Yang God Chapter 16-17

"The Past Mituo Sutra? Is this……. One of the three legendary sutras of the Da Chan Temple? The mysterious, supreme method for spiritual cultivation? The ultimate means to spiritual immortality? Ziyue, one of the eight demonic immortals under heaven, came all the way, thousands of miles to the Jade Capital to find this, and it was in this Martial Scripture all along?"

Hong Yi looked at the sutra on his hand, thin like a cicada’s wings, rectangular, dimly golden, and soft, with a  water-like texture. He could not be more surprised with all of the tiny, bright gold characters on the sutra.

Da Chan Temple was a thousand -year-old temple. It had so many rooms that the monks needed to ride a horse just to light up all the rooms on time. Before it was destroyed, all the cultivation sects in the world had admitted that it was the most prestigious temple, a sacred place for cultivation.

And the ultimate secret to its prestige is recorded in the three sutras, past, present and future. The past is called the Mituo Sutra, the present is called the Rulai Sutra, and the future is called the Wusheng Sutra.

The Mituo Sutra is the ultimate cultivation of spiritual immortality; the Rulai sutra is the ultimate guide to martial arts for Corporeal Immortality; the Wusheng Sutra is the most mysterious. Rumor has it that if you understand all three of the sutras, you can reach the other side of the sea of bitterness.

Even the person who was the most hostile toward religions, the previous Primer Li Yan, who stuck to the scholarly doctrines by the book, recorded in his notes that it was a pity for him to not be able to see any of the three sutras in person.

Simply from that, Hong Yi could draw some conclusions about the book. He was very good at figuring out the intentions of the author, being a scholar himself.

That is, the three sutras are indeed the ultimate scripture.

This kind of book is so much better than the Martial Scripture the Dao Scripture, which contain so many traps and mistakes. Pearls and dirt are not enough to describe the difference between the two.

"Probably because when the temple was about to be destroyed, the monks were afraid that the sutra would be taken, so they hid it in the most common Martial Scripture. That makes sense. The Dynasty compiled this book. There is no reason for them to take it."

Hong Yi held the sutra in his hand. He took a few deep breaths and calmed down.

It is a scholarly doctrine to not lose one's serenity in front of great beauty and treasure.

Hong Yi knew that he had almost lost it.

The concept of not losing one's serenity when seeing treasure, is not about "ignoring treasures," rather it's about warning people to not be to pleased with themselves. That they should not lose their rationality and manner, to remain calm, otherwise they will very likely make mistakes that bring them trouble, turning a happy incident to a mournful one.

This sutra was soft like silk, but it didn't burn in fire. It didn't take a smart man like Hong Yi to notice the great value in this treasure.

"However, despite the rumors about this sutra being the best, none of the many talented monks in the Da Chan Temple reached the last stage of cultivation, Yang God. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been completely destroyed by the government army. I think it might be because the sutra is very hard to understand. I only know some insignificant small tricks, like mortal shedding. That is probably not quite enough to study the book all by myself. I really wish Bai Ziyue were here right now. What a pity."

After Hong Yi calmed down, he quickly folded the silk-like scripture into the size of a handkerchief and hid it under his shirt, keeping it close to his body. He did not feel that it was the appropriate time to read.

After hiding it carefully and making sure that there were no signs of it showing on the outside, Hong Yi sat tight, lit an incense, and started grinding ink on the ink slab. Then, he started writing the character "serenity" on the paper.

After a dozen "serenity’s”, he was certain that he had completely calmed down.

After all the rituals, he stood up and washed his hands, and then sat down again quietly, till the incense burned down. Feeling very peaceful on the inside, he suddenly opened his eyes, looked around carefully to make sure there was no one observing him, and discreetly took the sutra out and started reading.

Orthodox scholars all have a set of rituals. Before reading, one should calm down, burn incense, wash hands and finish all the other preparations.

These are not useless etiquettes, but ways to sharpen one's focus, sensitivity and rationality. That is the correct way of reading a truly well-written book.

How could Hong Yi be sloppy? Especially when reading the legendary Mituo Sutra.

He took the sutra out from close to his skin. The silk-like texture felt amazingly soft and smooth.

He spread the sutra on his desk. It was square shaped, about three feet long and wide, like a large painting. The characters on the sutra were tiny like flies, but they were very clear, like they were carved onto the scripture, not the least bit mushy.

And the font has an aura that contains enough power to penetrate deep into one's bones. When reading it, Hong Yi felt like the tiny characters were going to come out of the paper and fly. It was almost like the characters had lives of their own.

"Remarkable calligraphy!"

Hong Yi couldn't help but applaud for the great handwriting. He loved his own handwriting, but there was no contest between his and this.

At the center of the sutra, there was a golden buddha, sitting in the air. Suns, moons and stars revolved around him, casting all of their splendor on this buddha.

This buddha had his eyes lightly closed, legs crossed, hands curved to a form, looking peaceful and serene, nothing like the daunting and sacred figures that other Buddhist temples had. Instead, it emitted kindness, familiarity and sympathy.

