The protagonist, Xuanxin, was once a good-for-nothing young novice monk at the rundown Jialan Temple, so inept he couldn't even sweep the floor clean. He endured contempt from all sides, and was even forcibly jilted by a powerful cultivation clan. Yet his gentle smile and parting words, “Take care, benefactor. I pray you reach the Pure Land soon,” quietly opened the door to memories of a past life and the supreme teachings of Buddhism.
Awakening that very night, he took up a fragment of the Great Sun Tathagata Sutra and embarked on the path of cultivation through “merit,” forging a way unlike any before. A hundred years of bitter cultivation meant less than his delivering a single evil spirit; purifying the dead of an entire city even summoned the Eight Legions of Heavenly Dragons to protect him. He proclaimed, “To kill is to protect life; to sever karma is not to kill people.” With thunderous methods and a merciful heart, he was branded a heretic by traditional Buddhism and repeatedly persecuted.
As his strength grew, Xuanxin gradually discovered that the truth of the world was far more complicated than it seemed. The System of reincarnation was being manipulated, and all living beings were trapped in a cage. The mastermind behind it all pointed to the Buddha said to have created everything. More shocking still, Xuanxin's own past life had been the “Asura King,” a master of the Avici Purgatory who had wrought slaughter on a colossal scale.
Half Buddha, half demon, neither wholly righteous nor wholly evil. Xuanxin treads upon red lotuses of karmic fire, holding a fragment of the Godslaying Spear, and vows to use the golden light of merit in his hands to illuminate the darkness of the heavens, deliver all from their obsessions, and cut down the demons of the heart. From a lowly temple sweeper, he battles through Buddha's realm, storms the demon lands, uncovers conspiracies, and debates Brahma, until at last he faces the Creator Buddha and asks a question that shakes the myriad worlds: “You created reincarnation to imprison all living beings, yet you do not understand: the suffering of all beings is the very lamp of the Buddha's heart.”
This is a defiant path to enlightenment through merit, a journey to deliver the world from suffering with the lamp of the heart.
It has quite a cultural heritage. It would be great if it could be spoken in vernacular, after all, it needs to be understood by the general public 😄😄
After listening to it for two hours, I felt depressed.
I read two chapters, the writing is good. It should be suitable for those who are calm and thoughtful to read slowly.
This is the most eloquent novel I have ever read