Nirvana Is Here

The great river stretched toward the wilderness, alive with the clamor of human voices.

Small boats stirred ripples across the water, while fish leapt beneath the nets.

Bright Buddha walked along the riverbank, looking no different from an ordinary monk. He wore tattered robes, carried a broken staff, and followed an ordinary road for a stretch.

Nothing about him seemed unusual, and no one cast him a second glance.

This ordinariness was, in truth, anything but ordinary.

Yet the peace and serenity here were genuine.

Bright Buddha continued on foot. He crossed the lower river, then the middle river, and finally looked up to see the lotus blossoms of the upper river, still waiting to bloom, filling the waterways as far as the eye could see. Their emerald greenery brimmed with vitality.

Beside the river stood a fairly large temple, though its incense offerings were sparse.

Bright Buddha understood at once. A faint smile appeared on his face, and without hesitation, he walked into the temple.

Blue-green tiles covered the roof, while the great doors were painted vermilion.

Rough wooden pillars were entwined by five-clawed wooden dragons.

Above the main hall hung four bold characters: Hall of the Great Hero.

There was no incense burner here. The few worshipers merely clasped their hands and softly recited their wishes.

Bright Buddha’s gaze swept across the hall, but he found no monks. Instead, several common folk were wiping the slightly dusty altars with ordinary rags.

He raised his eyes and looked at the dignified Buddha statue. It did not resemble anyone in particular—its eyes were simply eyes, its nose simply a nose. The smaller Buddha statues below had identical faces, as though they were merely half-sized versions of the great Buddha.

The Buddha has no fixed form.

Bright Buddha’s gaze continued to wander until it fell upon a passage of scripture carved into the red wall beside him.

The contents were familiar: a passage of Mahayana Buddhist teachings, doctrines the Buddhist sect had banned and suppressed to this day.

Bright Buddha gave a soft laugh and shook his head. Then he raised a hand. Golden Buddhist light flowed over his body, and several Buddhist hands emerged, protecting all the commoners and worshipers within the temple before sending every one of them outside.

A radiance descended from the heavens, enveloping the entire temple.

Standing beneath the Buddha statue, Bright Buddha spoke gently.

“I have kept you waiting. I’ve only just come today.”

The next moment, the statue erupted in golden light. Its compassionate gaze lifted toward Bright Buddha, who stood before it.

A strange smile appeared on the statue’s face, and a hoarse voice spoke.

“It has not been long. If the Venerable One asked me to wait for eternity, that would still not be long.”

Bright Buddha did not beat around the bush.

“Since I have come to see you in person, why have you not come to meet me in person?”

The statue did not answer. Its compassionate gaze rested on Bright Buddha for a long while.

Then, in the next instant, the statue returned to its original position.

Outside the temple gates, the voice of a young man rang out.

“Venerable One, please withdraw your divine power and allow me to enter.”

Bright Buddha raised a hand. The radiance scattered, and his eyes turned toward the newcomer.

“Bore. It has indeed been a long time.”

“It has been a long time since anyone called me by that Buddhist name.” Wearing yellow monastic robes, Boluo walked slowly inside, his eyes fixed on Bright Buddha’s gaunt figure. “Now they all call me Boluo.”

Bright Buddha’s gaze shifted to a passage from the Mahayana teachings written on the wall.

“Things happened so suddenly back then. It was as though we reached the moment of choice in the blink of an eye. Were you the one who pushed everything forward?”

Boluo looked upon someone he had spent years gazing up to, and his voice was filled with regret.

“Yes. Your talent, Venerable One, frightened me beyond measure. In the end, I did not dare let even a single thread of it escape. Even when you ordered me to eradicate it all back then, I could not bear to do so.”

Bright Buddha asked softly, “How did you know I would come here?”

“I cannot know you completely.” Boluo sighed faintly, then allowed a hint of pride to enter his tone. “Although Chu Xingchen acts in strange and unpredictable ways, and many things cannot be judged by common sense…”

“But I always felt that as long as one was human, one would naturally choose what seemed most suitable—the choice least likely to go wrong.”

