Chapter 6 6. Shaving

The Buddha said, be a broad-minded person, forget hatred and remember kindness.But we are not Buddhas, it is difficult to write off all the hatred, it is difficult to sit on the lotus platform, smile with flowers, calm and peaceful. People will have many different dreams in their life. We dream of beautiful wishes in our dreams, but the reality often goes against our hearts.How many lives are like traveling against the sky, you enthusiastically walk along the track of fate, thinking that you can see the scenery you want, but the scenery always disappoints you.When the road was covered by fallen leaves, neither you nor I could suppress the sadness in our hearts.When you are frustrated, you don't choose to continue on your way, but you just hope to find a tired soul to live in an inn, and hide in a place where you can't even find it. Perhaps it is the real invincibility.

When Su Manshu came back from Hong Kong and walked into a ruined temple in Huizhou, and chose to shave again, perhaps few people could agree with his approach.Life is a game of cards, and he is a person who does not play according to the rules. If you play against him, you will often be caught off guard by his thinking.He is not an ordinary person, so he cannot be seen with ordinary eyes.I don't know who said that for a talented and arrogant person, any of his unreasonable actions are not exaggerated.Su Manshu asked himself how talented he was, and he didn't need to give the world a clear explanation for his actions.

The 20-year-old Su Manshu has become a monk three times. Although each time has an antecedent cause, it is too frequent.For the first time, he was forced to hide in the temple because he couldn't bear the abuse of his family, and was expelled from the temple because he ate pigeon meat as a young thief.The second time, in order to repay an emotional debt, I chose to practice in seclusion and leave the dust of the world, but I couldn't bear the loneliness, and I went away in the dark night of the moon without leaving the slightest trace.The third time was when he was high-spirited and trying to devote himself to the revolution, the "National Daily" where he worked was shut down and suspended.For him, this is undoubtedly another judgment, just like a kite flying in the sky suddenly breaks its string, its fate must be to fall into the abyss.Su Manshu shaved off his thick hair, put on cassock, and became a monk again.He abandoned the chaotic world and chose to practice meditation in the temple to receive precepts again. I don't know if it is a return or an escape?

No one knows how long Su Manshu will practice in the temple this time.With his temperament, how can he endure the cold and bitter years of the ancient Buddha with blue lanterns and straw sandals and broken bowls.Asking him to completely let go of love and not eat wine and meat is tantamount to a cruel strangulation.Maybe he also yearns for a life of living alone in a lonely temple, but there are always subtle emotions in his bones that tease his mind.So we can't expect Su Manshu to follow the rules of many monks to be a monk with pure six senses in the temple, and don't expect him to return to the world of mortals and completely surrender himself to fireworks.Perhaps we just need to remember that he is such a half-monk and half-secular person, who can neither be a real monk nor a complete mortal.If you can't tolerate his eccentricities, you have to bless him from a distance, and bless him how to make himself comfortable in that troubled world.

Most of the time, even he himself doesn't know why it is such a combination of contradictions.Maybe each of us is a combination of contradictions, inexplicably sad when we are happy, and lost for no reason when we are noisy.After going through a long journey of life, I suddenly realized that many sorrows and joys are actually tied to the cause.Fate is a ruler with ambiguous data, and there will be deviations in measurement at any time.You remember the depth of yesterday's relationship, but you can't measure the length of tomorrow's story.Although Su Manshu has extraordinary understanding, he can't figure out human affairs after all.Days are like an endless wait, every blank page needs to be filled with truth.

The so-called being a monk for a day hits the clock for a day, Su Manshu may have lived in the temple with this mentality.He didn't know which day he would get tired of the dull life here again. Looking at the lonely green oil lamp on the table, life was like this lamp. When the oil ran out, everything would die with it.Maybe only he himself knows how many lifetimes he has been with the Buddha, otherwise why would he walk into the temple several times in this life.It was destined that he would be an astonishing person, so there was no need for him to cover up needlessly.Living in a temple is not much different from being in the world of mortals. He often drinks and eats meat, completely forgetting the Buddhist precepts and rules when he is drunk.

