Red Boy, Monkey, and Squirrel looked curiously at the door to Fangzheng's meditation room. They were filled with puzzlement and curiosity. What had happened?
Fangzheng ignored what they were thinking as he rushed into the meditation room and opened the Sutra Cabinet. He saw a brand new sutra book inside! On the blue cover, a few bold and powerful characters were written — "Prajna Paramita Sutra"!
When Fangzheng saw this, he raised his head and laughed maniacally …
At that moment, Red Boy and Squirrel secretly walked in. When they saw Fangzheng hugging a thin booklet and laughing maniacally, they exchanged looks. They had no idea what Fangzheng was laughing about.
Red Boy could not help but ask, "Master, why are you laughing while hugging such a small booklet? Don't tell me it's from Japan? "
Fangzheng rolled his eyes and struck him. "Don't speak nonsense if you don't know anything. This is no ordinary thing. It's a sutra book!"
When Squirrel heard that, he immediately scurried onto Fangzheng's shoulder and followed his arm to his hand. He touched the Heart Sutra and asked curiously, "Master, isn't this sutra book a little too thin? How many words can it write? "
Fangzheng smiled. "This book is indeed thin. As for the number of words, it's not much. There are only 260 words."
"Ah? That little? "Squirrel and Red Boy exclaimed in unison.
Fangzheng said, "Don't be discontented. Although the Heart Sutra is short, its value is priceless! There's a saying in the Tibetan scriptures: Buddha said that among the 84,000 Dharmic formulations, the Wisdom Dharmic formulations are the most outstanding. That also means that the 260 words in the Buddhist canon have a transcendent status equivalent to the Diamond Sutra in Zen. To put it bluntly, it's the core essence of the Dharma! There were many monks who only read this scripture for their entire lives, yet they were still able to attain great attainments in their attainments. However, most monasteries teach it as the most basic sutra for beginners. "
When Red Boy and Squirrel heard that, they understood the value of the booklet. Immediately, they were even more curious. What was written in it that allowed it to stand above the masses with just two hundred words? Also, no matter how impressive it was, it was only a beginners book. Was there a need to be so happy?
Fangzheng couldn't be bothered with them. There were countless Buddhist scriptures, and each one had many volumes. Even if people spent their entire lives, they might not be able to finish reading all the scriptures. Since it was impossible to finish reading, then directly understanding the core essence of all the scriptures became the simplest and most efficient way of learning. Once one understood the core, one could read other scriptures and comprehend them by analogy. The speed of comprehension would naturally be incomparable.
It was like learning how to write an essay. Now that he knew how to write, it wouldn't be too difficult for him to learn how to write essays. But if he didn't know how to write, who knew what he would write …
Fangzheng had never read the Heart Sutra. He had only heard Zen Master One Finger recite it to him. According to Zen Master One Finger, all monasteries now had this Heart Sutra as their introductory lesson. It was shortened to Heart Sutra. Some people even said that whether a monk was a real monk or not depended on whether he could memorize the Heart Sutra.
Of course, this was a little biased, but from this, one could tell how common the Heart Sutra was and how important it was.
Fangzheng also knew how to memorize the Heart Sutra. Logically speaking, he shouldn't have paid so much attention to the Heart Sutra. However, the appearance of the Heart Sutra proved that the Sutra Cabinet could really produce scriptures. Secondly, Fangzheng knew very well that the scriptures on Mount Numinous were different from the ones in his world! He also wanted to see what the real Heart Sutra was like!
Fangzheng eagerly opened the Heart Sutra. When he flipped to the first page, he was stunned. The Heart Sutra was identical to the one he had recited! There were two hundred and sixty words. Not a single word more or less!
"This … System, did the Sutra Cabinet take the wrong book?" asked Fangzheng.
"Ding! No, the Sutra Cabinet's purpose is to gather the information of the scriptures in your world before gathering them into a book. Therefore, the Heart Sutra you see is the Heart Sutra of your world. If you want the true scriptures of Mount Numinous, you need to at least create a Sutra Repository, "said the System.
Fangzheng rolled his eyes. "Are you kidding me? If I remember correctly, you said that the scriptures it produces are Mount Numinous's scriptures. "
"That's right. If you were in the world of Mount Numinous, the gathered scriptures would be Mount Numinous's scriptures. But here, it is unable to traverse worlds to gather information. Therefore, it can only produce this world's scriptures. To break through the world barrier, you need a Sutra Repository, "said the System matter-of-factly.
Fangzheng was instantly rendered speechless. The Heart Sutra in his hand suddenly became a lot lighter. He was pissed! He was extremely pissed! He had such great expectations, but this was the result?
"Don't be pissed. Flip to the back before you say anything else," said the System.
Fangzheng was speechless as he casually flipped to the back page, but …
"Bodhidharma Commentary!"
"What!?" Fangzheng's eyes nearly popped out! He continued flipping to the back page.
"Shenxiu Commentary!"
"Discovered Commentary!"
"Kumarajiva Commentary!"
…
"System, this can't be fake, right? Why are there so many annotations? Also, it's such a thin book, so why are there so many pages? "Fangzheng was truly astonished. Every page was the annotations of an accomplished monk from history! The value of the annotations was already much higher than the Heart Sutra itself!
"Although the Sutra Repository is unable to traverse worlds to gather information, when gathering all the information in this world, it will search for all the relevant information and combine it into a book. Some of these annotations were written and passed down. Some appeared in history but were lost. There were also some that were not written at all and were only passed down verbally. There were also some that were formed from the thoughts of these people. As for why there are so many pages, are only you humans allowed to have e-books, but Mount Numinous is not allowed to have unlimited pages? How about it? Do you still despise the Sutra Repository? "
Fangzheng immediately shook his head like a rattle drum. Although he had not obtained the scriptures, he had obtained the annotations and insights of so many accomplished monks. Although the scriptures were more precious, Fangzheng's present appetite was better suited to the latter pages. There was no such thing as the best, only the most suitable. There was no such thing as overnight comprehension of the Buddhist Dharma. Taking it one step at a time was the way to go. It was to prevent one from biting off more than one could chew.
After taking the Heart Sutra, Fangzheng did not stay in the monastery. Although the monastery was quiet, there were still many visitors. It was inevitable that there would be some disturbances.
Fangzheng ran to the bamboo forest at the back and placed a chair down. He sat on it and leisurely read the Heart Sutra as well as the annotations at the back. At the same time, he could not help but recite:
Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, during his deep Prajna Paramita, saw the emptiness of the five skandhas, transcending all suffering.
Śarīra, form is not different from emptiness, and emptiness is not different from form. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.
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