For a moment, Hong Yi felt like the buddha was him, his former life, thousands of reincarnations ago, his true origin.

"This is the true buddhist figure. Its demeanor and temperament resonate with people. It's like the very figure of Buddha is bringing the viewer to become a buddha as well."

In Buddhist teachings, all beings are equal. Everyone can be the buddha.

The true buddhist art is not about majesty and magnificence, but bringing out the inner buddha in all people, inspiring whoever is looking at it to be a better person.

Unfortunately, artists capable of painting this masterpiece only appear once in five hundred years. Painters of this level deserve to be called saints of painting.

Cultivation method aside, the Mituo Sutra is at least a great painting.

Hong Yi was in awe upon seeing this figure of buddha. He read broadly, and he had expertise in appreciating paintings and calligraphies, as well a lot of Buddhist philosophies and teachings.

"Everything else aside, just the calligraphy, the painting, are priceless on their own." Hong Yi gasped in awe, and started reading the words.

The sutra started with the four characters, "Like this I've heard…"

"Like this I've heard? Is this sutra the actual records of the preaching from the Buddha?" Hong Yi thought. In Buddhist customs, if a sutra starts with "Like this I've heard", it means the sutra is a true record of the Buddha's teachings.

These four characters distinguish the orthodox classics from the deviant ways.

Typically, if the sutra is about cultivation methods, these four characters should not appear at all, because Buddha was not known to pass on his cultivation methods, but rather his philosophical teachings. It was like in the ancient times the saints taught scholars to read and build up wisdom to become a better person. These were the ways of old. As for the methods for attaining an untainted heart, and righteousness, that is on the person himself. All successful cultivators forage ahead and comprehend it by themselves.

Buddhas, or saints, point to a direction. As for how should one get there, it is possible that even the saints themselves had no idea.

The two directions of cultivation from the Da Chan Temple were all thousands of years of essence of the temple's exploration.

"Who cares. Maybe the author just wanted to make the sutra appear more official. Let's see the actual techniques."

Of course Hong Yi would not ignore the details. So he kept reading.

[]          []          []

It was sunny after the blizzard. All the dark clouds had drifted away. The beautiful night sky was showing some scarce stars, but of course, this was not comparable to the gorgeous milky way in summer.

"The soul sits at the Heaven's Court. Heaven's court is where all gods reside, the inspiration of all buddhas. Envision the energy of all stars collecting at the top of your head, going down inch after inch, joining the soul, creating all kinds of visions. The soul experiences coolness, heat, sweetness, bitterness. It also sees dancers in heaven, devils in hell, buddhas, gods, saints. Sometimes it feels like it has fallen to the underworld, sometimes it feels like it is fighting in the battlefield. The soul can feel like it is suddenly granted the greatest power in the world, or it is a skeleton rotting in the wild with no one to take care of it. Discard all the illusions. Focus on yourself and what you want. Envision yourself as a buddha sitting at the middle of nowhere, called Amitabha, making Amitabha's handprint. This buddha is nature of all living creatures in the world. Keep that in mind and all tragedies will go away……"

It was 11 at night. There was no one around, and everything was silent. Hong Yi stood at the center of his patio. He lifted his head and looked at the sparse stars in the sky, like he was about to imprint them in his head. He closed his eyes and started performing the teachings in the sutra.

After one day of reading, he had understood one of the basic methods recorded in the Mituo sutra to strengthen the soul.

He recited the article and felt like he had fully comprehended its meaning.

Hong Yi laid a simple blanket on the ground and sat cross-legged on it. He looked up again, and after only about the time to burn half an incense, he seemed to have remembered all the patterns in the sky. He closed his eyes again and performed the same posture as the buddha depicted in the sutra.

After storing the image of the night sky in his mind, Hong Yi sat there quietly, imagining the light of the stars shining on him, coming through his head and into his brain.

Since Hong Yi had a little bit of experience with the Pagoda Visualization Method, and he was able to calm down fast, he was not very much bothered by the illusions. So it wasn't so hard for him to use the strengthening technique.

Also, the Dao Scripture, which he had spent a few days reading, had articles explaining how most of the strengthening techniques for the soul were visualisation: basically, pretending fake things were real.

It's like imagining you have a delicious plum in your mouth; you would salivate despite not having actually having a plum in your mouth.

However, illusions like this can cause changes in the soul, sometimes even in the body.

After sitting there silently for about the time to burn an incense, Hong Yi was getting in the zone.

Once the imagined starlight entered his brain and reached its exterior, Hong Yi felt a sudden cool breeze all over his body, like all of his pores were breathing refreshing, frosty air. He felt like his body was as light as a kite, like it was about to float away in air like an immortal.

Hong Yi accidentally moaned under this comfortable feeling, like he was smoking opium. The comfort reached deep into his bones, like the "opium" quite popular among the past dynasty.

Even the Warriors, like innate masters, could not resist the temptation. Hong Yi felt completely indulged in this feeling.

