Almighty painter

Chapter 508 Flame
"Peace...isn't peace good? Peace is the ultimate pleasure of the soul."

The monk smiled faintly, "How can the wealth and splendor of this world be endless? The happiness brought by a busy life may not be higher than the tranquility brought by a moment of quiet contemplation."

"Even emperors and generals are still worthless in the face of the ultimate fear of death. Only by letting the spirit transcend the troubles of the world can we achieve great freedom and liberation."

"Mr. Gu, let me think about it. If I am not mistaken, you should be of Chinese descent, right?"

The monk turned his head and looked at Gu Weijing.

The tone was both probing and determined.

"Did you hear it from the last name? Or do you know how to read faces?" Gu Weijing raised his eyebrows, "But if you calculated it, you really did it right. Your ancestor was a court painter of the Qing Dynasty. He lived in the 19th century At that time, I came to settle in Yangon, which was more than a hundred years ago for me.”

"There are millions of people in Myanmar who have the surname of Dong Xia. I didn't know it from this, nor from face. I just heard it, but it's not difficult."

The young monk shook his head.

"Hometown is hometown, the cultural seed of a place. As long as it is still rooted in your heart, you are from that place. It has nothing to do with whether you have been away for a hundred years. As long as you encounter the sunshine and soil, you will Take root in an instant.”

"Of course hard work is a virtue, but don't you think that this attitude towards life, well... to use a popular term on TIKTOK, this philosophy of life is really too 'volumetric'?"

The monk seemed to be sharing the story he had just heard with Gu Weijing, and seemed to be advising him to become enlightened.

"Work hard, run hard, work hard, as if the next moment is the end of the world, and you have to have thousands of troops to cross the single-plank bridge first. But after all, people can't live like cattle! There are so many people in the world There are many more interesting things than work. The horizon of desire is a distant place that can never be reached, but the sunset and the starry sky are always there as long as you are willing to look up—"

This monk is quite fashionable.

"Shining impartially to everyone in the world."

"Buddha said that life and death are impermanent and come and go in an instant. If that's the case, why don't you learn to slow down? This really confuses me."

However, in Myanmar, Thailand, and Sri Lanka, there are also quite a few monks who use self-media.

The setting sun's rays of light were like a golden torrent, shining impartially on the monk's face.

The brilliant rays of the setting sun reflect thousands of rays of light from the golden body of the Shwedagon Pagoda.

"Look, the pair of Australian tourists just told me that they don't want to find jobs in big cities, and they don't want to spend their limited lives in the steel forest. They plan to go to the Croatian islands after graduating from college. Even if you work as a sailor, your salary can only be half or even one-third of what you get in a big city, but working there is like vacation, and vacation is like work... I think their life is very Zen-like. "

He stared at the gentle sunset for a moment.

The monk let out a long breath.

"From the moment I just talked to you, I was thinking that you must be a very hard-working person who is unwilling to accept everything around you. This is a typical Chinese temperament."

This young monk, whose facial features still look a little childish, actually feels a bit solemn at this moment.

The young monk looked up at the sun that was sliding into the horizon from the edge of the pagoda.

He looked obviously helpless, "—I have to work extremely hard even to be a monk, memorize scriptures and do my homework. With all due respect, if I want to take the exam among my senior brothers and get an opportunity to study abroad as an exchange student at a Buddhist college, it is comparable to It was too difficult before. You know, now we have Portuguese classes in the temple. One person has to do homework at midnight, so everyone has to do homework at midnight. "

"You are too focused on gaining something and too busy, so you may feel that it is difficult to understand that quietly looking at a painting and standing there for a day is practice."

"I studied the hardest when I was in school, got the highest marks on the exams, worked overtime until the last minute at work, ran factories and met customers seriously, and even became a monk——"

His eyebrows were lowered and he chanted the Buddha's name in a low voice.

It’s not strange at all to scroll through Tiktok. Now even in Baghdad, there are actually children who scroll through Tiktok every day.

He turned his head sideways.

