"To guide the virtuous to heaven is but a small compassion; to guide ordinary people lost on the wrong path to heaven is a medium compassion; to use the teachings of the Seven Gods to transform demons, elevating them into saints, that is the greatest compassion!"
"To elevate demons into saints, the greatest compassion?" Matthew was deeply shaken.
Saints go to heaven, demons go to hell.
This had always been the most natural worldview for them.
At most, monks would admonish believers who still had faith in the Seven Gods but had gone astray. They would never pull demons from hell up into heaven.
Just like Cersei and Stannis.
Cersei's sins far exceeded those of the second stag, yet she had believed in the Seven Gods for decades and had always been fairly devout.
Even including High Septon John, who crowned Cersei, along with all the clergy, everyone believed that Cersei would inevitably go to hell after death, yet they still tolerated her rule.
But as for the second stag, devout followers of the Seven Gods could hardly tolerate breathing the same air as him. It was as if merely being near him would drag them into the hell of an evil god.
In the Western Church, demons are meant to be purified and destroyed; in Eastern Buddhism, demons are meant to be transformed and delivered.
In the Western Church, angels in heaven are born as such. Angels may fall, but fallen demons never become angels.
In Eastern Buddhism, Buddhas are cultivated from the mortal world through enlightenment. Fallen Buddhas are rare. Even their fall is another form of trial, and they remain within the framework of the Buddhist heaven, always destined to return after tribulation. On the contrary, countless demons have become Buddhas.
Lift the kasaya, and the sacred mountain is full of demons.
Ahem, once demons.
"How does one elevate demons into saints?" Matthew respectfully asked the Holy Mother for guidance.
The Holy Mother sighed softly and said, "Let me tell you a story first. In that year, at the dawn of the era, when all things were newly born, I was filled with joy. I descended to the mortal world and wandered for a long time. Feeling slightly fatigued, I settled in a bamboo grove and entered silent meditation.
Suddenly, a wail came from the sky. It was a hawk chasing a dove.
The white dove was quite spirited. With no way out, it saw the green glow of the bamboo grove, heard faint divine music, and smelled a fragrant aroma. It guessed that a deity had descended here."
Matthew listened with longing, wishing he could witness the Holy Mother's descent himself.
"If I saw such green light and heard divine sounds, I would also know it was a wondrous place," he sighed.
The Holy Mother Dany nodded gently and continued, "When I saw the white dove, I felt compassion and opened my sleeve to let it hide inside.
I said to the hawk chasing it, please spare this dove. Heaven cherishes life."
Matthew frowned. The Holy Mother was too compassionate. Wasn't a hawk eating a dove as natural as nobles consuming commoners?
The Holy Mother, as if unaware of his expression or thoughts, continued, "But the hawk said to me, if I spare this dove, it lives, but I will starve. How is that cherishing life?"
Matthew felt displeased. This hawk had no sense of propriety. The Holy Mother had even said "please," and it still dared to argue. Being given such honor, even starving to death would be worth it, at least it could go to heaven.
"I said to the hawk, I cannot bear to see you starve either. How about I cut flesh from my own body equal in weight to the dove in exchange for its life?"
"Ah, no!" Matthew cried out in distress, as if the Holy Mother were about to cut herself before him.
Ignoring him, she continued, "The hawk brought a scale, placing the dove on one side and asking me to place the flesh I cut on the other."
"How dare it! Such blasphemy against the Holy Mother!" Old Matthew's eyes nearly burst with fury, wishing he could take up a sword and call for a holy war against the hawk.
"Strangely enough, the dove was small and not heavy, yet no matter how much flesh I cut, the scale would not balance.
In the end, I stepped onto the scale myself. Only then did the two sides balance. I closed my eyes and said to the hawk, if I do not enter hell, who will? Eat me. And so the hawk ate me."
"That hawk is a demon. It deserves to go to hell!" Archbishop Matthew nearly fainted with anger.
Though it was said in anger, the Holy Mother nodded and sighed. "You are right. That hawk was an evil god in the form of a hawk. It is quite famous in the East. You should have heard of it."
Matthew froze, then exclaimed, "Could it be the harpy of Slaver's Bay?"
"Yes. Back then, I was cultivating in the Purple Bamboo Forest of the Andalos Mountains, the birthplace of the Andals and the faith of the Seven Gods. After the harpy devoured my physical body, I had no choice but to remain on the mountain for a hundred years to reconstitute my divine form. During that time, I also met little Hugor," the Holy Mother said.
Matthew trembled violently. "So that's how it is. So this is the origin of the Seven Gods not recorded in the Seven-Pointed Scripture."
The Seven-Pointed Scripture records that the Seven Gods appeared in human form on the Andalos Mountains. The Father took seven stars from the sky and placed them on the forehead of Hugor, the King of the Hills, forming his crown. The Maiden brought a delicate girl to become Hugor's first wife. The Mother made her fertile, and she bore Hugor forty-four sons, just as the Crone had foretold. The Warrior gave them strong arms, and the Smith forged armor for each of them.
The old cleric seemed as though he had witnessed the birth of the Andals' kingdom and the Church of the Seven Gods. He was overwhelmed with excitement.
"This legendary tale should be recorded in the Seven-Pointed Scripture!" he said.
