PureInsight | August 6, 2001
It was around the 8th day of the 4th month in the lunar calendar, Buddha’s Birthday. A friend from my college days contacted me to suggest that we go together to visit the Banzo Temple. Her daughter and the daughter’s classmates often helped out with chores at the Temple and enjoyed the vegetarian foods there on special occasion days. This opportunity came just at the right time to fulfil my wish to visit a temple. And so it was that, for the very first time in my life, I stepped into the front door of a Buddhist temple.
The images of the Buddhas were magnificent and solemn; they appeared to me to be sort of awesomely respectable. A monk mentioned that the Buddha statue located in the front sanctuary had just been replaced. I had no idea which Buddha had been there previously but only knew that Maitreya (the Happy Buddha) was residing as the Future Buddha now. Maitreya was all smiling and looking kindly at the human world with the four Vajras at His two sides. Perhaps because I had seen Buddha Maitreya before in my meditation, I felt very close to Him and would have liked to have stayed there as long as possible. In the central hall, there was a huge image of Buddha Sakyamuni with the 18 Arhats surrounding Him, each making a different hand gesture. A statue of Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara (Goddess of Mercy) was being worshiped in the rear sanctuary. I went to this back room and pressed my hands together in front of my chest to express my thanks to Her for blessing and protecting me all this time.
When I went back to the central court to take a closer look, I glanced upward and saw sentences from Chinese poetry carved in big golden characters on black frames along the sides of Buddha Sakyamuni. On the left vertical frame was the sentence: “The Buddha Light shines everywhere so the country will have fair weather”. The right vertical frame read: “Falun rotates constantly to keep the world in peace”. The top horizontal frame displayed the Chinese characters for: “The righteous Fa lasts forever”. When I saw these writings, I felt a bit shocked. Many questions popped into my mind and heart: “What is Buddha Light? What is Falun? Who could come up with such powerful sayings? How could he know that there exists a Law Wheel for governing world peace?” All of a sudden, I felt so insignificant and tiny, like an innocent, ignorant child. In the past, my guiding principle had been to be skillful in math, physics, and chemistry so as to be an expert in every thing and thus be confident to go anywhere. But at that moment I discovered my own ignorance and strongly realized that there was something missing in my life. I borrowed a pen and jotted down those sentences of Chinese poetry. Later I learned that, to a practitioner of cultivation, Falun is a holy word as It is something very hard to obtain and thus to be cherished as a priceless treasure.
In August of 1999 I was abroad, so I asked a fellow practitioner in China to go to the Banzo Temple and check for me whether those frames of words were still displayed there or not after 10 years. Actually, I also missed those senior monks who had taken good care of the poetry frames for so many years. During this time of the spreading of the Great Fa and Master Li’s bestowing Falun to save people, I wish that those monks would not miss this rare chance that is so hard to come by over the thousands of years. I have therefore been constantly sending forth the righteous thought of wishing for them to obtain Dafa. My practitioner friend sent word to me that those poetry frames in the Temple were now replaced with something different, except that, horizontally, one could still read “The righteous Fa lasts forever,” “Buddha light shines everywhere” and “Falun rotates constantly”. However, the original poetry sentences are forever cherished in my heart.
During that first visit I did not kneel down to kowtow to the Buddhas because I was concerned about being labeled superstitious. I felt uncomfortable after coming home. In the meantime I wanted to learn more about Buddhism. So I thought I might go again to the Temple alone.
(To be continued)
Translated from an edited version of http://www.zhengjian.org/sci/sci/home1/10251_p.html
