PureInsight | September 19, 2007
[PureInsight.org] In the Tang
Dynasty, a book called "Record of Retribution for Sin" recorded many
stories about how people's sincere worship of Buddha resulted in their
being free from dangers and disasters.
The first story is as follows:
near the end of a year in the Dong Wei Period, some people from Ye Xia
town went to the West Mountain to mine silver sand. They finished
the work and were leaving the cave. But before all of them
completely got out, the cave suddenly collapsed. The man who was
walking last was totally buried inside the cave. Luckily, he was
not injured. There was a very small hole in the collapsed cave so
he could manage to see through to the outside. He shouted for
help, but nobody could hear him. He had no choice but to pray to
Buddha.
His father was told that his son was buried in the cave and the body
couldn't be found. The father wanted to do something to release
his son's soul from purgatory. He was very poor but managed to
obtain a bowl of simple and plain rice. He went to a temple and
offered the bowl of rice to the monks. He asked the monks to pray
to expiate the sins of the son. However, most of the monks had
been offered the best food and were living in luxury. They
disdained this bowl of rice. The father was so desperate that he
cried in sadness. One of the monks sympathized with him very much
and accepted his offering. After eating the rice, the monk prayed
for the son. Then the father left in ease.
At this moment, the man who was buried in the cave suddenly saw,
through the small hole, a monk holding a bowl of rice walking towards
him. The monk offered him the rice. Since then, he never felt
hungry at all. The only thing he did was to sit up and worship
Buddha.
More than ten years passed. In the year when Emperor Qi Wen
attained the throne, he ordered the building of a pavilion on the West
Mountain. It just so happened that as the workers dug they opened
the cave. They found the buried man and pulled him out. The
man went home and reunited with his parents. Everybody gasped in
surprise over the miracle.
The second story is as follows:
Zhang Liang was a high ranking official of You Zhou city. He
always believed in Buddha. One day, he went to a temple to
worship Buddha. He saw some dust on the tall statue of
Buddha. He immediately cleaned and wiped the Buddha statue and
sincerely worshipped.
One day, Zhang Liang sat in the den at home. Two girl servants
stood beside him. The weather suddenly changed to
thunderstorms. Zhang Liang had always feared thunderstorm in the
past. So he focused on praying to Buddha to reduce his
fear. After a while, a thunderstorm hit a wooden support beam in
the den. One of the girl servants was struck by the thunderbolt
when she passed by the beam on her way out to check what was
happening. Zhang Liang was hit by a piece of timber right in the
middle of his forehead. But he did not fell any pain at all,
although the piece of timber was broken into half. Zhang Liang
carefully checked his own forehead and found a red
scar.
Next day, he went to the temple to worship Buddha as usual. He
saw a big scar on the forehead of the Buddha Statue, as if the forehead
had been hit by an object. This was in the same position of the
forehead where Zhang Liang had been hit by the timber. Zhang
Liang realized that it was Buddha who had saved him from the
danger. All people sighed in astonishment after they heard this
story.
The third story is as follows:
Lu Wen Li was a high ranking imperial official in Fang Yang City.
Once upon a time, when he was still a low ranking official, he was
under an order to serve on an imperial mission in Jin Zhou City.
He was suffering a serious illness when he arrived in the region of the
South Yangtze River. His abdomen became swollen and was as hard
as a stone. He was unable to eat. All medicines were not
effective at all. He thought he was going to die. He could
do nothing but concentrate on praying to Mother Buddha.
After a few days, Lu Wen Li had a dream and saw Mother Buddha.
Mother Buddha said to him, "I came to save you because you are devoted
to worshiping Buddha. Now I'll remove the illness in your
abdomen." Buddha held a large wooden spoon, stretched into his
abdomen and fetched out three liters of dirty stuff. Then Mother
Buddha disappeared in a flash. Lu Wen Li woke up with a
start. He found his abdomen was flat and the illness was
gone. After that, he lived in good health for the rest of his
life.
Translated from:
http://zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2007/8/22/47858.html
