Read Novel Full Chapter 1188: The Path We Will Continue To Walk (3)
Chapter 1188: The Path We Will Continue To Walk (3)
Beop Jeong, who had glared at Baek Cheon as if he might lunge forward at any moment, took a deep breath. Then he slowly sat back down.
But his eyes shone with a colder light than before he sat.
“Did I not say it? Mere lip service.”
His voice pierced Baek Cheon like a sheet of ice.
“Choosing what cannot truly be chosen, that might be possible. But it is the leader who must make that choice. One who must make choices that no one else will make!”
“......”
“Therefore you compare the incomparable and make decisions that should not be made! Did the Acting Sect leader not speak with his own mouth? He said he would shoulder that responsibility. Then is the Acting Sect leader saying it is right to sacrifice a thousand lives to save one?”
Baek Cheon did not answer. Beop Jeong scowled as if to say, ‘See?’
“Anyone can debate ideals. But who will compensate the lives of those who die because of those ideals?”
“Who gave the Abbot the right to make that choice then?”
At Baek Cheon’s question, Beop Jeong widened his eyes.
“Is the Abbot of Shaolin entitled to weigh the lives of others? Or is it because you are none other than Beop Jeong that you may judge?”
“Listen, Acting Sect leader!”
“You must choose the un-choosable. You must bear that responsibility.”
Baek Cheon murmured and shook his head.
“Do not speak as if only the Abbot has borne such responsibility. Many have walked that path; predecessors pondered and pondered it. And they already passed their conclusions on to later generations.”
“...To later generations?”
A look of puzzlement crossed Beop Jeong’s face. What on earth had the predecessors passed on to them?
“It is something the Abbot knows well. We call that meaning the righteousness.”
Beop Jeong’s face contorted.
“That trite...”
“What’s wrong with something being obvious?”
Passion flared on Baek Cheon’s face.
“Those who think themselves wise apply measures to everything. But the truly wise do not judge what should not be judged! Do you think the predecessors did not know what the Abbot speaks? Were they so foolish that they did not discuss it?”
“......”
“Not thinking only with the head! Not weighing pros and cons, but following the path the heart leads! The predecessors called that the righteous. And they urged us to keep only that consensus! Not because they were dull, but because it was the only correct answer.”
Beop Jeong’s face trembled.
“They already knew what would happen when their successors relied only on their own cleverness to judge value!”
“What on earth...”
“That is why they emphasized the consensus above all in teaching disciples. In that simple teaching they contained what we should prioritize. Tell me, Abbot! What did the great, exalted predecessors of Shaolin pass on to you?”
Beop Jeong clenched his fist tightly. His mouth was set and did not move. But Baek Cheon already knew the answer to this question.
Of course he couldn’t know it. No sect in the world stressed righteousness and the salvation of sentient beings more than Shaolin. That is why Shaolin became the North Star of the murim world, has remained so, and has been the guardian of the murim world until now.
“If those predecessors looked upon the current Abbot, what would they say? Would they lament that sorrowful self-sacrifice? Would they praise the choice made in bloody tears as a good one?”
“Shut up!”
A roar burst from Beop Jeong’s mouth.
It was the sound of his reason snapping, and simultaneously the fragile consensus being shattered.
“You claim to hear everything; there’s nothing you cannot say! Are you saying Shaolin has abandoned the righteousness?”
“Then are you following it?”
“What did you say!”
“What, exactly, do you think the righteousness is, Abbot?”
“Then does Mount Hua know?”
“I do not know well. But there are those at Mount Hua who know it.”
Baek Cheon’s gaze immediately turned to one person.
“Yoon Jong!”
At being suddenly called in such a shout, Yoon Jong startled and looked at him.
“Do you mean me?”
“Answer as a disciple of Mount Hua. What is the righteousness?”
“The righteousness is...”
Yoon Jong closed his eyes gently. The question was startlingly sudden, but he could not answer vaguely. He had to put more sincerity into this answer than ever.
Thus Yoon Jong’s answer began from a somewhat unexpected place.
“‘The Tao that can be spoken is not the constant Tao.’ Just as calling the Tao the Tao makes it no longer the Tao, the moment you call an act of righteousness as righteousness, it ceases to be the righteousness.”
His voice sank into an ever calmer tone.
“The Tao, the more you seek it, seems like grasping at drifting clouds and remains distant; it is not the perfect, ideal thing people imagine. Likewise, the consensus is not perfect. Sometimes it is perverse, sometimes selfish, sometimes irrational. Because that is how the human heart is.”
“Also.”
“But precisely because of that, the righteousness is what it is. The Tao lets all things be; °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° then, like water flowing downward, it naturally flows. Sometimes it bends, then it rests, and sometimes it scatters, but eventually it reaches where it must be. The human heart is the same. The heart can be dull, evil, selfish at times, but in the end it moves like flowing water toward a broader place.”
