PureInsight | June 23, 2007
[PureInsight.org] Yin Yuan was
a monk from the area north of the Yangtze River. He died suddenly when
he was studying Buddha dharma in the Tianning Temple. His mother in
Taizhou received the corpse and found the skin of her son's body was
stuck to the mat. When they were putting his body in a coffin, Yin Yuan
woke up. He told everyone about his previous life. He said he was once
a county magistrate in his previous life. He embezzled government funds
and put the blame on a lowly officer in charge of the storehouse.
Moreover, he had also plotted to have the officer killed. The officer
hated him greatly and reported the affair to the King of Hell. The King
of Hell, then, summoned Yin Yuan's soul to the nether world to give an
explanation.
The King of Hell advised the officer: "Since he has become a monk and
if you still want to get even with him, why not let him use his power
to release your soul from suffering. How about it?" Yin Yuan agreed
with the King's decree. He vowed to chant the Thousand Buddhas Repent
every day and do a certain Buddhist ritual every night for three years
to lessen the crime he had committed in his previous life. The
storehouse officer agreed and Yin Yuan thus returned to this world.
Before he returned to this world, Yin Yuan asked to have a guide to
give him a tour of the nether world. When they arrived at a great hall,
which had a horizontal board with inscription of "Hall of Scripture
Mending." There were several hundreds Buddhist monks and Taoist priests
chanting scriptures in bright lighting. The hall then went dark.
Yin Yuan asked: "What is this place?" The guide said: "They are the
monks and priests who were paid to recite scriptures in the human world
so the givers could accumulate merit. But they took the givers' money
without reciting scriptures for them. That is why they are reciting
scriptures now to make up." Yin Yuan asked again: "Why does the hall go
dark?" The guide said: "It is because they have too much karma so they
are not allowed to finish reciting scriptures too soon. It will be a
long time before the light comes back on. When the light comes back, it
will be turned off right away so they will stay in the dark for a long,
long time."
After Yin Yuan returned to this world, he paid off his debt in three
years and went to the Ling Yin Temple to continue studying Buddha
dharma.
From Shijiexian, written in the Qing dynasty
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2007/6/17/44423.html
