PureInsight | May 9, 2005
[PureInsight.org] There are many records in Chinese history where blasphemous people met with tribulations. I have compiled a list of stories in this category and, hopefully, today's blasphemous people will take a few lessons from these true stories and stop attacking the Falun Buddha Fa (or Falun Gong.)
Two Stories Recorded in Bian Zheng Lun
I. There was a man named Cui Pingye in the Liang Dynasty (502-557 A.D.) during the Southern and Northern Dynasties period (420-589 A.D.). Cui Pingye was skilled in horseback riding and archery. He was made a lieutenant in the imperial army. Throughout his life, Cui repeatedly stole copper Buddha statues, melted them and sold the copper to buy wine and meat. He never felt ashamed of his crime, nor did he fear getting caught. At the age of 50, his wife, all of his children, and all of his brothers died. He was suddenly left alone in the world. Then suddenly he became ill and lost his vision. Soon the winter came. He suffered the sub-zero temperature and hunger, and soon died of hunger.
II. Xie Hui from the Song Dynasty (960-1279 A.D.) was made the governor of Jingzhou prefecture. After he arrived at his post, he decided that there should not be any Buddhist monasteries or pagodas in the capital city of Jingzhou prefecture. He ordered all the existing Buddhist monasteries and pagodas inside the city to be torn down. One day he led his subordinates to a newly built Buddhist monastery to do the demolition work. First, he had 80 soldiers chop down the beams and columns of the monastery. Then he ordered them to destroy all the Buddha statues. All the Buddha statues in the monastery were knocked down to the floor and beams and columns collapsed. Soon ghostly clouds appeared and covered the sun and the sky. Cold, gusty wind suddenly came, and brought up a lot of sand and dirt in the air. Xie Hui was extremely frightened and fled from the scene. All the soldiers were terrified and fled too. No one knew what caused the strange phenomenon.
Xie Hui and many of his soldiers had the same nightmare that night. They saw Buddhist monks flying and glowing in the sky. They also saw two men that were each more than ten feet in height. They both looked majestic and unique. They gave Xie Hui and the soldiers a fierce look and condemned them aloud, "What you have done today was terribly wrong. You will soon realize it." Soon afterwards, the soldiers who had the nightmare developed a skin disease and died within a few days. Later, all the rest of the soldiers involved in the demolition work committed crimes. All of them were brought to justice and were executed. Xie Hui developed an ulcer on his back that lasted for years. Later he and his entire family were executed because he was accused of treason. Not a single person involved in the demolition of the Buddhist monastery died of natural causes.
Three Stories Recorded in Jing Jie Lu:
I. In the Former Shu Kingdom during the Five Dynasties and the Ten Kingdoms Period (907-960 A.D.), there was a Buddhist monastery called the Kai Zhao Monastery on Sanxue Mountain in Jintang County. One night a group of bandits broke into the monastery and stole all the money and valuables. They also stole a valuable kasaya (a Buddhist monk's robe) from the monastery. The kasaya was made of silk and was a treasure that had been passed down for over 1,000 years. The leader of the robbers took the kasaya into his possession. He and his wife cut it up into sections and sold them separately. Immediately after they sold the kasaya, he and his wife started losing their fingers one section at a time. They also lost all of their hair. Soon the local law-enforcement brought them to justice and executed them in the market.
II. In the former Shu Kingdom during the Five Dynasties and the Ten Kingdoms Period (907-960 A.D.), there was a Buddhist monastery called Daci Monastery. The King of Shu proclaimed a Buddhist monk named Shao Min as Imperial Buddhist Master Zicizhao and appointed him as Head Monk of Daci Monastery. Shao Min often sent the monks in the monastery out to solicit alms. More specifically, he asked them to solicit money and valuables in the name of making offerings for Bodhisattva statues. However, he kept most of the donations for himself. Later he became ill and kept saying that he was being repeatedly burned in fire from head to toe. Finally, Shao Min could not endure the torture and excruciating pain any longer. He confessed his crime in front of the Bodhisattva statues and asked for forgiveness. He gave a lot of clothes and personal belongings to the poor, but he was still not spared from the burning torture.
