Chapter 22: Mount Jiuhua

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Jiuhua Mountain is a sacred Buddhist site revered as the foremost mountain in the southeast. Its peaks rise in layer upon layer, steeped in spiritual energy, and it is the earthly sanctuary of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva.

Panting and puffing, I followed everyone up the stone steps. At first I could still maintain a respectable two-legged walk, but later I had to use all four limbs. After an arduous climb, I finally reached Qiyuan Temple on Jiuhua Mountain.

The reason I had come was that, on my first visit to Jiuhua Mountain, I had promised to return three times. A promise had to be kept.

Jiuhua Mountain was truly an extraordinary place. Many people experienced some kind of spiritual response there. The first time I visited, I arrived in the afternoon, and by the time I reached the summit, the sun was nearly setting. I looked up at the sky and saw the afterglow of sunset tracing brilliant golden edges around the clouds on the horizon. Those golden clouds seemed to be drawn together by some invisible force, slowly converging and interweaving until they gradually took the form of a solemn and merciful golden Buddha.

The Tathagata Buddha in the sky looked so vivid that he seemed almost alive. He gazed at me with a smile. I stood frozen, staring in disbelief for a long while before finally coming to my senses. In a panic, I took out my phone to photograph the miraculous scene. Yet no matter how I adjusted the angle, the camera could never capture the figure of the Buddha.

Even none of the elders from my family who had come with me saw the strange apparition in the sky. Only then did I realize that I alone had witnessed it.

The day before my second visit to Jiuhua Mountain, I suddenly heard a kind and gentle voice calling in my sleep, “Devotee…”

I rubbed my drowsy eyes and forced them open. A monk in plain robes and a kasaya stood beside my bed. His face was blurred and indistinct in the dimness of night, while the aura surrounding him carried the meditative wisdom of a string of bodhi beads. He nodded at me. When I looked more carefully, he had vanished.

That morning, my father suddenly called to say that one of the elders in our family was going to Jiuhua Mountain to fulfill a vow. He asked whether I wanted to go along. Only then did I understand that it was Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva revealing himself to send me there.

The day of my second visit coincided with the birthday of Maitreya Buddha. So many people had entered to pay their respects that the temple was packed. Since I belonged to the Taoist tradition, I could only greet the Buddha with a Taoist clasped-hands salute rather than with my palms pressed together.

After making the salute, one was supposed to retreat three steps as a sign of respect. As I stepped backward, I happened to tread on the feet of the worshippers crowding in behind me. I lost my balance, lurched sideways, and landed hard on my backside.

At that moment, a burst of hearty laughter came from the golden statue of Maitreya before me.

I scrambled to my feet and looked up. A surge of golden light enveloped the statue, transforming it into a plump, smiling monk with a torn cloth sack in one hand and a robe exposing his belly. Four words suddenly flashed through my mind:

The Bag Monk.

The Bag Monk gazed at me with smiling eyes and called, “Jingche… Jingche… Why are you still standing there? Come quickly to your master…”

In a daze, I seemed to see a little monk emerge from my own body. The slightly foolish-looking child carried a heavy case of scriptures on his back and followed the Bag Monk ahead of him. The Bag Monk walked along humming a tune with a piece of straw between his teeth.

The little monk had climbed for so long that he was utterly exhausted. He called out several times, “Master, Master… This little monk is tired. Let me rest a while before we go on!”

The Bag Monk had enormous earlobes. Whenever he turned his head, they swung and slapped against his shoulders. He also had a habit of rocking his head from side to side.

“Then let us rest our feet.”

With great effort, the little monk took the scripture case from his back and set it on the ground. He sat down, wiped away his sweat with his sleeve, and complained, “Master, these scriptures are far too heavy.”

The Bag Monk continued swaying his head as he tried to bamboozle the child.

“The scriptures are heavy because your heart regards them as heavy. Naturally, their weight increases. When your heart regards them as empty, the scriptures will naturally become empty, and their weight will disappear as well.”

The little monk did not believe a word of it.

“I haven’t reached that level of cultivation. Since the scriptures are empty in your heart and possess no weight at all, Master can carry them from now on!”

