slowly!

I was silent, chewing on his words in my heart, and my mood was not as he said at the moment. The changes I have experienced, and the people and things I have met in prison, have made me deeply aware of the transience and fragility of life, and if I am tired of running for my life and cannot get a safe life, it is better to go with the flow and live a dull life, so that I can give an account of my limited life.

I have figured out these for a long time, and now I no longer have any requirements for life, I just want to find a corner to live peacefully, which is not a loss of confidence in life, but another interpretation of life. I know that hope goes hand in hand with desire, and desire is a terrible thing that keeps me from having a single thought.

"Shi

(This chapter is not finished, please turn the page)

If the Lord has nothing to do with the monk and asks for something recently, I wonder if the donor can answer? The old monk broke my silence.

"If the master has something to say, I will definitely agree to what I can do!" I was a little surprised, I didn't expect this old monk to ask me for help.

"There are a few scriptures in the temple that are old and dilapidated, and they are the only hand-copied books that I obtained in the early years, and they are very precious to me, and I am afraid that they will not be kept after a while. I once wanted to copy the seal again, but my hands were shaking and I couldn't hold the pen, and my eyes were confused. If the donor has nothing to do lately, can you help me copy the scriptures to fulfill my wish? ”

The old monk said slowly, his expression was not without concern, as if he was frustrated that his drooping old body could not even do this little thing.

It was already twilight when I left the temple and went down the mountain, and when I returned to the town, the sky was already full of stars, the mist wet my hair, the dust on my shoes was washed away by the dewdrops, the breeze was like silk, and the night was as cool as water.

The reception desk of the hostel was dimly lit, and the beautiful Tibetan girl fell asleep on the counter, the blanket on her body slipped aside, and I helped her put the blanket back on when I passed by her, and I saw her nose fanning and her face squeezing out of shape, and she didn't even notice my movements.

In the next few days, I went to the temple every morning to help the old monk copy the scriptures, stayed in the temple at noon to fast with the old monk, and returned to the hostel in the evening.

The original scriptures were all in Sanskrit, and I transcribed them sentence by sentence by the old monk, and I was amazed that the old monk still knew Sanskrit, which was evident in the study of Buddhism, and made me once again convinced that he must be a monk who attained the Tao.

Transcription is a very boring thing, but instead of feeling bored, I slowly immersed myself in the difficult passages, some of which I have a lot of memories of.

When I talked about some allusions, the old monk asked me to stop writing, and he told me the story of the Buddha in detail.

When I learned that the Buddha had been a prince in his previous life, he had lived a life of luxury, pleasure and carefreeness, and that one day he went out of the palace and saw that his subjects were actually living a life of calamity, calamity, sickness, hunger and cold, and he realized that the world was not what he had imagined.

So he left his wife and children and went alone to practice in the world of suffering, looking for a way to liberate. On the way, he was sick and hungry and finally collapsed, but fortunately a kind shepherdessman rescued him and brought him goat's milk and food. At that time, he could no longer speak or act, so under the care of the kind shepherdess, he meditated under a Bodhi tree for seven days and seven nights, and finally realized the supreme Dharma and was reborn......

After the Buddha became a Buddha, he traveled around the world, and he never went back to his palace, and his wife and children never saw each other again.

As he preached, he recruited a wide range of disciples, among whom the famous Buddhist Ananda, Rahula, Mahakalpa, and Subodhi were all his disciples.

Once, the Buddha took his disciple out with a dervishes to fast. A group of children playing in the sand on the road. One of the delicate girls, when she saw the Buddha leading her disciples from a distance, took a handful of sand from the ground with both hands, walked up to the Buddha, and put it in the Buddha's rice pot. The Buddha graciously accepted her sandy soil.

The eldest disciple Sariputta couldn't see it, and thought to himself how could this girl be so reasonable, how could she use sand and soil to tease my master. I couldn't help it on the road, so I asked, "Master, that girl just now, put the sand in your rice bowl, how can you let her be so nonsense?" ”

The Buddha smiled: "You don't know, after thousands of years, this woman will mature and become the king of the Eastern Aurora Kingdom. If I don't accept her sand, she will try to destroy the Dharma. I accepted the sand so that she would have this good karma, and she would spread the Dharma when she became king in the future. ”

This girl is Wu Zetian, the heroine of the later generation of Chinese history. As soon as she was born, she had the appearance of an emperor and a phoenix. Before Wu Zetian became the queen, she was a nun for four or five years. She is not only a devout believer in Buddhism, but also proficient in Buddhism. She wrote a four-verse poem in praise of the Dharma, "The supreme and profound subtle Dharma has suffered millions of calamities; I have seen and heard it now, and I am willing to understand the true righteousness." It has become the opening scripture of Buddhist chanting, which has been passed down for thousands of years, and the Luoyang Longmen Grottoes that have been handed down to this day were ordered to be dug when she was in power!

(End of chapter)