Luckily, he still remembered the words in the sutra, which stated that visualizing starlight brings a lot of illusions, one of which was the cool breeze, typically the first barrier.

Just when he was about to completely give up control and indulge himself in the cool breeze, Hong Yi was alarmed as he suddenly started being able to visualize a golden buddha, kind, like his previous life hundreds of thousands of incarnations ago.

This is the buddha depicted in the Mituo Sutra.

The sutra says, visualizing the buddha can suppress all the unwanted inner demons, the distractions, and make the person realize who he really wants to be, for thousands of thousands of lives.

Hong Yi knew that the sutra wasn't exaggerating. The art and technique that went into this painting already included all the teachings in the painting itself.

Aside from the buddha, the painter himself was probably extremely close to Yang God already.

Hong Yi had a feeling that if Bai Ziyue took a peek at this painting, he would probably make big progress without even looking at the scripts.

As soon as the buddha appeared in his mind, all the comfortable feelings had gone away. The only thing left was rationality.

The world was still the world.

There was no starlight entering the body. Everything was just an illusion.

"The illusions are strong. Thank God I have the help from the buddha painting. Or I would indulge myself in it and never come back."

Hong Yi knew that it was a close call. If he hadn't visualized the buddha in time, he would fall to the nether region of cool breeze and never be able to come back. He'd probably be crazy for the rest of his life.

In practicing spiritual cultivation, concentration, calmness, and rationality were all needed. Reality and illusions crossed. If he were to get confused, there would be no way out. It was much more dangerous than martial arts.

"With that experience, I shouldn't be afraid to try again."

Hong Yi performed the posture again, and imagined starlight entering his brain.

As soon as the starlight reached his body, he felt the cool breeze surrounding him again.

Now Hong Yi already had the experience and disregarded it. Instead, he focused on himself and continue with the method. After a while, the illusions changed. It was as if he was in hell. He had a headache like his head was about to explode. Then all of a sudden, all kinds of extreme emotions rushed into his head.

He still kept focusing on himself.

After a while, the illusions changed again. He could see ghosts and devils flaunting their weapons at him, like they were about to come at him and devour him alive, drink his blood and eat his flesh.

He could hear horrible shrieks revolving around him, like atrocities were happening right in front of him.

He pretended that he did not hear a thing.

Suddenly, he was surrounded by beautiful women, their private parts showing. They sang and danced to please him.

He resisted the temptation again.

And the vision changed again: he was at the center of a battlefield, cadavers laid up like a mountain, blood piled up into a river.

He kept his sanity.

Suddenly, his body started rotting, covered in flies and larvae, with his bones sticking out.

Hong Yi still kept to himself. He understood the uncertain nature of life and death. He was not afraid of death any more.

The illusions varied, and all of a sudden:

Hong!

The starlight of his imagination seemed to have combined with his soul; he felt the irresistible power dragging his soul out of his body, joining the origins of stars in the heaven.

It felt incredibly realistic, and good, like he had finally reached the destination after endless troubles and hardships. He was done. He had arrived.

Hong Yi's soul couldn’t resist the attraction. His soul wavered, about to follow its calling.

At this very moment, the buddha, the buddha of his previous life, showed up in the air again.

His wavering soul calmed down again.

After Hong Yi regained his sanity, he was scared to the core.

"I was not aware that the last step was so hard to take! That makes sense–who can resist the urge of becoming a god and going to heaven, after so many hardships they have been through to get there?"

Hong Yi knew if he had followed the attraction and left his body, his soul would have been completely destroyed by the fierce wind on the high sky.

The feeling of reaching the destination was just an illusion.

Hong Yi sat tight and tried the method again.

Having even more experience, he overcame all the various illusions rather easily, and he once again feel the giant attraction that pushed his soul out of his body.

He did his best to fight the power.

His soul bounced around in his body, like a person who was fighting not to drown.

Finally, Hong Yi had used up all his willpower. His will completely collapsed, and drowsiness hit him hard like a truck.

He knew that he had overused his spiritual power, like dwelling too much on the contents of a book.

"I can't sleep out here on the patio. I will freeze to death."

He tried his best to move his body into the room, basically crawling, and fell asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow.

It was a quiet night with no dreams.

When he woke up, it was already all bright outside.

Warm sunshine shone on him through the window. Hong Yi felt refreshed and quick; his body so energized he wanted to sing!

For five nights in a row, Hong Yi had been practicing the visualization in the Mituo Sutra.

One night, Hong Yi had decided to light an incense and perform mortal shedding.

As soon as his soul had left his body and had entered the outside world, it was like a swimmer seeing water. He had a strong urge to go down and take a dip.

The Dao Scripture had records, and Bai Ziyue had mentioned the situation as well. This was what the Night Roaming stage should feel like after the soul left the mortal shell.

Hong Yi tried to walk outside of the incense fume.

He was not feeling at all chilled or powerless, but rather comfortable, like a fish in a sea.

In a good mood, Hong Yi's spirit decided to wobble out of the door.

Night Roaming!

Finally, he has reached Night Roaming!

Chapter end