Chapter 38:

Chapter 38:

Diet Therapy (2)

After the agreed seven weeks had passed, Mu-jin was able to pass on the treatment processes to Beob Geon somewhat satisfactorily.

After all, electrotherapy and heat therapy were the domains of Hyun Gong and Hye-dam, and having observed for the past two months, Beob Geon could at least mimic acupressure and the Close-Range Spear Technique to some extent.

In the end, excluding manual therapy, he was able to pass on just a few physical therapy exercises over the seven weeks.

And Hyun-gwang, who started eating meat with porridge, was now able to eat almost unseasoned boiled meat.

Thanks to Mu-jin’s meticulous care or perhaps because of eating meat, there was a slight change in Hyun-gwang’s blocked pathways.

After spending those seven weeks,

‘It’s been a long time since I’ve been here.’

Mu-jin found himself entering the cave designated for wall-facing meditation, a place he had been dragged to during his early disciple days.

His period of wall-facing meditation was set for one month.

Moreover, for Abbot Hyun Cheon, who had agreed to take the punishment with him,

“Let’s go in.”

Unfortunately for Mu-jin, he had to accompany him.

‘This is a disaster.’

Mu-jin planned to enjoy a wall-facing meditation that was not quite wall-facing, much like the last time.

Ideally, he would strengthen his body, practice martial arts, hunt animals at night, and eat them. That was the kind of wall-facing meditation he had in mind.

However, now that he was with Hyun Cheon, it seemed he would have to truly spend a month just facing the wall.

Eventually, with a face like a pig being led to slaughter, Mu-jin entered the wall-facing cave with Hyun Cheon.

And just as Mu-jin had anticipated, as soon as Hyun Cheon entered the cave, he immediately sat down in a full lotus position.

Sitting with his eyes half-open, Hyun Cheon began reciting sutras.

“Mahāprajñāpāramitāhṛdaya Sūtra, Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva......”

[7:50 PM]

Despite being right next to him, the sutra recitation was barely audible, floating softly in the air. Listening to it, Mu-jin thought,

‘Weren’t you not supposed to talk during wall-facing?’

Mu-jin was certain that was the rule.

‘Hmm? Since wall-facing is also a form of Buddhist practice, maybe reciting sutras is allowed?’

Well, as the abbot, Hyun Cheon certainly knew the rules better than Mu-jin, a third-class disciple.

Mu-jin convincingly thought so and started to stare blankly at the wall.

Along with the thought that he was going to waste an entire month for nothing.

Just as he was aimlessly passing the time,

“Ying cloud, this life’s heart...... Form is emptiness, emptiness is form......”

Mu-jin, catching something odd in Hyun Cheon’s murmuring sutras, found it peculiar.

‘What’s going on? Why are the sutras all mixed up?’

Even if Mu-jin didn’t have a great interest in Buddhism, he had been a novice disciple for a year and ten months, and spent three months as a third-class disciple, during which he was forced to learn a considerable number of sutras.

In addition to that, as all of Shaolin’s martial arts techniques were based on Buddhist scriptures, Mu-jin had to read through all the sutras to learn the martial arts.

But as he listened closely, the sutras that Abbot Hyun Cheon was reciting were all jumbled up.

He would switch from the Heart Sutra to the Diamond Sutra abruptly, then from the Diamond Sutra to the Lotus Sutra and Avatamsaka Sutra, and then back to the Diamond Sutra again.

Even the verses weren’t starting from the beginning but were seemingly chosen at random by Abbot Hyun Cheon.

‘Wait a minute?’

It didn’t take long for Mu-jin to find a pattern in the chaotic mix of verses.

‘They’re all verses I’m familiar with?’

To be precise, they were verses from the techniques he knew. The Xiao Hong Quan, Autumn Wind Leg, Nine Palace Steps, Arhat Palm, Stone-crushing Finger, Avalokiteshvara Hand, and Vajra Fist were all mentioned.

‘Could it be...?’

Mu-jin, with a thought, focused more on the recitation of Abbot Hyun Cheon.

As he aligned his internal energy with the sequence of verses recited by Abbot Hyun Cheon, he visualized in his mind how they might connect.

‘The front part is the first sequence of the Revolving Fist Technique, a straight punch, and the back part is the third sequence of the Autumn Wind Leg, a left kick. Ah, so to connect these two movements, you insert the essence of the Vajra Fist in the middle?’

To be exact, it was a straight punch and sidekick that Mu-jin had created himself.

Although the forms were from the first sequence of the Revolving Fist Technique and the third sequence of the Autumn Wind Leg, he was using the essence of all the martial arts he had learned.