Before today, all followers only knew that the Seven Gods had suddenly appeared, giving a crown and a wife to a tribal king in the Andalos Mountains. No one knew the cause or background. It all sounded like a fabricated story.
Now, Matthew knew the truth.
He wanted to shout to the world that the story of the Seven Gods and King Hugor was not fabricated. Everything had cause and effect, reason and logic.
"Matthew, what insight did you gain from the story of feeding the hawk with one's flesh?" the Holy Mother asked, pulling him back to reality.
"Insight?" Matthew was stunned. Reflecting on the story, he almost wanted to say, Holy Mother, have you lost your mind?
But as an archbishop, he had some substance. Connecting it with the earlier question of how to elevate demons into saints, he understood.
"Only with fearless self-sacrifice can one save demons and elevate them into saints," he said awkwardly.
The Holy Mother had indeed sacrificed herself, but it seemed useless. It had not transformed the harpy at all.
"You are not convinced," the Holy Mother saw through him and sighed. "I truly intended to transform the hawk through my sacrifice. But when I sacrificed myself, I felt only compassion for it, without any desire to gain merit from transforming it.
So when it devoured my body without awakening, I felt no resentment or unwillingness, only deeper compassion."
Matthew's eyes widened, deeply shaken.
Then, under the astonished gaze of the Holy Mother Dany, Matthew closed his eyes and entered enlightenment. His soul rippled like water, and strands of holy golden light emerged from its depths.
This was the spiritual realm of the Seven Gods. The Holy Mother had drawn Matthew's soul here with a fragment of divine thought.
Now, his soul was undergoing a qualitative transformation that even Dany did not understand.
The Holy Mother hesitated.
Clearly, Matthew had gained enlightenment under her guidance, and his soul was ascending.
But her teaching was not finished. Should she continue?
The rest of the story might deepen his enlightenment, or it might disrupt his current state.
As she hesitated, the golden light from Matthew's soul began to fade.
Was the enlightenment ending?
The Holy Mother immediately made her decision: continue the story of feeding the hawk.
Whether his enlightenment would be interrupted or not, at least she had to finish what she started.
"What are your thoughts?" she asked.
Matthew opened his eyes. A golden gleam flashed within them as he murmured, "Kindness arises from compassion, without any utilitarian intent. The satisfaction after doing good, or the expectation of results, is also utilitarian. That kind of compassion is not the greatest compassion."
"Very good. You have achieved thirty percent enlightenment," the Holy Mother nodded, then gently asked, "Actually, the story is not finished. There is more. Do you want to hear it?"
Matthew's spirit stirred. He bowed devoutly. "Please teach me."
"That white dove was also a demon. The harpy pursued it not for its flesh, but to seize its divinity."
The revelation struck Matthew like thunder, leaving him dizzy, almost falling from elevation into corruption.
"Did you know this from the beginning?" he asked hoarsely.
"The Father's eyes perceive all truth," the Holy Mother replied calmly.
Matthew understood. She had known everything from the start. The dove was a demon, and so was the hawk.
The Father sees all. And the Father is the Holy Mother.
"If demons kill each other, wouldn't that reduce one demon?" Matthew asked.
"It reduces one demon, but creates a stronger one."
Matthew fell silent.
"Do you know who the dove was?" the Holy Mother asked.
"Who?"
"Where did King Hugor's wife come from?" she smiled.
Matthew's soul trembled. "The Scripture describes her as a delicate girl brought by the Maiden, with deep blue eyes like a tranquil pool. She became Hugor's first wife and bore him forty-four sons."
"Could it be…"
The Holy Mother nodded. "Yes, she was the dove. The greatest compassion is not only a state of mind, but it also brings goodness into the world.
Feeding the hawk did not transform the harpy, but it moved the dove, causing it to sincerely abandon evil and become a saint.
Thus, the dove became the first believer and the first saint of the Church of the Seven Gods.
Afterward, she followed me, learning the teachings, and gradually understood the spirit of fearless self-sacrifice.
To help humanity in a chaotic world, she shed her demonic form and began a second life as a human. She later married Hugor and spread my teachings among the Andals.
Even the earliest version of the Seven-Pointed Scripture was compiled by her."
(P.S. The records about Hugor in the Seven-Pointed Scripture come from the original text without alteration. For example, the Seven Gods truly gave Hugor a wife, and she bore him forty-four sons.
It is only that Dany integrated the story of the Buddha feeding the hawk into this narrative.
The special status of the white dove in the Church of the Seven Gods is also real.
At one time, Baelor even required that all maesters in the Seven Kingdoms stop using ravens and switch to pure white doves for message delivery.
However, this is a fantasy world, and doves have poor survival ability in the wild.
Because of this, Dr. Vograff, who suffered from dementia and was turned into a great writer by Dany before being targeted by the Faceless Men, even wrote a book mocking Baelor's foolishness, titled Black Wings, Swift Delivery. It explains why doves cannot replace ravens.
Of course, Baelor's actions were not without consequence. The maesters bred white-winged ravens to deceive the king. They looked like giant doves but were still ravens.
After Baelor's death, white ravens were not abandoned. They were used to deliver good news or seasonal changes.
Thus, a saying appeared in Westeros: black wings bring black tidings.)
(End of Chapter)
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