III. During the Five Dynasties and the Ten Kingdoms Period (907-960 A.D.), the Kingdom of Shu once attacked the Lang Prefecture. When the Shu army conquered the Lang Prefecture, the soldiers started marauding and killing the local residents. A soldier saw a giant copper bell in a local Buddhist temple and decided to break it into pieces and sell the pieces of copper individually. He used a large rock to break the giant bell into pieces. One of the broken pieces smashed into his legs and broke both of his legs. He died soon afterwards.
A story recorded in Wang Shi Jie.
In the Liang Dynasty (502-557 A.D.) during the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420-589 A.D.), there was a scholar named Wang Zhen'e. He was a successful candidate for the national civil service examination held at the imperial city. Although he had a wealth of knowledge, he was a vicious person and often said nasty things to hurt other people. His contemporaries all despised him. Moreover, Wang also despised the Buddha Fa. Whenever he ran into a Buddhist monk, he would ridicule and insult him. Later he started a career as a schoolteacher. A monk named Fa Man from the local Lu Xi Monastery stored a large copper bell at Wang's school temporarily, but Wang secretly melted the bell and made copper coins out of it. Then he swore to Monk Fa Man that he had never touched the bell. A year later Wang became severely ill. His tongue bent involuntarily and shriveled. He lost the ability to speak. Wang realized that it was because he stole the bell from the monastery and swore a fraudulent oath to Monk Fa Man. He made a new copper bell to repent for his sin, but he was unable to speak for the rest of his life.
A record in Guang Gu Jin Wu Xing Ji.
During the Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.), there was a skilled painter in the Bing Prefecture. Once when he was young, he was captured by the Turks. The Khan of the Turks asked him to paint Buddha portraits, but he would sometimes steal the paint pigments, which were quite valuable at the time. In order to smuggle the paint out of the work studio, he would wrap the paint with paper and stuff it in his nose. Later he suffered from non-stop nose bleeding and lost a few cups of blood. Eventually he became a monk. During the Zhen Guan Period of Emperor Taizong's reign, he resided in a Buddhist monastery in Shandong Province. He slowly developed a nasal disease. Three years later a tumor developed in his nose in the size of a peach. The tumor kept discharging fluid and caused excruciating pain. Later he confessed to Monk Ling Dai and asked him to ask for Buddha's forgiveness, but he continued to suffer from the nasal disease and tumor. He suffered the medical problems for ten years before he died. Later Monk Ling Dai shared the man's story with other people in order to teach people to respect the Buddha and the Buddha Fa.
A record in Yu Tang Xian Hua
There was a giant copper bell in the Xi Min Monastery in Chang'an (today's Xi'an.) During the Anshi Rebellion, the rebellious army invaded Chang'an. All the monks in the Xi Min Monastery abandoned the monastery and fled Chang'an. After the monastery was abandoned for a few years, a destitute civilian decided to break up the giant copper bell in the monastery to sell the copper. He concealed a hammer and a chisel in his sleeves and started to secretly chisel down the copper. He would remove one to two pounds of copper from the bell at a time and sell it in the market. He kept chiseling the copper bell and selling the chunks of copper for over a year. All the local people knew about his business, but the government officials turned a blind eye to it. One day he suddenly disappeared. His family looked everywhere but could not find him. His regular customers also wondered his whereabouts. Later the local government decided to move the giant copper bell to another Buddhist monastery. They went to Xi Min Monastery and saw the bell had fallen down on the ground. When he turned the bell sideway, they saw the copper thief sitting inside the bell with a hammer and a chisel, but he had already become a dried corpse. Apparently, the giant bell suddenly came loose from its hanger and locked the thief inside the bell. He died of hunger and thirst.