There are too many constraints in life, and Su Manshu often can't help himself, but he can't control his heart.His heart is erratic like the clouds in the sky. When you see him free and easy, he is actually at a loss.Because of confusion, it is so uninhibited.The temple was originally the most peaceful destination in the world, but he was still like duckweed, wandering without roots.When sitting in meditation, Su Manshu can't help but think of the colorful world outside, the woman he met in an alley, the pot of sorghum and the big plate of braised beef in the tavern, and the Tsing Yi he played in the theater.

Life is really a drama dream. We change different stages in different venues and play different roles in front of different people.Everyone puts on a costume from birth, and can't return to the original self until the end of life.I finally understand why there are so many people in this world who lament that they are like an actor, because every day we are pretending to be parting and parting and joys and sorrows.In the temple, Su Manshu is a young and enlightened monk; in politics, Su Manshu is an extraordinary revolutionary pioneer;Every character is the most real him, and every character is stained with the color of nothingness.

Months of life in the temple made Su Manshu seem to be in hibernation.This winter, he made tea every day to admire plum blossoms, chanted scriptures and sat in meditation, bought some wine and meat in the streets and alleys when he was free, and even stayed out at night.The life he longs for is without any fetters. He would rather be a cloud than a holy water in front of the Buddha.He deposits his soul here, and one day he will spread his wings and fly like wild geese, perhaps with nothing to rely on, and die of old age in a certain autumn with falling leaves, maybe he will come back, and then he will never leave again.

When the spring is warm and the flowers are blooming, Su Manshu's father Su Jie dies of illness in the countryside, but Su Manshu refuses to go to the funeral.Before he died, Su Jiesheng did not see this son who was exiled by him, this son who made him feel guilty, maybe before he died, he wanted to beg for Su Manshu's forgiveness.As time went by, Su Manshu still couldn't forget the humiliation he suffered when he was a child. The scar lay across his heart, reminding him not to forget it all the time.The human heart is too fragile, and some injuries need to be repaired in a lifetime.The Buddha said, be a broad-minded person, forget hatred and remember kindness.But we are not Buddhas, it is difficult to write off all the hatred, it is difficult to sit on the lotus platform, smile with flowers, calm and peaceful.

It only takes a moment for fate to come and go, but Su Man doesn't know that his father-son relationship with Su Jiesheng is only for one life, and when he drinks Mengpo soup, who will remember whom in the next life.He couldn't forgive his father because he couldn't forget the wounds of his childhood. He couldn't let go of it after living in a temple, and he could no longer be confused.There are too many regrets in life, what is missed cannot be repeated, broken mirrors are difficult to reunite, no matter how well the scars are repaired, there will still be marks. At the end of this spring, Su Manshu woke up completely, left the temple where he lived for the winter, began to study Sanskrit, and applied for a job at the Bangkok Youth Association.Later, he went to Ceylon and temporarily sent him to the Bodhi Temple.Then he arrived in Changsha from Guangzhou, where he was hired by the Hunan Industrial School, and worked with Zhang Ji and Huang Xing to participate in the confidential affairs of the Huaxing Society.Su Manshu admits that he is a restless person, even though he also longs for a leisurely life of building fences and raising cranes, inviting friends to cook wine and recite poems.Flying smoke and dust are everywhere in troubled times, even if you escape to a paradise, you will still be covered in dust. Su Manshu is like this, walking alone, paddling alone, riding a horse alone, throwing himself back into the depths of the world of mortals.He is always suitable to be a flying goose, nesting in different places, coming and going in a hurry, not needing to guard the old dream for any courtyard.It is said that there is no stability in the turbulent times, perhaps because of the harm of his family when he was a child, Su Manshu always wanted to have a warm home, but was afraid of having one.So he is always walking, always erratic, like a prodigal son, even his luggage is superfluous.Today on the shore where the reed flowers are like snow, where will it be at the end of the world tomorrow?