This bowl was extraordinary.
Though plain in appearance, seeming at first glance to be nothing more than an ordinary smooth bronze alms bowl carried by monks for begging, if one examined its patterns closely, one would see tiny Sanskrit characters. Like dragons traversing the nine heavens, like drifting clouds spreading rain, they contained inexhaustible mysteries.
Sanskrit, like Qi script and Chu script, like the vast majority of widely circulated writings in the world, came only after Cangjie created characters, allowing even those who had not attained cultivation to expound the Dao.
Though personally made by the World-Honored One, it possessed no Supernatural Power and held no inherent might.
Yet every character flowing across this bowl was lively, as though born with spirit.
Even one who knew no Sanskrit whatsoever could comprehend its true meaning—
The patterns formed by those tiny Sanskrit characters upon the bronze bowl were in fact an inscribed scripture. Its title was: <The Buddha Speaks of the Scripture of Universal Emptiness, Universal Stillness, and the Extinction of Dharma>.
At the sudden sight of these words, each character seemed to strike the bowl, and a Zen resonance entered the ears.
The bowl's sound rang for ten thousand years upon ten thousand years, even unto the endless Age of Dharma Decline!
"Hearing thus, the World-Honored One shed tears.
Seeing thus, the World-Honored One fell silent.
Knowing thus, the World-Honored One passed into stillness.
Attaining thus, I bear witness to this.
In the kalpa of Dharma Decline, snakes and rats feast, wild grasses dwell in temples. Ghosts and phantoms don kasayas, Holy Buddhas shriek madly.
After Bodhi dies, wisdom is obscured, and all numinous Dharma is lost. All sentient beings sink together, and Zen sounds fall forever silent.
Only then do we know that today's karma forms the fruit of