Actually my tour in Hong Kong did not end in the visit to ‘黄大仙’ but it sure felt like a very long but detour from then to now, maybe I was distracted by some old karmic forces to learn some new knowledge, or maybe knowledge gave rise to more new knowledge. Now that it is over, I can continue writing about my journey to the Po Lin Temple (宝莲寺) and The Tian Tan Buddha (天坛大佛) on Lantau Island (大屿山).

It was a late November morning in Hong Kong and it was drizzling lightly and very foggy as I ascended the mountain where the temple is situated in a cable car from Ngong Ping (昂平). It was really disappointing because the fog blocked my vision and I can’t get to see the beautiful scenery and a clear image of the Buddha. It was quite an irony, you tend to get to see far and wide when you are on a high ground but why is it not for me this way round? The higher I go the less I see. I can’t help but remember the lyrics of a classic Cantonese song that goes something like this, ‘独自在山坡高处未算高，名运在冷笑暗示前无路，浮云游身边发出警告…’ what exactly is the meaning of the reality I am looking at? What is the holy place trying to warn me?

I believe the reason being even though I wrote to pay tribute (回向) to the various schools and religions, I must have also quietly felt proud of my own achievement, and this sense of achievement is clouding my wisdom and explained the foggy cable car ride. This is quite similar to the experience of ‘九宫真人/九头金雕’ as mentioned in my previous essay. She must have practiced long and done lots of community services/charities on her way to become a senior angel. She must have felt strongly that she had sacrificed a great deal and this strong insistence (着相) of sacrifice will naturally give rise to the need for glory or magnificence.

The feeling or sensation of having made a sacrifice does not exist independently; as we know a sensation is a form of bio-electricity or current, and you need to have a vector V or a state of disparity like how I explained in the essay about ‘心动’ and ‘忏悔’. So the very moment ’九宫真人’ experience ‘sacrifice’, the sense of ‘gain/glory/profit’ is also quietly working in the background because without it the dualistic sensation of ‘sacrifice’ can’t be generated.

You may ask what is wrong with reaping what you sow, surely you want to taste the fruits of your hard labour? But then this is no longer the realm of infinity or ‘不二法门’ and that was why she didn’t make the final cut. That is the reason why I transfer the merits of my essays to the various schools and religions so that I won’t miss out on enlightenment and become maybe a film director.

The danger of experiencing glory or pride is that it will set off a ceaseless reinforcing loop; you can think of pride as a cold external wall, and if it is cold, it contracts and collapses in wards. As it collapses inwards the immense gravity and compression will cause some inner thermal explosion to push away the collapsing mass. When you have ‘外冷’, it will surely lead to ‘内热’. We often hear people say things like ‘it is lonely at the top’(无敌是多麽的寂寞), it is because the pride of invincibility is collapsing inward to make one feel very dense inside like a block of mass and they need to do a lot of high energy (thermal explosion) activities to make themselves feel alive. At the end the Buddha had to capture ’九宫真人’ to prevent her from going out in a blaze of glory or something like that.

So what can we do after we have reached the top of the dualistic realm and avoid the fate of ’九宫真人’ you may ask? According to Mahayana Buddhism, the next thing one should do is called ‘转识成智’ if they wanted to enter the realm of infinity. In theory ‘转识成智’ can be described as turning finite intelligence (世智辨聪) into infinite wisdom (Prajnaparamita / 般若智慧).

We can understand the difference between these two states of being using some examples I have cited in my previous essays. I mentioned that Brigitte Lin’s facial features is a perfect equilibrium because she will appear beautiful no matter from which angles or perspective you look at her, and you can describe it as an intelligent aesthetic solution that can satisfy many different types of preferences and perspectives. From the context of Buddhism, this aesthetic intelligence of Brigitte is regarded as finite intelligence because even though it is pleasing to look at from all directions and angles, viewers from the left can only see the left and observers from the right can only see the right side; no two observers can get the exact same thing, the right is never the left and the front is never the back. This is the result of using finite intelligence to solve a set of problems, most of the time the conflicting parties involved will get only what I call quasi equality in the solution.

On the other hand, the aesthetic intelligence of the Buddha is rather magical because no matter from which direction you look at Him, you will get to see the best side (usually the front); meaning viewers from all different positions will get to see the front side of the Buddha all at the same time! In fact, the viewers will get to see whatever side they choose to see depending on their preference. To give you another description, when the Buddha speaks, an English man will hear it in English, a Chinese will hear it in Chinese, a Japanese will hear it in Japanese and so on, all in accordance to the preference of the audience.

