Because I cultivated Buddhism on my own and awakened to the Dao. I had not learned at any master's side. So in my understanding, there was no such thing as gods or Buddhas blessing me.
There was only: As Urgent as the Law Commands! Don't fucking let that ghost get away! Or sometimes: Amitabha, gods, move aside and let me go first.
What fucking terror? What fear? They were all here to help me achieve something.
When I encountered ghosts, they were there to help me practice how to catch ghosts.
When I encountered gods, they were there to help me learn how to cultivate energy.
Whatever the fuck I encountered, I used it. There was no difference.
I wasn't saying all those teachers who talked about cultivation were bad. Some were good, but you had to know how to listen.
And plenty of them used stories as metaphors, what was also called expedient speech.
When all was said and done, the crux of the matter lay in one's own heart.
Otherwise?
This one told you worshipping gods was useful; that one told you that if ghosts were haunting you, you had to burn money.
Fuck, let me say this: ordinary people barely had enough money for themselves. Who the fuck were they supposed to burn money for? It was already good enough if ghosts didn't rob them!
Of course, robbing money from people was definitely not okay. It went against the rules and broke the law. We had to be good citizens who obeyed the law.
But robbing money from ghosts and gods—who was going to police that? Since the law didn't say I couldn't rob ghosts of their money, then I could, right?
Fuck, when you saw a ghost, slap it across the face twice first and ask whether it knew you. If it knew you, then don't move! If it didn't, I'd make sure it got to know me today!
Heaven and Earth are boundless, all laws return to one. At my command, all things submit; Gods and Devils surrender. As Urgent as the Law Commands! Fuck your mother!
"Slap slap slap slap slap slap!" First, give it a good round of face-slaps.
All of you reading my book and cultivating with me, remember this! Don't be model citizens of the cultivation world! Be bandits and robbers in the cultivation world—rob them, then bring blessings to mankind.
Blow the fucking charge horn for me! Beat them up first, then rob them.
Ghost money was good stuff. You could get things done with it down below.
Let me tell you, I was a dignified drifter of the cultivation world. Did you really think I'd let you people bully me?
Motherfucker, this human world was not a place for you to flaunt your ferocity. If you wouldn't stay obediently down below, and still dared come up here to harm people—
Then I'd show you what the bandit leader of the cultivation world was.
You wouldn't give me money, yet you still wanted to show off in front of me? I think you fucking don't want to be a ghost anymore, huh? Huh? Fuck!
If you gave me money, then I'd fucking have money. Which meant you definitely couldn't show off in front of me either!
Otherwise, I'd fucking whip you to death!
Why don't you go ask around! Which ghost that crossed my path didn't end up getting bullied by me?
If I didn't fucking bully you, wouldn't all my cultivation have been for nothing?
Besides! Who told you to come spew bullshit in front of me?
The Sword Immortal lineage I founded specialized in slaughtering demons with the sword of thought. If I didn't take you down, who would I take down?
Since ancient times, righteousness and evil had never stood together. Asking me to burn money for you was absolutely impossible—unless you first fucking kowtowed to me eighteen hundred times. Then I might consider burning ten dollars' worth of paper for you. But! I couldn't guarantee that I wouldn't rob you after burning the money! You'd better weigh it carefully!
Cultivation was originally an act of defying Heaven, fighting for the spirit Qi between Heaven and Earth. Ghosts were fucking one kind of spirit Qi too, also called ghost Qi.
It was already good enough that I didn't fucking eat ghosts. Ahem, ahem. So what if I robbed ghosts of a little money?
Other people might cultivate to become immortals and attain the Dao! But not me!
I cultivated to rob ghosts and gods, to rob immortals.
Hahahaha, the whole point was doing whatever I pleased, acting as I pleased.
If I ran into a ghost, I'd walk right up and hit it with Divine Troops, As Urgent as the Law Commands, reward it with a few face-slaps first, then turn thought into a sword and slash it a couple of times.
