不死不滅不成神 (what does it mean?)
Warning: This is probably spoilery, the more spoilery part, I put under the cut.
There is the surface reading and then there’s the Buddhist reading. The literal reading goes: No death, no extinguishment, no godhood.
What is death? The cessation of life. One must live before one can die, as Kunlun has told him: all living things must have an end, rocks are forever, but they don’t live. Death for Shen Wei, chaos given form, is simply from form to formlessness. To chaos.
What is “godhood”? If we require both ‘death’ and ‘extinguishment,’ we can safely change ‘god’ here to 'enlightenment.’ Which is what all the yao in the novel are working towards. Shen Wei is already a demigod of sorts, and in terms of what he can do, it doesn’t really change before he ‘attains godhood’ and after. You can become enlightened when you’re alive, but you can only be in Nirvana after death. And Nirvana literally reads “to quench” or “to put out” (a flame.) The Buddha was asked, “Where does an enlightened person go after death?” and the answer was, “Where does a flame go when it is blown out?”
What is “extinguishment”? The extinguishment is of the 'three fires.’ This means the cessation of greed, hatred, delusion. Most of that, in Shen Wei’s case, is tied up in his attachment to Kunlun.
His greed is for forever with Kunlun. His hatred is for everything that could take Kunlun from him. His delusion is that he can stop death.
The entire novel, we’re witnessing Shen Wei’s “extinguishment,” or his path to true enlightenment.
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