Genjo gently shook his head. "Senior Brother's words are mistaken. The myriad Dharmas are consciousness-only, but this does not mean that the myriad Dharmas are all empty falsehoods. If consciousness is not empty, then sentient beings are not empty; if sentient beings are not empty, then compassion is not empty."
"To leave the world is to realize bodhi; to enter the world is to deliver all sentient beings. If one sees the suffering of the common people and yet flees into the deep mountains, seeking only one's own liberation, that is not this young monk's path."
"As it is said: all manner of sentient beings, I shall lead them all into the nirvana beyond remainder and bring them to extinction and deliverance; yet though immeasurable, innumerable, boundless sentient beings are thus delivered, in truth no sentient being is delivered."
"To deliver sentient beings is to enter the world; that in truth no sentient being is delivered is to leave the world. Entering the world and leaving the world are originally one and the same."
Here we go again!
Madara Uchiha still could not understand all that rambling, but at the very least, he understood one key point: the monk Genjo before him would also appear in Konoha that day.
Thinking of this, Madara Uchiha nodded and did not continue speaking.
At that moment, however, Isshiki at the side suddenly spoke. "Good! Junior Brother's compassion cannot bear to see the common people suffer. This bodhisattva heart of yours is one I deeply admire. It is only that..."
He paused slightly. His tone remained gentle, but the direction of his words quietly shifted. "With Junior Brother's divine powers and realm of attainment, if you truly wished to calm the conflicts of this world, you could do so with the turn of a hand. Why, then, must you personally go to Konoha? Why borrow another man's association and proceed slowly through it?"
'This guy is still probing me.'
Genjo thought inwardly.
What overwhelming power did he have right now to force peace onto the Shinobi World directly? Even setting aside the two old monsters before him, his own current strength still did not rank among the very top tier in the present Shinobi World.
But none of this showed on his face. He merely smiled and shook his head. "Senior Brother's words are mistaken again. When the World-Honored One abided in the world, he possessed immeasurable divine powers, and with a single gesture could have brought the three thousand great thousand worlds into purity."
"Yet when the World-Honored One spread the Dharma in the world and preached to sentient beings, he always did so in the form of an ordinary man, no different from the bhikshus around him. Did he ever display divine powers before others? Did he ever awe the masses with overwhelming might?"
"The reason the World-Honored One is the World-Honored One lies not in divine powers, but in ordinariness. If he were to manifest divine powers, sentient beings would fear his power rather than revere his Dharma; if he were to subdue them with great might, sentient beings would submit to his force rather than return to awakening."
"Thus, throughout his life, the World-Honored One taught only through words and personal examples. Only when the Demon King, Papiyas, descended with hundreds of thousands of millions of demonic hordes did the World-Honored One subdue those demonic grievances with boundless might, because demonic hordes cannot be moved by compassion, nor transformed by mercy."
"Therefore, he confronted them with the wrathful gaze of vajra and suppressed them with the immovable honored one. After subduing the demons, he still returned to plain simplicity."
"So to subdue demons with divine powers and to save the world with compassion are two things that do not conflict. This young monk's entry into the world on this journey is to seek the karmic affinities through which sentient beings may be delivered, not to flaunt the majesty of subduing demons for a moment."
"So that is how it is. Junior Brother's realm is lofty indeed; I have been instructed." Isshiki nodded and pressed his palms together, though whether he believed it or not was impossible to tell.
Madara Uchiha at the side may have been completely baffled, but he understood Genjo's hidden meaning perfectly clearly.
What he meant was that he had this ability, but that he would imitate the World-Honored One in spreading the Dharma, not using divine powers to forcefully cow sentient beings, but instead gradually guiding them with compassion and wisdom.
Put more plainly, he would decide how to treat the other party based on what kind of person they were.
If they could be reasoned with through Buddhist doctrine, he would reason with them through it. If they could not, then just as the young monk had said earlier, he also knew a little martial skill.
And if he were facing the offspring and descendants of demons, then he would use his true power.
Madara Uchiha, at the side, was truly bewildered by what he had heard, but as he looked at the young monk before him, speaking fluently and wearing that calm, detached expression, for some reason, the feeling of unwillingness in his heart began to surge up again.
Perhaps it was because he himself was an extremely proud man, yet tonight, time and again, others had seen through his secrets, grasped his background, and even lightly pierced through the very goal he had pursued all his life with a few casual words.
Or perhaps it was because of some obsession, one that even he himself could not explain, engraved deep within his heart and even deeper within his soul, an obsession that simply could not accept defeat.
Naturally, Madara Uchiha did not know there was another, even more crucial reason he felt this way.
It was not only because of the moment he stepped into this ruined temple tonight, but every word and action of Genjo had also invisibly pressed down on him, making him feel as though he were being seen through at every turn and forced into a disadvantage at every moment, something his pride could not accept.
There was also another key reason: Genjo had been created with the first Hokage's cells as its core.
And the first Hokage, Hashirama Senju, had been the closest friend and greatest rival of Madara Uchiha's life, as well as Asura's reincarnation.
The two had been entangled for an entire lifetime, and the imprints buried deep within those two souls had likewise been intertwined for a thousand years.
Madara Uchiha did not want to lose to Hashirama Senju, and the Indra chakra imprint hidden deep within his soul did not want to lose to Asura either.
Although under the system's shaping, no one could detect any trace that Genjo's clone had fused with the first Hokage's cells, it was still inevitable that those familiar with such things would feel a strange sense of déjà vu.
It was precisely this inexplicable sense of familiarity that made Madara Uchiha look at Genjo before him with a constant feeling of dissatisfaction, with a competitive fire from the depths of his soul, faintly burning the entire time.
So Madara Uchiha, still unwilling to accept it, spoke again. "Junior Brother Genjo, you seem to know everything. Nothing seems capable of stumping you. But before becoming a monk, Senior Brother was also a man with a strong competitive streak. So how about it? Let us make a wager."
(Note: In the Naruto universe, reincarnation does not mean Naruto (Example) shares the exact same soul as Asura. Instead, it means that Asura's chakra and spiritual willpower were passed down and grafted onto Naruto, pushing him into a destined conflict.)