Let me use another example to explain the same issue again, let’s say we pour an equal amount of salt and sugar into a container. Our task is to mix them so that every sample in the container has a perfectly equal mixture of 50% sugar and 50% salt. If we use finite intelligence to perform this task, then the solution would be to stir the two substance thoroughly together in the container but no matter how well we stir it, not all the samples can taste the same; the sample taken at the top of the container may taste 45% sugar and 55% salt while the sample taken from the bottom may taste 49% salt and 51% sugar.

On the other hand if we use infinite wisdom (般若智慧) to solve the problem, the solution would be to dissolve the mixture completely with water first and then turn it back into solid so that every sample taken from every part of the container will taste exactly 50% sugar and 50% salt. This is akin to solving a set of dilemmas with a solution that is equally agreeable and fair to all parties involved.

So, infinite wisdom (般若智慧) is much faster in finding the solution and the solution is the fairest to all parties because it reflects the true equilibrium of any given situations. To understand why this is the case we must understand the very basic nature of reality, Buddhism sees reality in a state of ‘一即是多,多即是一’, which corresponds with the way of the Tao which states that ‘天地和我同根, 万物和我同体’, which also means something like ‘one for all and all for one’ in western term. This is similar to quantum physics which shows that every bit of information (microtubules) contains all other information, or everything contains everything and everything is actually everything.

What this means is that when you affect something, the action will simultaneously affect all other thing in the universe, it is that awesome. In real life, we see such situation all the time, let’s say when America adopts some policy towards Japan, it will affect itself and Japan, but this action will also have effects on China, the Korean Peninsula and Russia. Then further down the order it may affect the South East Asia to a lesser extend and then to an even lesser extend in Europe.

If you use dualistic or sequential logic (世智辨聪) to affect a change to A, simultaneously B,C and D will be affected as well. And when you try to do something to contain the new changes taking place in B, then these actions will again simultaneously affect A, C and D. It is like playing ‘Whac-a-Mole’ where the Chinese say ‘一波未平一波又起’. You can also think of dualistic intelligence as conventional binary computers which can only read one book at a time while infinite wisdom as quantum computers which can read ten books at a time. So, because infinite wisdom can behave like a quantum computer, it allows us to assimilate or compute all the issues in A, B, C and D concurrently and find the most suitable solutions for all in the shortest time with the minimum effort.

That is why when ’九宫真人’ cling on to the form (着相) or emotions, she is also holding on to a set of perspectives (glorious – shame or sacrifice – magnificence), and that means she is holding on to the ‘1’ and ‘0’ of binary thinking and thus not able to achieve the infinite or quantum wisdom of ‘般若智慧’. Our karma, zero sum game mentality, extreme emotions and bias make our mind stuck at an extreme end and hindered its ability to find the equilibrium in whatever we do or think.

Nevertheless, it is very difficult to achieve ‘般若智慧’ instantly, most students of the Chinese philosophy will have to start with moral education such as the Confucius studies or maybe even the Chinese Marxism as promoted by the Chinese government in its many development initiatives. Ideals like ‘shared destiny’, ‘inclusive mindset’, ‘mutual learning and cooperation’ and many more are themes in line with the essence of the Chinese philosophy. The idea is that these values can create a progressive and harmonious society, and when the society is harmonious, it becomes clear like a mirror. A mirror will reflect whatever it is that you show it and it is this reason why, as mentioned earlier, the Buddha can appear in the most suitable form and speak the most suitable language in accordance to the nature and proclivity of His students. So if the society is harmonious, stable and equal, it is creating a mirror-like matrix or ecosystem which can reflect whatever it is that people wanted it to reflect; or it makes it easier for people to achieve whatever it is that they wanted to achieve in their lives. I believe in Chinese this is called ‘心想事成’ or the way of the Tao.

P.S. When I cited the example of getting a uniform mixture by dissolving salt and sugar in water, I don’t mean we just average out everything. I need to say this because maybe some AI-enabled reading machine may think that is the way. What I meant by uniformity or equality is that, let’s say you have a diesel engine and a petrol engine, you can’t make them equal by pumping diesel in to the petrol engine and petrol into diesel engine, if you do that you will just end up with a costly repair bill and little work done. The way to go is to find the right usage for each of them; if the diesel engine can produce more torque, you use it in vehicles that carry a lot weight, and the petrol engine will be used in cars that need to go fast. Since whatever we do to others also affect ourselves (everything contains everything), we will need to work with others in an inclusive and synergistic way in order to function well in this realm of obstacles, and I believe that is why we need a wide and diverse range of industries to have enough options to create synergies. After all, the Buddha did not make the Monkey King sit quietly to meditate and repent, He made the Monkey King to do work as a way to repent and develop his wisdom and character.