Atop Halo Peak, sunlight fractured through the Buddha's Light Jade into drifting rainbow hues. There stood a C…
Atop Halo Peak, sunlight fractured through the Buddha's Light Jade into drifting rainbow hues. There stood a Chan master, clad half in monk's robes and half in martial garb, Khakkhara staff in hand, as motionless as one of the myriad Buddha statues.
You had heard this master had long since changed his name and journeyed north, yet here, of all places, you unexpectedly crossed paths. His face beneath the mask was entirely unreadable; from afar, you only heard his voice, resonant as a temple bell, asking, "Young patron, do you wish to see my false form, my Dharma form, or my true form?"...
False form. Your thought drifts back to the righteous souls who journeyed north, leaving behind their names and identities, as the bleak wind echoes in your ears. You hope he will face the world in his false form, saving his true form for the day he returns in triumph.
The master gave no answer, but murmured the Buddha's name under his breath. In that instant, howling winds seemed to surge behind him, and the silhouette of a colossal Buddha manifested. "To behold the three forms is not as profound as the formless," the master's low, sonorous voice echoed right beside your ear. Behind him, the great Buddha pressed its palms together, and wind and sand swallowed his form whole. When the wind and sand settled, only sunlight bathed Halo Peak. The rainbows remained unchanged, as if the Chan master had never been there at all. You could not help but wonder whether that formless, unbound man had truly returned to Qinghe. Or perhaps this whole journey had been no more than a dream, leaving you with nothing but a hallucination?