"After leaving the Scriptures with me, Shixing Monk departed with Suo Luo. He knew that no one who practices Zen could resist looking at notes summarized by Buddha's disciples. And I did indeed look."
Jianquan continued, "The Heaven of Transformation described in the book is a Mysterious Realm that allows one to enter another's life through contact—not to spy, observe, or inspect, but to directly become another, to experience a different life.
"I was once a peasant woman, holding my sick child who died at the age of three. Sitting in a dilapidated house, I wept bitterly for two days and nights until my tears ran dry. Then I had to pick up a hoe and return to the fields to work.
"I was once a destitute scholar, poor and rundown, with nothing to my name. On a cold New Year's Eve, I got a jug of cloudy wine on credit from a tavern. While heating the wine by a firewood flame, I remembered my youthful ambitions to soar among the clouds and couldn't help but tear up.
