Master Youtan sat in the farmhouse courtyard, waiting for the old woman to prepare a vegetarian meal for him.
He knew the other three had only shallow karmic ties with sentient beings, and their alms-seeking trips would likely come to nothing. He was probably their only chance.
It was not that he was unwilling to stay. Once Buddhist cultivation reached their level, staying or leaving depended entirely on karmic affinity: where there was affinity, they stayed; where there was none, they left.
Just as Shakyamuni Buddha had appeared in this world all those years ago not because he wanted to appear, but because the karmic ties between him and the sentient beings of this world had ripened, and so he had come naturally.
He watched the old woman carefully scrub the pot and chop the vegetables. They were all greens grown in the fields, prepared using the simplest cooking methods, yet she worked with utmost care and devotion.
Master Youtan felt that this attempt to forge a karmic connection would probably succeed. If it did, he would remain and continue passing down the Buddhist teachings in this world.
That would not be bad, either. The more karmic connections he forged and the more teachings he spread, the greater his merit.
There were so many Buddhas throughout the ten directions and the three ages, all equal in their cultivation realms. Their differences lay in the kinds and numbers of sentient beings with whom they had formed karmic ties. Some Buddhas specialized in delivering beings from the animal realm, others from the hungry ghost path.
Among them, Amitabha had attained infinite longevity and could radiate infinite light because he traveled between worlds and had formed karmic ties with the greatest variety and number of sentient beings.
All those his Buddha light could