“For that reason, I left behind Buddha statues in Xiniu Hezhou. I left behind the power of vows. I left behind the lotus pond.”

“Each thing I left behind was something that needed to be left behind. After leaving so many of them, I finally brought you here once.”

“No one could have been more suited to come here than you.”

“Now that you have come, I feel Chu Xingchen is not quite so impossible to fathom, nor quite so impossible to defeat.”

Bright Buddha raised the wooden staff in his hand and pointed it directly at Boluo.

“After emerging into the world, I spent a long time recovering. Even if True Immortal Bai Xuanling were here today, I would not fear him. Tell me—which do you think it is? That I cannot bring myself to strike, or that you believe you can leave here alive?”

The smile on Boluo’s face suddenly twisted into something savage. His eyes filled with feverish desire.

“I have studied your Mahayana teachings deeply, Venerable One. There are parts I accept, and parts I do not. Today, I wish to ask you one question.”

“The common people of this lotus pond live peacefully under my rule, free from conflict with the outside world. I would not call their lives happy and perfect, but they do enjoy a measure of carefree peace.”

“According to your Mahayana teachings, are you willing to let these people die here in order to kill me? Or will you let me leave for their sake?”

“Today, I will stake my life on the answer.”

Bright Buddha thrust out his wooden staff. Brilliant radiance swept forward, without the slightest hesitation in either his movement or his voice.

“Even boundless compassion may make mistakes. Killing and arson are not necessarily wrong.”

“As for karma, even my own understanding of it is no more than mist swirling in the dark.”

“But I know that I am in the wrong. I will bear all these sins myself. On the day I transform into a Buddha-realm, I will absolve them of their crimes.”

The radiance pierced straight through Boluo’s abdomen. He raised a hand, trying to block it with golden light, but was blasted backward all the same, smashing through the lotus pond in the distance.

Bright Buddha’s body transformed into a streak of radiance. In the blink of an eye, he appeared before Boluo. He raised his wooden staff and brought it down. The radiance descended from the heavens, taking the form of a spear as it drove downward.

Boluo spat out blood. No longer daring to hold back, he released the power of his origin. It surged wildly, devouring and resisting the incoming attack. Crimson blood-source energy rose to meet it, dyeing the lotus river completely red.

Gritting his teeth, Boluo fought back.

“Everything here was built through my painstaking efforts. If you truly intend to kill me, then choose another place. Would that not better fulfill your compassion?”

Bright Buddha raised his staff again. Nine radiant lotus platforms burst from the earth, instantly enclosing Boluo’s body.

“Precisely because of compassion, I know what must be done—and what must not.”

Crimson origin power churned within the lotus platforms, and the radiant flowers surrounding Boluo began to crack apart.

Boluo’s voice echoed from within the flowers.

“Venerable One, do you know who understands you best?”

Bright Buddha remained silent. He merely tightened his grip on the wooden staff. In the blink of an eye, dazzling radiance gathered around it. Then he hurled the staff straight at Boluo.

Boom!

The radiant lotus flowers shattered, and the power of origin surged into the sky.

Boluo’s figure emerged. He held a long spear against the wooden staff hurtling toward him, stopping it in its tracks.

The two forces instantly became entangled in a deadly clash.

The lotus river was swept into turbulent waves, while the temple beside them had long since been reduced to rubble amid their battle.

“You know the answer.” Excitement still gleamed in Boluo’s eyes. “It’s me! I am the one who understands you best.”

Boluo studied Bright Buddha’s gaunt body and face.

“I knew I would never discover that you had come here, but I also knew that you would reveal yourself and let me see you.”

“Because you want to resolve Chu Xingchen’s predicament, and you want to resolve your junior brother’s predicament as well.”

“You found me here. To enter nirvana in this place—that is the solution you have chosen in your heart.”