Beneath the silent moonlight, the rear mountain was like a realm of death.
Outside the great hall of unknown age stood six Malevolent Ghosts. They all wore the monastic robes and hats they had worn in life, but their faces bore the expressions of ferocious deities.
A single glance was enough to frighten the soul out of anyone.
Let alone now, when they were clinging tightly to the outside of the hall, trying to burrow inside.
Inside the hall, however.
The light of the burning candles was like a curtain, enveloping the entire hall in warmth.
It kept those six Malevolent Ghosts, each over twelve feet tall, from entering.
Lu Feng sat upright within, reciting the Six-Syllable Great Brightness Mantra, and once again sensed the bindu in the chakra below his navel.
There was no dazed trance, only a gradual immersion.
He felt himself within a kind of "great luminosity."
All around him, golden light mingled with white, enfolding him as softly as water.
Within this light, he had neither worry nor terror, only a great joy arising from his heart, a joy that human language could neither express nor describe.
So he opened his mouth, wishing to say something.
In the end, however, only six syllables emerged.
They were the Six-Syllable Great Brightness Mantra.
"Om mani padme hum."
Great luminosity manifested.
Great wisdom manifested.
Supreme innate wisdom manifested.
Lu Feng held his hands in position as he recited the mantra. Ever since the great eruption of his bindu in the rear courtyard of the Debate Hall yesterday, he had, for reasons he did not understand, constantly felt warmth throughout his body. This was the power of the body hidden deep within him.
Born from his chakras and flowing throughout his entire body, it was a kind of great liberation power.
Cultivated to its utmost, it would bring great liberation.
And added to that was the "Six-Syllable Great Brightness Mantra."
Lu Feng did not know where he was, either. He saw only that the bindu which had burst open before his eyes with a boom had now become a luminous jewel. The surrounding light and flames burned ceaselessly toward that single jewel.
They became roaring flames.
Yet they had none of the sensation of roaring fire.
Instead, there was a kind of chill.
Like the moon between his brows.
As this thought arose, Lu Feng looked up and truly saw a moon in the sky.
The luminous jewel before him absorbed all the power and slowly rose.
Beside that moon, it became a sun.
Then the sun gradually went out.
It became a seed.
Lu Feng did not know where he was. He felt only as though he were lying in amniotic fluid, with no need to breathe or think.
It was a feeling like returning to the womb.
Flames and light converged from every direction, gathering within this sun, while Lu Feng recited the mantra.
"Om mani padme hum."
"Om mani padme hum."
"Om mani padme hum."
Countless recitations of the Six-Syllable Great Brightness Mantra issued from his mouth, until the luminous jewel above his head suddenly gave a loud, crisp crack.
Like something breaking out of its shell.
Like greenery bursting from a seed in the bitterest depths of winter, unfurling a green shoot.
Like a faint green shoot emerging and breaking through the killing cold of winter.
In Lu Feng, this manifested as his eyes suddenly opening, while the great resonance of compassion rippled out from his body, washing over his surroundings like a tide.
Within his abdomen, below his navel, a lotus slowly blossomed. This was not an immovable mind, but a "compassionate mind."
There were no hand seals, but there were secret mantras and sacred utterances, as well as a "compassionate mind." Here in this Ancient Hall, before he had cultivated an "immovable mind," a chance convergence of conditions had brought him a "compassionate mind."
As he moved the beads between his hands, the lingering resonance left by the Kapala rosary completed a special "empowerment." This Kapala rosary was the ritual implement for that "empowerment," and what it poured into him was the many years of cultivation of these great monks.
Even though they had been tortured into Malevolent Ghosts, suppressed and harmed lifetime after lifetime, one of the fruits of those six great monks' lifelong cultivation had still fallen into Lu Feng's hands-to be precise, it had been stripped away by the Abbot Venerable. Their original selves had been reduced to Malevolent Ghosts, their cultivation turned into spiritual provisions to benefit his own people.
It had originally been intended for Zhiyun, but unfortunately, Zhiyun lacked the requisite affinity and could not obtain this opportunity, so it had gone to Lu Feng.
Lu Feng had seized it.
Ignoring the six Malevolent Ghosts outside, he lowered his head to look at the Kapala rosary in his hands.
A Kapala rosary was not a human-bone rosary; a Kapala rosary had its own special significance.
Skull implements already possessed a special significance in the Secret Dharma Region. As part of the skull, brow bones made into a Kapala rosary naturally carried a special meaning. They were what was called "living," vessels for the transmission of wisdom and experience. Lu Feng did not know how sublime his "Six-Syllable Great Brightness Mantra" had become, either.
Perhaps it could be called a single lotus petal?
Lu Feng's mood improved considerably. He glanced outside at the six Malevolent Ghosts, then at the flame he was protecting, and suddenly recalled what Master Zhuogedunzhu had said when telling him to light the offerings.
"Burn. Imagine there is a ball of fire. Burn."
Imagine there is a ball of fire.
Burn!
Six-Syllable Great Brightness Mantra.
Supreme great luminosity.
A luminous flame blazed out from between Lu Feng's brows, burning toward the Malevolent Ghosts outside in the form of a "Fire Offering." It seemed he meant to ritually refine this band of Malevolent Ghosts through a Fire Offering!
At the same time, a layer of luminous fire suddenly blazed over the entire Ancient Hall, almost lighting up the rear mountain.
As the flames rose, Lu Feng suddenly felt that he might have been somewhat hasty.
He had no root Lama.
That also meant he had no one to tell him many things that were basic knowledge within their circle.
So he had set this place alight.
This was no Ancient Hall.
This was a mandala!
Inside a mandala, he had initiated a Fire Offering.
Nor was Zhiyun to blame for this. Even if Zhiyun had racked his brains to pieces, he could never have imagined someone performing a "Fire Offering" within an already "abandoned" mandala without having received empowerment or the guidance of a Lama.
With compassionate resonance and the firelight of great luminosity, he had ignited this long-abandoned "mandala."
More importantly, what was his "Fire Offering" offering to?
Whom was it honoring?
At the foot of the mountain, someone had already noticed when the flames began to burn. By the time more people noticed, it was already too late.
The Abbot Venerable was not in the monastery.
The great monks of the Ming Generation were now the monastery's true masters. The Abbot Venerable had left behind his "will," which these great monks of the Ming Generation carried out and administered. Zhiyun had also remained in the monastery, so when he saw the flames on the rear mountain, he did not understand what had happened.
He could not go to the rear mountain, either-it had been locked.
After the Abbot Venerable left, although nothing had been said, everyone felt that the atmosphere within the monastery had grown more forbidding. This was especially so with some Dharma Protector Monks having stayed behind. The Dharma Protector Monks walked and patrolled outside throughout the night.
So even though he saw something unusual on the rear mountain.
Zhiyun still could not go out.
Only those of the Ming Generation elders' rank, those Monastic Officials who held the monastery's lifeblood in their hands, could go and investigate.
Looking toward that place, Elder Mingfa suddenly said, "If I remember correctly, isn't that where Kalyāṇamitras of the sixth stage of the gradual path learn the 'immovable mind'?"
After receiving an answer, Elder Mingfa said calmly, "Lock every entrance. Never mind the other places, but here in our Scripture Institute, no one may leave without my written order."
He emphasized, "Not even Zhiyun."
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