A Record in Xuan Yan Ji
In Ye City of Xiang Prefecture, there was a giant copper statue of a standing Buddha. A man named Ding Ling was a fierce, cruel and belligerent bandit. Ding Ling did not believe in Buddha. One day he pulled his bow and sent an arrow directly at the copper statue of Buddha. The arrow hit the face of the statue, which started to bleed immediately. Ding Ling tried to cover the trace of blood, but it could not be concealed. In addition, Ding Ling had 500 robust men pull down the giant copper statue so that he could melt the statue into copper and use the copper for something else. While the 500 men were trying to bring down the statue, the statue created a large noise that sounded like thunder. The 500 burly men became frightened and collapsed. They felt dizzy and had difficulty pulling themselves from the ground. After they received the warning, the 500 bandits became ashamed of their disrespectful behavior and became Buddhists. Ding Ling, however, became ill and was later murdered.
A Record in Zhuan Ji Fu Lu
During the Hui Chang Period of Emperor Wu Zong's reign (840-846 A.D.), there was a military general named Wang Yiyi. While Emperor Wu Zong ordered a lot of Buddhist monasteries to be torn down, Wang Yiyi sold the fine bricks and wood from the monasteries for money and goods. He used the best materials from them to build a lot of houses and to rebuild his home. His home, thus, became the most beautiful mansion in the Mount Qi region.
Three years later. A low-level government official asked to see General Wang Yiyi, saying that he had something he must tell him. With tears in his eyes, the man said timidly, "I was resting in my bed with my eyes closed when a man in purple robe summoned me into a mansion with a large red entrance. The mansion resembled yours. I saw musicians and dancers performing in the living room with a whole room of guests, but I didn't see you. The man in purple robe pointed at a small trail down below the staircase and said, 'Take this trial and you will meet your boss.' I took the deserted, barren trail with only thorny shrubs on the sides. It was such a narrow trail that only one man could pass at a time. I came to a bungalow and passed the entrance only to see you lying on the bed with arms and legs tied. Then someone brought a torch into the house. When the man was about to burn your hair with the torch, you burst into tears and groaned, 'How unfortunate I am! While I was alive, I tried to cut down the cost of my construction work by purchasing bricks and woods from the torn-down Buddhist monasteries. Now I am tied up in ropes here. I will die in three days. When you return, you must tell my family to tear down all the houses and my mansion and return all the building materials I bought to the Buddhist monasteries. Do not keep anything.' Then your whole head was on fire. I could not tell what you were saying."
General Wang was enraged when he heard the story and scolded the official. On the next day, he developed a malignant tumor on the back of his head. He died three days later.
A Record in Guang Yi Ji
There were two statues of Vajra in the tower of the Kai Yuan Monastery in Wu Prefecture. Rumor had it that they answered people's prayers and birds were afraid of being near them. There was a lot of traffic from people coming to pay their respects to the two Vajra statues every day. During the Kai Yuan Period (713-741 A.D.) of Emperor Xuan Zong's reign, a governmental official of Wu Prefecture had a banquet in the tower of the Kai Yuan Monastery. Many guests said it was disrespectful to have a banquet in a tower with two Vajra statues, but one guest said, "They are nothing but two large piles of clay! What's the big deal?" Then he stuffed meat into the mouths of the Vajra statues and poured wine on the statues. In a short while, dark clouds shadowed the tower, thunder rumbled in the sky, and strong winds blew all the dishes off the table. Everyone became terrified. However, the fierce wind blew only the man that insulted the statues of Vajra 50 feet away from the tower. He died instantly when a lightning bolt hit him.
There are numerous unsolved mysteries in the world. You do not have to practice Falun Buddha Fa (or Falun Gong), but you must not believe the Mainland Chinese media's hate propaganda against Falun Gong because it is a terrible sin to slander the Buddha Fa. Perhaps the compilation of historical records will help you make a better, wiser decision.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2003/4/26/21324.html