"Probably only children from rich families in developed countries have enough confidence to say such things, and only..." Gu Weijing stopped mid-sentence.

"You want to say that only a monk who lives in a gorgeous building worth more than one billion US dollars, does not work in production, and makes alms for two meals a day can make such an arrogant statement?"

The monk raised his eyes, neither angry nor sullen, and asked him with a smile.

Gu Weijing thought for a while, but still did not answer directly. He just put his hand on his chest and said, "Master, you are really a practitioner with a broad mind. I admire you."

"Desire is the shackles that bind the soul and prevent it from running freely."

The monk persuaded softly.

"A good life always has a fascinating attraction. This is not only the life philosophy of many people, but also the responsibility of the family. Responsibility is the shackles of scalpers, but it is also the driving force for us to move forward." Gu Weijing spread out He said, "I live in a big family. From the moment I was born, my grandfather wanted me to become a great painter. This is his desire, and maybe it is my shackles as you said."

"But my grandfather is not a person who only puts shackles on his grandson. On the contrary, he is the one who picks up the plow and drags the family forward. He once worked as hard as you said. , He went to every possible client through thick and thin, just to send me to an international school to receive the best education he could provide.”

Gu Weijing's tone was also very gentle.

"My grandfather is getting old. I know it will be my turn to pull the cart soon, but I can't escape, and I don't want to escape at all."

"In our cultural tradition, people never live just for themselves."

"I have been riding on his bullock cart for eighteen years, so I must continue to move forward desperately. This is my responsibility. Maybe the horizon is an unreachable distance after all. Pulling a cart is a hard job, but if I would be happy to take one more step to get my family there. Our worldviews are different from those of the Australian brothers."

“Their lives may be really Zen-like, but to me, there are so many things in the world that need to change, and there are so many things that are better than going to Croatia, where finding a job is like a vacation, and a vacation is like the Italian way of working. A sentimental life is more important. From the moment I was born, I couldn’t change it.”

"No, Mr. Gu, you are too pretentious. I believe it is only about the heart and has nothing to do with what you have. It has nothing to do with whether your family is impoverished or rich. Was He born in Myanmar or Luxembourg? It doesn't matter. any relationship.”

The monk shook his head seriously.

"Belief is the most difficult thing in the world, and it is also the simplest thing in the world. If you feel that you can't let go, then you are worth hundreds of millions and still can't get rid of the busyness. If you feel that you can let go, then even if you lie down Even when you are dying of illness, you can gain a moment of peace."

He turned his head and looked into the distance.

As one of the most important sacred places for Buddhism in Southeast Asia. The Shwedagon Pagoda is almost always surrounded by believers coming to worship the Buddha.

Some of them were dressed in costumes, some were wearing cheap washed and discolored street-stall cultural shirts, some were carrying flowers, and they were praying devoutly in front of their own Buddhas, and some were walking slowly around the pagoda.

Some people just sit casually in front of one of the thousands of Buddhist sculptures under the tower.

It seems that he is chatting with Buddha and Bodhisattva.

There are still people queuing up.

Gu Weijing remembered that Miss Kou Kou had told him that many believers said that the Shwedagon Pagoda was very efficacious. Maybe they would queue up here all night just to ask for a string of talismans that could bring good luck. device.

They come from different classes and wear different clothes.

The only thing that's the same is.

These people all had a similar look of peace and calm on their faces.

"Coming to the Shwedagon Pagoda to worship the Buddha is a very sacred thing. Perhaps those clothes are already the best in their families." The monk looked at the simply dressed believers and said softly, "However, this does not prevent them from enjoying the tranquility. Fun. When they knelt down and prayed, everyone must believe from the bottom of their hearts that the Buddha really existed, and the Buddha also gave them a moment of spiritual peace and joy."

"Believe me, the vast majority of people here have the same family, and the vast majority of people are definitely not as well off as you. But they are also qualified to pursue inner peace and peace. I have met many, many people , carrying lunch in a small plastic basket, they came under the Shwedagon Pagoda, looked at the Buddha statue, and rested under the shade of the green trees at noon. A whole day passed here for them. , not an attraction, but a part of life.”

