Genius Martial Arts Trainer

Diet Therapy (2)

After the agreed seven weeks had passed, Mu-jin was able to pass on the treatment processes to Beob Geon somewhat satisfactorily.

After all, electrotherapy and heat therapy were the domains of Hyun Gong and Hye-dam, and having observed for the past two months, Beob Geon could at least mimic acupressure and the Close-Range Spear Technique to some extent.

In the end, excluding manual therapy, he was able to pass on just a few physical therapy exercises over the seven weeks.

And Hyun-gwang, who started eating meat with porridge, was now able to eat almost unseasoned boiled meat.

Thanks to Mu-jin’s meticulous care or perhaps because of eating meat, there was a slight change in Hyun-gwang’s blocked pathways.

After spending those seven weeks,

‘It’s been a long time since I’ve been here.’

Mu-jin found himself entering the cave designated for wall-facing meditation, a place he had been dragged to during his early disciple days.

Moreover, for Abbot Hyun Cheon, who had agreed to take the punishment with him,

“Let’s go in.”

Unfortunately for Mu-jin, he had to accompany him.

‘This is a disaster.’

Mu-jin planned to enjoy a wall-facing meditation that was not quite wall-facing, much like the last time.

Ideally, he would strengthen his body, practice martial arts, hunt animals at night, and eat them. That was the kind of wall-facing meditation he had in mind.

However, now that he was with Hyun Cheon, it seemed he would have to truly spend a month just facing the wall.

Eventually, with a face like a pig being led to slaughter, Mu-jin entered the wall-facing cave with Hyun Cheon.

And just as Mu-jin had anticipated, as soon as Hyun Cheon entered the cave, he immediately sat down in a full lotus position.

Sitting with his eyes half-open, Hyun Cheon began reciting sutras.

“Mahāprajñāpāramitāhṛdaya Sūtra, Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva……”

[7:50 PM]

Despite being right next to him, the sutra recitation was barely audible, floating softly in the air. Listening to it, Mu-jin thought,

‘Weren’t you not supposed to talk during wall-facing?’

Mu-jin was certain that was the rule.

‘Hmm? Since wall-facing is also a form of Buddhist practice, maybe reciting sutras is allowed?’

Well, as the abbot, Hyun Cheon certainly knew the rules better than Mu-jin, a third-class disciple.

Mu-jin convincingly thought so and started to stare blankly at the wall.

Along with the thought that he was going to waste an entire month for nothing.

Just as he was aimlessly passing the time,

“Ying cloud, this life’s heart…… Form is emptiness, emptiness is form……”

Mu-jin, catching something odd in Hyun Cheon’s murmuring sutras, found it peculiar.

‘What’s going on? Why are the sutras all mixed up?’

Even if Mu-jin didn’t have a great interest in Buddhism, he had been a novice disciple for a year and ten months, and spent three months as a third-class disciple, during which he was forced to learn a considerable number of sutras.

In addition to that, as all of Shaolin’s martial arts techniques were based on Buddhist scriptures, Mu-jin had to read through all the sutras to learn the martial arts.

But as he listened closely, the sutras that Abbot Hyun Cheon was reciting were all jumbled up.

He would switch from the Heart Sutra to the Diamond Sutra abruptly, then from the Diamond Sutra to the Lotus Sutra and Avatamsaka Sutra, and then back to the Diamond Sutra again.

Even the verses weren’t starting from the beginning but were seemingly chosen at random by Abbot Hyun Cheon.

‘Wait a minute?’

It didn’t take long for Mu-jin to find a pattern in the chaotic mix of verses.

‘They’re all verses I’m familiar with?’

To be precise, they were verses from the techniques he knew. The Xiao Hong Quan, Autumn Wind Leg, Nine Palace Steps, Arhat Palm, Stone-crushing Finger, Avalokiteshvara Hand, and Vajra Fist were all mentioned.

‘Could it be…?’

Mu-jin, with a thought, focused more on the recitation of Abbot Hyun Cheon.

As he aligned his internal energy with the sequence of verses recited by Abbot Hyun Cheon, he visualized in his mind how they might connect.

‘The front part is the first sequence of the Revolving Fist Technique, a straight punch, and the back part is the third sequence of the Autumn Wind Leg, a left kick. Ah, so to connect these two movements, you insert the essence of the Vajra Fist in the middle?’

To be exact, it was a straight punch and sidekick that Mu-jin had created himself.

Although the forms were from the first sequence of the Revolving Fist Technique and the third sequence of the Autumn Wind Leg, he was using the essence of all the martial arts he had learned.

He had even succeeded in incorporating the essence of the Vajra Fist into each movement with the help of Hyun-gwang and Hye-geol.

The only problem was that while he had succeeded in incorporating the essence into each movement, the movements did not flow naturally from one to the next.

