Chapter 73 One thought becomes a Buddha, one thought becomes a demon

According to historical records, this mountain temple fell into disrepair for a long time and became extinct. As a result, the tiger in the mountain fell in love with it and chose this place as its nest.Knowing all this, the monks who are close at hand deliberately made temple regulations, prohibiting passing guests from staying in their temples, and forcing travelers to sleep in the tiger's den. The traveler ate it up and down, hiccupped a few times, and walked away. After daybreak, the monks came out with iron rods, went to the mountain temple, and took the luggage of the guests eaten by the tiger, including all the gold and silver, for themselves.In fact, this is a cooperation between the monk and the tiger to share the spoils. The tiger is responsible for eating human flesh, while the monk is responsible for cleaning up the tiger's traces to prevent new guests from discovering the traces, so that the new guests will live in the tiger's den without any worries. , so that the cooperation between the monk and the tiger will go on smoothly.

The tacit cooperation between humans and tigers shows that tigers are human, and it also shows that humans have bestiality. As for Wang Shouren, he obviously knew that the reason why people become human is precisely because they have not lost their animal nature. It is precisely because the dark and evil side of human nature is more unbearable than animal nature that human society suffers so much.Similarly, it is precisely because the bright side of human nature is close to the holy spirit of Buddhism that human beings have deduced an incomparably gorgeous civilization. People's hearts are in danger, and Dao's heart is weak.A difference of one thought is a demon, and a difference of one thought is a Buddha.There is no boundary between Buddha nature and demon nature, let alone distance.The so-called path of sages is to let your heart be immersed in the realm of goodness forever, and never be disturbed by evil again.

Everyone can parrot and say: My heart is the Buddha, and the Buddha is in my heart—but if the demon nature and animal nature in your heart have not been eliminated, then what you will end up with will be a situation worse than that of animals. I am convinced that the experience of this night played a decisive role in Wang Shouren's path to sagehood.Just as Socrates in ancient Greece put forward "virtue is knowledge", Wang Shouren finally put forward his theory of "reaching conscience".The two lead to the same goal by different routes and confirm each other, both of which are to remove the demonic nature, animal nature, evil nature and other various impurities in people's hearts, and stay in goodness and holiness forever.

But at the time, Wang Shouren didn't realize this. Fear and cold would inevitably reduce the efficiency of his brain.At this time, his brain was just gliding on a plane, unable to think logically. Therefore, when he told this story, he fell into the old habit of making up nonsense.Instead of telling the story of him hiding on the roof, he performed it to his heart's content, resulting in many loopholes: Since the husband is not allowed to enter the temple, he lives in a wild temple.Hungry and tired, I slept soundly under the divine table.In the middle of the night, a group of tigers circled the temple, roaring, but no one dared to enter.

In this narration, Wang Shouren said sincerely: I really didn't climb to the roof, why did I climb so high?I just slept under the incense table in the temple, and because of exhaustion, I slept soundly. I didn’t know that there was a large group of tigers outside the temple, barking their teeth and claws outside the wild temple, roaring non-stop... Even if you are a sage, once you make up nonsense, you will ignore your head and show your flaws.Wang Shouren insisted that his fate was at stake, and the tiger didn't dare to enter it—then why in the capital, before the Meridian Gate, a few eunuchs were able to take off his trousers and beat his ass with a stick?

Born Wang Yangming, he can restrain a tiger, but he cannot restrain an eunuch. This saint is really terrible. In addition, there was a saying in ancient times that two tigers cannot be accommodated in a mountain, but Wang Shouren said that a large group of tigers came outside the wild temple. Come on, tigers eat a lot of food, and a tiger needs herbivores with a radius of two kilometers to feed, so tigers never live in groups. Once in a group, how much food do they need?The biological chain in nature limits the number of tigers, which Wang Shouren did not expect. In the final analysis, Wang Shouren's mistake was that he only passed the bamboo, not the tiger - but he will pass soon, and we have evidence for this.