When Yoon Jong opened his eyes again, a deep light shone in them.
“So in the end, righteousness is to trust people. It is answering the call of my heart. If one can do that, one will ultimately move toward the right place.”
Baek Cheon nodded strongly and looked at Beop Jeong.
“Did you hear that?”
But Beop Jeong, still enraged, snapped back.
“What did I hear! It’s just trite idealism, isn’t it! So that great idealism will... those who are dying...”
“Ah, I really can’t let that slide.”
At a sudden sneer from somewhere, Beop Jeong’s head snapped to one side. Im So-Byeong, sitting by the door, quietly avoided the look but continued stoutly.
“If your heart is so large for all people and you wish to help even one more, I don’t understand why you hide in a temple swinging fists. If you had entered government service, you would have been far more helpful.”
“W-what on earth are you saying now...”
Beop Jeong stared at Im So-Byeong in stunned disbelief. He was the Green Forest King after all, though merely the leader of the Evil Sect. How dare someone like him speak so to Beop Jeong?
“It’s not an incorrect statement.”
What unsettled Beop Jeong even more was Namgung Do-Wei. The young lord of the Namgung Family, the Lord of one of the Five Great Families, had stepped forward to support the Green Forest King’s words.
“If doing greater deeds and realizing grander causes is necessarily more righteous path to take, then the murim world’s existence itself is a contradiction, is it not? We exist precisely because the state’s power does not reach every corner to care for all people. If the Abbot truly speaks of the greater cause, would it not be better to strengthen the nation so thoroughly that the murim world disappears, rather than pontificate about the world from tiny Shaolin?”
“Young lord!”
Bloodshot fury flared in Beop Jeong’s eyes.
“So you all will come out like this? With that miserable sophistry, the situation will truly...”
“Please stop, Abbot.”
At that moment, a calm voice cut off Beop Jeong.
Beop Jeong was momentarily speechless. It was a voice far too familiar—Hae Yeon’s.
“Abbot, you are wrong.”
“...What did you say?”
“I said the Abbot is wrong.”
“You...”
A look of bewilderment appeared on Beop Jeong’s face.
Others could do that. But Hae Yeon must not. Even if Beop Jeong had once mentioned excommunication, Hae Yeon was, after all, someone he had personally raised and taught.
How could Hae Yeon say such a thing?
“Right now the Abbot, in trying to refute these people’s words, and is speaking what he should not say.”
“What nonsense are you spouting?”
“What did the Buddha, Shakyamuni, do after attaining enlightenment following long ascetic practice?”
At the sudden question, Beop Jeong stared at Hae Yeon instead of answering. Hae Yeon elaborated.
“After the Buddha attained enlightenment, and after seven times seven days of anguish, he resolved to spread his teachings to save sentient beings. What was the first thing that Buddha did?”
Again there was no reply. As if she had not expected one, Hae Yeon provided the answer herself.
“He preached to those within reach of his hand, and took as disciples those his feet could reach.”
“Hae Yeon. You, you...”
“Amitabha.”
Hae Yeon continued, chanting the Buddha’s name and speaking on.
“The Buddha sought to save the world, but he did not compose sutras to reach every corner himself, nor did he use his former status to spread his intent farther. What the Buddha did for the groaning sentient beings was to convey his exalted intent to those nearby and teach them. Yes, simply that.”
Hae Yeon’s clear, transparent gaze turned to Beop Jeong.
“Those words became scriptures, that teaching became the Buddhist law. Was it not thus transmitted and flowed until it reached the Abbot?”
Beop Jeong’s eyes wavered.
As the Abbot of Shaolin, he could not deny these words.
“By your logic, Abbot, what the Buddha did would be nothing but a small thing. The act of a fool who could not see the greater place. The Buddha, who realized that tremendous enlightenment, would have done nothing for all the people of the world. But Abbot, was that teaching truly in vain?”
“......”
“Therefore anyone who considers themselves a Buddhist must not vilify the Acting Sect leader’s intent. Isn’t the Dharma originally an infinitely selfish path that begins with saving oneself? How then can you call foolish and selfish someone who seeks to save those within their reach?”
“You wretch...”
“Before you were the Abbot of Shaolin, if you are a person who seeks to follow the Buddha’s teachings...”
Hae Yeon’s voice swept over Beop Jeong with a sonorous force, shaking him.
“Before merely seeking to absolve oneself by saying, ‘I shall fall into hell myself,’ you should have pondered which is truly the Buddhist Way.”
Hae Yeon declared with great pity, yet utmost firmness.
“Abbot... you are wrong.”
Those words pierced Beop Jeong’s heart like a sharp dagger.