He had even succeeded in incorporating the essence of the Vajra Fist into each movement with the help of Hyun-gwang and Hye-geol.

The only problem was that while he had succeeded in incorporating the essence into each movement, the movements did not flow naturally from one to the next.

[7:53 PM]

But now, Abbot Hyun Cheon was providing a method to connect these joints through the sutra verses.

Mu-jin concentrated on the sutra verses recited by Abbot Hyun Cheon and organized the essence in his mind.

However, he was not content to sit and merely organize the essence. Naturally, Mu-jin felt an itch to move.

‘Is it okay to stand up?’

What is asceticism? It is for gaining enlightenment and to forget desires and worldly distractions.

Yet, why had he become so fixated on the asceticism itself? Why did he merely follow it because it was Shaolin’s tradition?

What is truly important is not the outward appearance, but the underlying intention.

It was almost laughable that he had tried to explain this to Mu-jin, his junior great-granddisciple, as if he knew better.

“Amitabha.”

Hyun-gwang, who had recited the sutra deeply, now sat in a lotus position and closed his eyes gently.

Even with his eyes closed, the image of the courtyard he had just been observing remained vivid in his mind.

[8:04 PM]

Even if the courtyard and buildings were to disappear one day, they would remain within his mind.

Even if unseen, they existed, and even if they ceased to exist, they could be seen.

Form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.

The world has always been such, what then had bound him?

“Gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā.”

With his eyes closed, Hyun-gwang continued to recite the sutra deeply.

‘Ah... I, too, was bound by that day thirty years ago.’

The day when the demon cult’s elite forces attacked.

The day he lost his martial arts, became a cripple, and could no longer walk on his own.

Although he constantly reassured the countless people worried about him that he was fine, deep down, he harbored a profound sadness.

His mind, as high as the heavens, understood Shaolin’s martial arts and sutras, but his heart, heavy with resentment, could not accept their content.

Even though all the words written there told him the answer lay within himself, he had only tried to find the answer in the words.

In the moment he realized the truth, he was able to shed a layer of the chains that bound him.

Already his five senses and mind had merged, and his heart and technique reached Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi, the unsurpassed, proper and equal, right enlightenment.

His body, which had been unable to even walk on its own, had regained stability through Mu-jin’s treatment.

The only thing lacking was that, due to his shattered Danjeon, he could no longer contain Qi in his body.

“Ha ha ha. That too is a form of persistence.”

With so many streams of energy flowing through this world, how could one try to contain them within the tiny confines of a human body?

Hyun-gwang, with a gentle smile on his face and his eyes closed, was engulfed by the wind, which then began to produce a golden radiance.

“Ma, Master Uncle!?”

Beob Geon, who was watching the spectacle from the side, exclaimed with a face full of shock.

As he walked out to the grand hall on his own, what kind of harmony was this?

Meanwhile, the radiance around him grew only denser.

“What, what, what is happening!?”

Naturally, the Shaolin temple was in chaos.

“Could it be... Abbot Hyun-gwang has reached Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi?”

Hyun Gong, who had used all his strength to rush to Hyun-gwang’s hall after seeing the golden radiance, muttered in astonishment.

Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi, when translated into Chinese characters, means unsurpassed, proper and equal, right enlightenment – signifying that one has awakened to the highest truth in the world.

It meant that Hyun-gwang was in the process of attaining Buddhahood.

“Amitabha.”

“Amitabha.”

Hyun Gong, along with a few other high-ranking Shaolin monks who had arrived at Hyun-gwang’s hall, chanted briefly towards the golden-lit Abbot.

“!?”

The golden radiance surrounding Hyun-gwang began to fade, and as if it were a mirage, completely disappeared.

With a flash.

[8:24 PM]

Hyun-gwang, who had been smiling peacefully with his eyes closed, opened his eyes.

“...Abbot, have you attained great enlightenment?”

Hyun Gong, who was the highest ranking after the abbot and senior brothers, asked, and Hyun-gwang answered with a mysterious look on his face.

“I have merely felt in my heart what I knew in my head.”

“!!!”

It seemed like a trivial remark, but all the high monks gathered in Hyun-gwang’s hall could tell that Abbot Hyun-gwang had reached an elevated realm.

“But why...”

“Ha ha ha. Is it not because there is still an unresolved matter?”

In response to Hyun Gong’s question, Hyun-gwang again gave an answer resembling a Zen dialogue.

Although Hyun-gwang, intoxicated by enlightenment, was letting go of all his worldly worries and obsessions, there remained just one thing he could not let go of, which is why he remained here.