“Ah!” The Bag Monk tapped his head and wore a bewildered expression. “Look at my memory. Aren’t the melons and fruit we planted behind the temple ready to be picked? If we wait any longer, the mountain badgers will devour them. Once we return to the temple, I shall personally demonstrate my legendary skill of spearing the badger like Runtu.”

“Who is Runtu? And why does he have to spear a badger?” The little monk blinked his round eyes. Sure enough, the Bag Monk had successfully diverted his attention from the scripture case to the matter of Runtu and his badger.

“In another thousand years or so, you’ll learn who Runtu is when you attend primary school.”

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“Master is talking nonsense again,” the little monk said indignantly.

People down the mountain often called his master a mad monk, because he was forever saying things no one could understand.

After a while, the little monk forgot how the Bag Monk had tricked him. Resting his chin in his hands, he gazed at the Bag Monk with wide, clear eyes.

“Master, why is our temple called ‘Which Temple’? Whenever I go down the mountain and people ask which temple I belong to, I tell them I’m from Which Temple, and they say this little monk is merely repeating other people’s words and cannot be a good monk!”

The Bag Monk raised his broad sleeve and fanned himself with it, shaking his head as he said, “What of it? On the mountain next to ours, there’s another temple called ‘That Temple.’”

“Why do both temples have such strange names?”

“Do you know that the abbot of our Which Temple was once sworn brothers with the abbot of That Temple on the neighboring mountain? Unfortunately, the abbot of That Temple fell in love with the fiancée of the abbot of Which Temple.”

“Isn’t that the plot of Li Xunhuan and Long Xiaoyun? Has this book crossed into another story?”

“Listen to me. The two men became mortal enemies over a woman! In the end, our abbot entered the monastic life in order to fulfill his brother’s happiness.”

“Then why did the sworn brother enter the monastic life too? Did he feel guilty toward the abbot of Which Temple?”

“Not at all. The woman transferred her affections to a butcher and fell in love with him. The two had been involved long before, but they were restrained by the abbot of Which Temple. Wanting to live with the butcher, she deliberately seduced the abbot of That Temple, causing the sworn brothers to turn against each other and sending the abbot of Which Temple into the monastery. Then she could live happily ever after with the butcher.”

“What happened afterward?”

The little monk was completely absorbed. This was far more interesting than the story about an old monk and a little monk living on a mountain.

“Afterward, the abbot of That Temple realized how frightening women truly were and felt sorry for our abbot. So he simply went to the mountain opposite and became a monk there as well.”

This memory and scene suddenly flooded my mind. It took me a long time to return to my senses. The Bag Monk had already disappeared, and in front of me stood the same immense golden statue of Maitreya Buddha.

Later, I learned from Teacher Xing that in one of my former lives, I had descended into the mortal world as the Bag Monk’s scripture-bearing attendant. I had wandered with him through the human realm, helping him enlighten and save people. The soul from that life had eventually followed the Bag Monk to the Western Vulture Peak.

Today was my third visit to Jiuhua Mountain. After offering incense at the great bronze burner outside the Hall of the Great Hero, I entered to pay my respects to the Buddhas of the Three Ages.

I looked up and saw the enormous golden statues inside the hall. The Buddha of the past was Dipamkara Buddha, the Buddha of the present was the Tathagata Buddha, and the Buddha of the future was Maitreya Buddha.

Because Maitreya had been my master in a former life, I gave him a special Taoist clasped-hands salute and respectfully said in my heart, “Master, it has been many years.”

I straightened and fixed my gaze on the Future Buddha at the far right of the Three Buddhas. Golden light flickered around him. The figure of Amitabha Buddha from the Western Pure Land transformed into the majestic form of my father, the Great Emperor Zhenwu.

My eyes widened in astonishment. The towering Great Emperor Zhenwu stood upon the golden Buddha throne at the far right, smiling and nodding at me.

“Yu’er.”

I stared at him in disbelief for a long while before murmuring, “Father…”

After some time, the Great Emperor Zhenwu transformed once more into the ever-smiling golden figure of the Future Buddha.