[7:53 PM]

But now, Abbot Hyun Cheon was providing a method to connect these joints through the sutra verses.

Mu-jin concentrated on the sutra verses recited by Abbot Hyun Cheon and organized the essence in his mind.

However, he was not content to sit and merely organize the essence. Naturally, Mu-jin felt an itch to move.

‘Is it okay to stand up?’

If he was willingly teaching him the essence, maybe that meant he was allowed to practice?

After pondering briefly with the mindset that he had nothing to lose, Mu-jin boldly stood up.

“Mahāprajñāpāramitā…”

Abbot Hyun Cheon, who must have sensed Mu-jin’s movement, continued reciting the sutra without any reaction.

“Hoo.”

Assured that Abbot Hyun Cheon had given his permission, Mu-jin matched his internal energy with the essence he had just organized in his mind and tried to connect the straight punch with a left kick.

However, thinking it through in his head and actually moving his body and internal energy were entirely different things.

The flow of the technique still felt awkward.

As he practiced the punch and kick combination on his own for a while,

‘??’

Focused on his training, Mu-jin belatedly noticed a change in the rhythm of the sutras being recited by Abbot Hyun Cheon.

‘It seems like… a rhythm has developed?’

Hyun Cheon began to recite the sutra with varying strength and speed—some phrases strongly, some quickly but softly.

‘Could he be illustrating the flow of internal energy?’

With a hunch, Mu-jin calmed his mind and matched his internal energy to the rhythm of the verses recited by Hyun Cheon, adjusting the flow according to the rhythm in different parts of his body.

Suddenly, with a swift movement according to the rhythm, there was a significant improvement in the connection of his techniques.

However, Abbot Hyun Cheon did not seem satisfied with just that and continued to recite. It seemed like he was pointing out incorrect parts in the section Mu-jin had just practiced, as slight changes occurred in his recitations.

In this manner, Mu-jin continued to refine his movements to the chanting of the sutras by Abbot Hyun Cheon.

Conversely, Abbot Hyun Cheon, with heightened sensitivity, guided Mu-jin by reading the flow of his movements and internal energy and pointing out mistakes through the verses and their rhythm.

‘Haha, indeed, he is a quick-witted boy.’

As Mu-jin expected, Abbot Hyun Cheon had chosen this method to assist with his training—partly as an apology for taking away a month of Mu-jin’s crucial training period for the sake of curing Hyun-gwang, who had saved Shaolin, and partly as a way to foster the growth of Mu-jin, whom he saw as the future of Shaolin.

For this purpose, Abbot Hyun Cheon had previously asked Hyun-gwang about the martial arts Mu-jin was learning and how he was connecting the techniques.

Even with this limited knowledge, it was no difficulty for Abbot Hyun Cheon to teach Mu-jin.

No matter how talented Mu-jin was, he was just a child who had started learning martial arts two years ago, while Abbot Hyun Cheon was an expert with fifty years of training.

After a considerable time spent in this unusual training,

“Ahem.”

While reciting sutras, Abbot Hyun Cheon coughed, and Mu-jin stopped his movements, puzzled.

[8:00 PM]

Quickly assuming a lotus position and facing the wall as if anticipating something,

Swoosh.

Soon after, a first-class disciple approached, placed food and water in the cave, and left.

It was Abbot Hyun Cheon who had alerted Mu-jin with a cough that someone whose presence Mu-jin couldn’t detect was approaching.

After that, whenever the watch was gone, Abbot Hyun Cheon would chant sutras, and Mu-jin would refine his martial arts to the rhythm of those sutras.

The training continued until late in the evening, and when night fell, Abbot Hyun Cheon lay down facing the wall, signaling it was time to rest.

About half an hour after Abbot Hyun Cheon lay down, Mu-jin quietly got up and slipped out of the cave.

‘Haha, it seems he still felt the need to move.’

Thinking that Mu-jin had gone out not to disturb his sleep and to continue training, Abbot Hyun Cheon closed his eyes again.

Little did he know that Mu-jin had actually gone out to hunt for meat.

* * *

Twenty days had passed since Mu-jin entered wall-facing meditation.

In the meantime, Hyun-gwang’s body was recovering day by day.

The twisted joints and misaligned ligaments had mostly settled back into place after two months of treatment.

The only issue was the lack of muscles to support and stabilize the joints and ligaments.

And after twenty days and seven weeks of daily meat consumption, combined with exercise therapy aided by Beob Geon and Mu-jin, muscles began to develop gradually on Hyun-gwang’s body.

“Master Uncle! You’ve truly transformed!”

Beob Geon, who was nominally Mu-jin’s teacher and Hyun-gwang’s senior brother, exclaimed with a childlike joy.

