PureInsight | October 8, 2006
[PureInsight.org] This is a cultivation story of an ancient monk.
Inancient times, a monk was practicing cultivation in a temple deep
inside a mountain. To achieve the righteous fruit, he meditated,
worshiped the Buddha, and chanted scriptures. He cultivated arduously
every day.
In the hot summer days, there were a lot of hungry mosquitoes looking
for food. They would constantly attack the monk in groups. To drive
them away, the monk had tried many methods including incense smoke, but
nothing worked. In the end, the monk gathered up his courage and
thought to himself, "In the past, the Buddha fed himself to a tiger.
Now let me feed myself to the mosquitoes." He simply took off his
clothes and let the mosquitoes bite him at will. It went on for many
days. Finally, his wholeheartedness moved the Buddha and Bodhisattva in
charge of salvation. To help him achieve the righteous fruit, the
Bodhisattva went to save him. To give him a final test of sincerity,
the Bodhisattva transformed an object into a big tiger, which broke
into the temple looking for food. The monk was sitting in meditation
when he suddenly felt a strange wind blowing into the temple and heard
tiger roaring. He opened his eyes and saw a huge tiger walking towards
him truculently. Because his mentality of fear was not removed, he
immediately went from being the state of a god to the state of a human.
He became frightened and cried out, "This customer is too big. I can't
afford to feed it with my own body. I'd better run for my life." Then
he ran away as fast as he could. He saved his life, but missed the
opportunity of achieving the righteous fruit.
When Boddhidarma first came to China, he would often sit in meditation
and enter deep tranquility for a long time. In order to follow the Tao,
a young monk called Huike would sit in the snow and wait for
Boddhidarma for days. When Boddhidarma got out of tranquility, he asked
Huike, "What do you seek from me?" Huike answered, "I want to learn
your supreme way of Buddha." Boddhidarma said, "It is winter now. The
ground is covered with snow. If you can make it bloom red flowers in
the ground, I will teach you." Huike was unable to make red flowers
bloom, so he cut off one of his arms and splashed blood on the ground.
Then he told Boddhidarma, "Red flowers are blooming in the ground."
Boddhidarma was moved by his sincerity in seeking the Tao. He used
supernormal abilities to put Huike's arm back and accepted him as a
disciple. Through arduous cultivation practice, Huike became the Second
Patriarch of Zen Buddhism.
Now the Fa-rectification is approaching its last stage. Under Teacher's
merciful and powerful salvation, many practitioners who had taken a
detour have come back to practice cultivation again. I wrote this
article to remind those practitioners who have yet to come back the
following, "Please think back to when you first started practicing
cultivation, how much Dafa gave you. How many times has Teacher given
you hints? Once you miss the precious Buddha Fa, you will never have
the second chance, and your arduous waiting life after life will end in
vain." There are many steadfast Dafa practitioners whom the evil dares
not to touch. To help us return, Teacher has suffered numerous
hardships. I hope those practitioners, who still have doubts and fear,
will come back quickly and board the boat of the Fa again, come back to
the path of Godhood, do the three things well, and fulfill our
prehistoric vows.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2006/9/18/40059.html
