The Road to the Past, the Golden Hall of Ten Thousand Buddhas, and the Blood-Burning Bronze Lamp

"Thus, in an age long past, the monk Gongnengguang... Ali Miluo offered a lamp to Lena Shizhi, honoring the Fixed Light..."

"A novice bowed before the Buddha, offering five metals, five skins, and five layers of scripture to the Fixed Light, along with a lotus of five stalks. The Fixed Light foretold his destiny and passed on the complete principles of the Dharma to guide him..."

Inside the resplendent Buddha hall, gilded vermilion pillars rose like a forest to support the roof. Lamps shone everywhere. Across rows of golden-bronze lampstands, their light spread far and wide, radiant with Buddha light. A careful count would have found a full 129,000.

Lampstands stood beneath the pillars and before the painted walls. They filled the corridors, every corner of the hall, and the three-tiered dais deep within it, piled so high their brilliance dazzled the eye.

Images of bodhisattvas and Arhats were carved into the walls on either side. None of them existed in the present age of the All Heavens and Myriad Worlds. They looked more like Pure Yang cultivators of the Buddhist Sect from the previous Upper Origin Assembly, or even the one before that.

The bodhisattvas and Arhats on the walls wore different expressions and held different ritual implements. Crowds of Venerables and Kings Ming surrounded them. Their Dharma Images shone with light, their Precious Forms solemn and imposing, yet all looked toward the same place: the three-tiered dais deep within the hall.

On that dais sat an old monk with kindly eyes, long white brows, and a flowing beard. He sat cross-legged upon a five-stalk lotus platform. Buddhist flames burned fiercely at his brow and on both shoulders, pouring out light that shone on all things. They seemed to illuminate the heavens and pierce the universe, like a Buddhist