True to his words, small muscles began to appear here and there on Hyun-gwang’s previously gaunt and skinny frame.

Thanks to the strength of these new muscles, Hyun-gwang was now able to take small steps without holding onto Beob Geon’s hand.

“Hoo.”

Hyun-gwang took a deep breath as he rose from his seat using his own strength and walked out of his room to the main hall.

What was a mundane activity for others was akin to a miracle for Hyun-gwang.

Though it was the same small courtyard of the temple he had always seen, Hyun-gwang looked at it with profound eyes.

‘All of that was my obstinance.’

His disciple, Abbot Hyun Cheon, always blamed himself. He was too focused on preserving tradition. If senior brother Hyun-gwang had become the abbot, things might have been different.

And at this moment, Hyun-gwang realized that he was no different from his disciple Hyun Cheon.

What is asceticism? It is for gaining enlightenment and to forget desires and worldly distractions.

Yet, why had he become so fixated on the asceticism itself? Why did he merely follow it because it was Shaolin’s tradition?

What is truly important is not the outward appearance, but the underlying intention.

It was almost laughable that he had tried to explain this to Mu-jin, his junior great-granddisciple, as if he knew better.

“Amitabha.”

Hyun-gwang, who had recited the sutra deeply, now sat in a lotus position and closed his eyes gently.

Even with his eyes closed, the image of the courtyard he had just been observing remained vivid in his mind.

[8:04 PM]

Even if the courtyard and buildings were to disappear one day, they would remain within his mind.

Even if unseen, they existed, and even if they ceased to exist, they could be seen.

Form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.

The world has always been such, what then had bound him?

“Gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā.”

With his eyes closed, Hyun-gwang continued to recite the sutra deeply.

‘Ah… I, too, was bound by that day thirty years ago.’

The day when the demon cult’s elite forces attacked.

The day he lost his martial arts, became a cripple, and could no longer walk on his own.

Although he constantly reassured the countless people worried about him that he was fine, deep down, he harbored a profound sadness.

His mind, as high as the heavens, understood Shaolin’s martial arts and sutras, but his heart, heavy with resentment, could not accept their content.

Even though all the words written there told him the answer lay within himself, he had only tried to find the answer in the words.

In the moment he realized the truth, he was able to shed a layer of the chains that bound him.

Already his five senses and mind had merged, and his heart and technique reached Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi, the unsurpassed, proper and equal, right enlightenment.

His body, which had been unable to even walk on its own, had regained stability through Mu-jin’s treatment.

The only thing lacking was that, due to his shattered Danjeon, he could no longer contain Qi in his body.

“Ha ha ha. That too is a form of persistence.”

With so many streams of energy flowing through this world, how could one try to contain them within the tiny confines of a human body?

Hyun-gwang, with a gentle smile on his face and his eyes closed, was engulfed by the wind, which then began to produce a golden radiance.

“Ma, Master Uncle!?”

Beob Geon, who was watching the spectacle from the side, exclaimed with a face full of shock.

As he walked out to the grand hall on his own, what kind of harmony was this?

Meanwhile, the radiance around him grew only denser.

“What, what, what is happening!?”

Naturally, the Shaolin temple was in chaos.

“Could it be… Abbot Hyun-gwang has reached Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi?”

Hyun Gong, who had used all his strength to rush to Hyun-gwang’s hall after seeing the golden radiance, muttered in astonishment.

Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi, when translated into Chinese characters, means unsurpassed, proper and equal, right enlightenment – signifying that one has awakened to the highest truth in the world.

It meant that Hyun-gwang was in the process of attaining Buddhahood.

“Amitabha.”

“Amitabha.”

Hyun Gong, along with a few other high-ranking Shaolin monks who had arrived at Hyun-gwang’s hall, chanted briefly towards the golden-lit Abbot.

“!?”

The golden radiance surrounding Hyun-gwang began to fade, and as if it were a mirage, completely disappeared.

With a flash.

[8:24 PM]

Hyun-gwang, who had been smiling peacefully with his eyes closed, opened his eyes.

“…Abbot, have you attained great enlightenment?”

Hyun Gong, who was the highest ranking after the abbot and senior brothers, asked, and Hyun-gwang answered with a mysterious look on his face.

“I have merely felt in my heart what I knew in my head.”

“!!!”

It seemed like a trivial remark, but all the high monks gathered in Hyun-gwang’s hall could tell that Abbot Hyun-gwang had reached an elevated realm.

“But why…”

“Ha ha ha. Is it not because there is still an unresolved matter?”

In response to Hyun Gong’s question, Hyun-gwang again gave an answer resembling a Zen dialogue.

Although Hyun-gwang, intoxicated by enlightenment, was letting go of all his worldly worries and obsessions, there remained just one thing he could not let go of, which is why he remained here.

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