But remember this: if the ghost of an elder from your Household came to you in a dream, don't hit it! Burn paper if you should burn paper; that was filial piety. And your own family members weren't called ghosts—they were called ancestors. Ancestors were equal to ancestral immortals. Hahaha. (But if one you had a bad relationship with came to bully you, hit it all the same! Play the cultivation world's ways of human relations crystal clear!)
Even if a heart demon came, it had to behave itself for me. If I didn't use it to sharpen my sword a little, it wasn't going anywhere. Let me tell you, it used to come make trouble in my heart all the time. I hadn't even charged it rent, and it still dared come back? Catch it, and it got a vicious beating.
When ordinary people's heart demons came, this upset them, that made them suffer. My heart demons didn't dare come. If one came, I'd fuck it up. I'd materialize it inside my heart, soak a little whip in chili water, teach it a lesson first, then turn thought into a sword and poke it a few times so it knew who was in charge.
What fucking distracting thoughts and troubles? Wipe them all out, understand?
You were the master of your own thoughts. Were you really going to let them bully you?
They made you upset, so you got upset? They made you suffer, so you suffered? You wouldn't beat them?
Sure, you couldn't beat people. But if your own thoughts refused to behave, wouldn't you straighten them out?
Whenever you saw some broad having wicked thoughts, beat those wicked thoughts up first!
Whenever some painful memory came to mind, ask it first who told it to come up. If you didn't tell it to think, then it thought on its own—beat it for me.
What did it mean when the heart died and the Dao was born? First beat to death all those distracting thoughts in your heart that caused you pain and trouble. Then you'd have the Dao.
If some thought in your heart caused you pain, then destroy that thought.
If thinking of something made you afraid, then destroy that thought too!
Destroy it, and you were a god. Keep destroying it, and it wouldn't dare come make you suffer again.
Your thoughts were your ingrained habits, and ingrained habits were fucking bullies who feared the strong and preyed on the weak.
If you were strong, they were weak. If you were weak, they were strong.
Only by wiping out all those chaotic distracting thoughts could you become yourself.
If you didn't believe me, look at rich people. They lacked nothing, right? Yet they had just as many troubles and pains.
That was because they too were tormented by all kinds of messy, chaotic distracting thoughts.
If you could avoid being disturbed by your own thoughts, then you had surpassed 99.999 percent of the people in this world.
There were far too few people in this world who could truly be called people—or rather, who could live as their true selves.
Because their minds had been obscured.
Guan Zizai, Guan Zizai—only when a person could first observe the freedom within their own heart could they become their true self.
A flurry of disturbances, disturbances in a flurry; today's wine could not dispel yesterday's sorrow, and today's sorrow needed no wine from another day.
Only by observing yourself in the present and freeing your heart from the disturbances of thought was there any better cultivation for a human being.
Otherwise, the story that made you bitter today would still make your heart ache in the future.
Only by first learning to save oneself could one escape the sea of suffering.
Giving someone fish was better than teaching them how to fish. If even my explanation could not help you escape the sea of suffering, then read it a few more times and slowly come to understand it.
When you were bored, you could study what the Heart Sutra or the Platform Sutra were actually talking about.
Don't listen to those fools telling you that you had to read this scripture, listen to that one, and copy them out over and over.
Those were idiots of the highest order. Someone who truly understood the Dharma would explain the scriptures and discuss their principles with you; they wouldn't merely make you copy this and memorize that without telling you what they were actually talking about.
Just remember one thing: all scriptures spoke of the same thing. They all described the laws and states of the mind.
For example: Guan Zizai Bodhisattva, when practicing the profound Prajna Paramita, perceived that the five aggregates were all empty and crossed beyond all suffering and calamity.
Guan Zizai, perceived, the five aggregates were all empty, crossed beyond all suffering and calamity.
What freedom did Guan Zizai observe? What did "perceived" mean? What did it mean that the five aggregates were all empty? And how did that cross beyond all suffering and calamity?