"There is no necessary relationship between inner relaxation and external life conditions. You just need to learn to accept it and extinguish the desire to torture you in your heart. Have you seen "Walden", where a person sits quietly in the mountains? Watching the sunrise and sunset, the lake water lapping at the shore, this is Buddhism, this is Zen.”

"Even in the deep mountains and old forests, wherever your mind goes, it is the Buddha's land. What does money have to do with it? People cannot change the environment forever. In the end, people must learn to accept the environment."

The monk put his hands together and sang a verse in Burmese.

Just like a wake-up call.

"When I first entered samadhi and determined to go to the Buddha and cut off all thoughts, my parents were frightened and almost collapsed. When I became a Buddha, I gained immeasurable wisdom and everyone was safe and happy."

"Mr. Gu, this is both self-cultivation and mind-cultivation. Do you understand?"

Gu Wei stared for a long time at the pedestrians passing by in the square under the setting sun.

He seemed to see the pious power of countless sentient beings gathering under the pagoda, like thousands of stars converging into a sea, turning into a light far brighter than the gold plated on the Shwedagon Pagoda.

He seemed to see it in his imagination.

Hundreds of thousands, millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people have knelt devoutly under the Shwedagon Pagoda over the past 2,500 years.

This scene may only be matched by a few religious holy places in the world.

When twenty-five centuries connected in imagination, it turned into one of the most spectacular events in the history of this blue planet.

This scene.

There is really an unspeakable shock.

But finally.

Gu Weijing still shook his head.

"Master, you see, this is the difference between our philosophical views. For me, what I let go of is not just desire, and what I accept is not just life. You told me to pursue peace and tranquility of the soul, but we don't have life. In a peaceful and peaceful land, there are endless wars, endless poisons, and endless poverty. I get angry when I see the injustice in society, I get angry when I see the oppression of good people, and I see children in trouble. Being displaced in a war can lead to anger... This is desire, but it is not desire. It has something to do with money, and it has nothing to do with Buddha.”

"I believe that if Mr. Cao were here, he would definitely agree with my point of view."

Gu Weijing looked directly into the monk's eyes.

"Did you know?"

"I once had a conversation with Mr. Cao Xuan. Not long ago, in front of this picture of "Lord of Buddha and Protector of Dharma," he told me personally that to be a painter, you need to breathe in your heart."

"It's the righteousness that makes you want to draw your sword to help when you see the injustice in the world. It's the anger that makes you feel that your family and country are broken, and the people are displaced. It's the joy of being named on the gold medal list, the flowers and candles in the wedding room, but it's also the desolation of seeing the withered old trees and the thin horses in the west wind... He and I He said that a soft-tempered gentleman cannot be a painter. Without this desire to see the excitement in his heart, the painting will not have a soul to support it, and it will not stand up. "

"If I let go of this, I may gain peace and tranquility, but I will no longer be mine."

"Similarly, if everyone gives up this breath, then in another hundred years, in another thousand years, bullies who bully others will still be bullies, and oppressed slaves will still be slaves. How will the world change?"

He said in an extremely serious tone.

"Could this be the world that Buddha wanted to see?"

The last part of Gu Weijing's words was a little loud, which attracted the attention of everyone around him.

The monk finally fell silent.

a long time.

He sighed again.

"Mr. Gu, you are really a man shrouded in flames!" The monk said with infinite emotion.

"I'm sorry, Master, but this is my philosophy."

Gu Weijing also felt that what he just said was a bit too harsh, and shook his head, "It's probably wrong. Maybe from the bottom of my heart, I have no connection with Buddhism -"

"No, Mr. Gu, what you said is very good, wonderful, and reasonable. I have my reasons, and you have yours. Our reasons are different, but that doesn't mean you are wrong. Do you know that I take evil as good, take suffering as pleasure, and give birth to the five turbid evil world without knowing it?"

(End of this chapter)