I left the Hall of the Great Hero in a daze and nearly stumbled over the threshold. Even after I had driven away from Jiuhua Mountain, my mind remained filled with baffling questions.

The day after returning home, I hired a car and hurried straight to the spiritual sanctuary. Teacher Xing was brewing tea there, while Yang Yue sat nearby studying the Eight Characters of Destiny. I was in such a rush that I did not even have time to sit down before recounting everything I had seen and experienced at Jiuhua Mountain to Teacher Xing.

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Teacher Xing rebuked me sternly. “Why are you in such a hurry? Everything must be approached with composure. If you do nothing but rush about recklessly, you will accomplish nothing.”

After being reprimanded, the agitation in my heart gradually subsided. I looked toward the statue of the Great Emperor Zhenwu among the seven divine statues in the sanctuary. The question in my heart twisted like a creeping vine.

“What exactly is my father’s true origin?”

All I knew was that, according to one tradition, the Great Emperor Zhenwu was the eighty-second incarnation of the Supreme Venerable Lord Lao.

Teacher Xing poured me a cup of tea and spoke slowly.

“I believe the Maitreya Buddha you saw at Jiuhua Mountain was the Great Emperor Zhenwu himself. The two are originally one.”

Many people did not understand the relationship between the Buddhist and divine realms. In truth, the divine realm came first, followed by the Buddhist realm. The souls of the gods were numerous. There was a saying that human beings possessed five celestial souls, but in the most ancient times, a god might possess more than a dozen souls, even dozens. Each soul could be sent forth to reincarnate as an individual.

After many gods sent one of their souls into reincarnation, those souls gradually developed consciousness of their own. Some then traveled to the Western Buddhist realm. Thus, many gods possessed incarnations dwelling in the Western realm.

Maitreya Buddha had originally been an incarnation sent into reincarnation by the Great Emperor Zhenwu. By now, he had developed an independent consciousness.

Teacher Xing’s explanation made my head swim. One was a renowned war god of the Celestial Court; the other was Maitreya Buddha of the Western Paradise. How could these two seemingly unrelated figures possibly be the same person?

Teacher Xing rubbed the bodhi bracelet that gleamed with a warm luster, his voice growing calmer.

“The Bag Monk was Maitreya Buddha. Why were you his disciple in a former life? Two people without karmic ties cannot share the bond of master and disciple in a given lifetime.”

Yang Yue had been listening for a long while. Now she set down her pen, and a soft, clear light flickered in her eyes.

“I have always felt that the Jade Emperor also has an incarnation in the Western Paradise—and that his position there is not a low one.”

My curiosity stirred, and I raised my brows.

“Who is the Jade Emperor’s incarnation in the Buddhist realm?”

Yang Yue shook her head slightly.

“That is still unknown. Perhaps, in the future, we will know more than we do now.”

That night, just as I fell asleep, I felt the mattress beneath me turn into a spinning flying carpet. It carried me upward into the sky. Then, amid a final whirl of heaven and earth, the carpet shook me loose, and I tumbled from the air.

I closed my eyes in terror, certain that I would fall headfirst and be smashed to pieces. But suddenly, a mountain wind swept across the peaks and touched my face, carrying the damp scent of earth and the fresh fragrance of the forest.

I opened my eyes and discovered, to my astonishment, that I was standing safely outside the Hall of the Great Hero on Jiuhua Mountain.

Confused, I crossed the high threshold and entered the hall I had visited the day before.

Once again, I raised my head toward the Buddhas of the Three Ages. The Buddhas of the past and the future on either side remained exactly as I had seen them yesterday, solemn and majestic, their figures immense.

But seated in the center was an emperor wearing a golden crown and a golden dragon robe. His brows were stern, and his entire bearing radiated dignity and grandeur.

Boom—

It was as though a great temple bell had been struck beside my ear. The impact shook my head, filling it with resonant echoes.

The truth even Journey to the West had never dared reveal was this:

The Jade Emperor’s incarnation in the Buddhist realm was—

the Tathagata Buddha!

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