早悟蘭因，苦海浮沉回此生

In September and October of last year, I fell ill. My whole body ached severely—not enough to be fatal, yet it would not heal no matter what. I went to several top-tier hospitals in Beijing and also saw Chinese medicine practitioners; for three whole months, the root of the illness was never found. When the pain became truly unbearable, in utter desperation I resorted to the exorcism talismans I had learned and swallowed one myself—talismans of this kind are not normally recommended for personal consumption. The moment the talisman water entered my mouth, the pain immediately eased. Only then did I confirm: the root of the illness was connected to karmic creditors, and this karmic affinity was by no means simple. For those few days I was genuinely relieved, thinking the matter was settled.

But I rejoiced too soon. Sentient beings also have intelligence; they will not be wiped out by a single blow or driven away at the first strike—that only happens in novels. The talismans relied on the power of thunder and fire to force them back, but once the ritual force weakened, they returned; and since my own power was limited, the more I used them repeatedly, the less effective the method became—the other side had long since taken my measure. When I confronted them with mudras, the energy of the spirits even pressed directly upon my hands, making them ice-cold, and disrupted my thoughts, trying every means to stop me from acting. Moreover, talismans of the thunder-fire type are the most arid and fierce; at the time I was long ill and my vital energy greatly depleted, and my constitution was frail—drinking it brought on internal heat, and a rash of heat bumps broke out on my body, creating new problems instead. Thus I was caught in a deadlock from which I could neither advance nor retreat.

In the years before I fell ill, I had been engaged in writing work. Through certain opportunities, I had long been in contact with metaphysics and mysterious forces, and a Daoist master had fully opened my subtle apertures, so my perception of the spirit realm was keener than that of ordinary people. But I was unwilling to view things through a superstitious lens. In my view, many practitioners rely too much on dreams, special bodily sensations, and visions—yet these things mostly cannot be repeatedly verified, and a large part of them are merely projections of one’s own mental imagery. A truly reliable perception must both sense the level beyond the everyday and be corroborated by things in reality, and be repeatedly verifiable—rather than drowning every day in vague and ethereal things. Only that counts as true “spiritual power.” Moreover, if a person can only sense the ghost realm and mountain spirits and demons, that actually shows that he himself is on the same frequency as such things—such apertures, once opened, may not be a good thing.

Precisely because of this seriousness, during the first three months of my illness I preferred to run to the hospital again and again rather than think in terms of ghosts and spirits.

Just when I was cornered by this illness and could not solve the problem even with talismans, almost without hope, I remembered a wholesome connection from ten years earlier. At that time I was doing volunteer work and had once served as a driver for a Dharma master, and I had long known of the extraordinary qualities of Master Hsuan Hua and the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas.

So I video-called this master. The master pointed the phone camera at the image of Master Hsuan Hua and told me to speak my words before the Master. I said that I was still young yet had contracted such a strange illness, and that I must have knowingly or unknowingly harmed many beings in the past; I had heard that bowing the Ten Thousand Buddhas Repentance is an extremely powerful form of repentance, and with nowhere else to turn, I resolved to bow the Ten Thousand Buddhas Repentance, vowing to dedicate all the merit to the beings who were entangled with me, and to beseech the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Dharma-protecting deities to bear witness and mediate, to dissolve the karmic debts and let the illness heal.

The moment I finished speaking, the illness immediately improved. I felt a coolness like sweet dew pouring down from the crown of my head, penetrating straight to the place of pain—utterly different from the arid thunder-fire of Daoist talismans. But because the karmic affinity was too deep, within a few days of improvement the beings returned and the pain struck again. Unwilling to disturb the master repeatedly, I simply made up my mind to bow the entire Ten Thousand Buddhas Repentance to completion.

The process of bowing the repentance was not easy: each time I bowed, the illness eased a little, and as soon as I stopped it flared up again; on the whole there was little improvement for a long time, until I completed the entire Ten Thousand Buddhas Repentance. The real turning point came without warning—shortly after completing the bowing, it happened to be the Beginning of Spring, and my illness suddenly healed completely on that very day. It did not heal gradually (a slow recovery could at least be attributed to medical efficacy), but was completely gone all at once on the day of the Beginning of Spring, and never recurred afterward. This experience gave rise to deep repentance in me, and I truly experienced the inconceivable power of the Buddhadharma. It happened to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas; various conditions converged, and I resolved to go to CTTB. Traveling from China all the way to the United States was originally a decision extremely difficult for me to make—it was the resolution of this illness that finally pushed me to it.

This year has been a year of especially deep realization for me. Before I set out for CTTB, my father suddenly suffered a cerebral infarction. At the onset the situation was critical: his hands and feet could barely move, he could not even stand steadily, his consciousness was muddled, his speech was incoherent, his memory had declined, and his whole state was close to Alzheimer’s. My father, who had been fine, suddenly became like this—it was a great blow to me, and during that time I also bowed many Ten Thousand Buddhas Repentances on his behalf.

My first visit to CTTB was originally to fulfill a vow—out of gratitude for the resolution of my karmic illness, and also to pray for my father, that he might get through the hurdle of the cerebral infarction. Many people assume that as soon as one arrives at a monastery one will feel a strong energetic response, but I had no such experience on this trip. I gradually came to understand: when the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas do not actively manifest or invoke the power of merit, energy is not deliberately mobilized—it is not that startling wonders are displayed at every moment.

The greatest gain of this trip was experiencing the power of purity. I came to understand that from the human and heavenly realms all the way up to higher states (such as the Realm of Neither Perception nor Non-Perception), the core characteristic is the progressive reduction of desire—and this is precisely the fundamental principle behind the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas teaching people to observe the Five Precepts and let go of greed: the fainter the desire, the higher one can transcend; no matter how great one’s spiritual power, if desire is heavy, one remains trapped in the lower realms—just as the clear rises and the turbid sinks.

This also made me think of the Daoist tradition and other cultivation systems: many people there possess spiritual powers in the human realm far beyond ordinary people, yet because they cannot sever heavy desire, they can never advance further. Staying in the purity of CTTB, my own desires also faded, sitting meditation became easier to settle into, and the power of precepts, concentration, and wisdom all grew.

I also personally witnessed the practice of the monastics at CTTB: not seeking wealth, not coveting fame, honestly and earnestly applying themselves, rising at three-thirty every morning. Seeing such a life with my own eyes moved me deeply, and I understood that the original intent of cultivation is to break free from worldly bonds and walk on along precepts, concentration, and wisdom.

After leaving the City and returning to the mundane world, I could still feel the blessing power of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas from this trip—during those days at the City, I had even given rise to a very strong intention to leave home and become a monastic. But once back in a turbid environment, within just two or three months my mind gradually scattered, I became muddled all over, and my practice regressed. This made me realize the preciousness of the blessing of a pure monastery: once one leaves, those whose resolve is not yet firm are easily pulled backward by external conditions.

After returning from the City the first time, my grandmother also fell seriously ill and took to her bed. In my early years I had studied the Four Pillars of Destiny and Qimen Dunjia in the Daoist tradition; casting a chart, I knew at once: my father would get through this hurdle, and my grandmother still had years of life left. This made me realize a rather cruel truth—if one’s allotted lifespan is not exhausted, one will not go, yet one may have to endure tremendous suffering.

In her later stage, my grandmother relied on tubes to sustain life; to prevent her from pulling them out herself, her hands and feet were bound; from long bedrest, and with diabetes causing ulceration, bedsores appeared one after another. In her heart she actually no longer wanted to hold on and wanted to go quietly, but reality did not allow it—the doctors in Shanghai, out of “humanitarianism,” would strongly advise that the tubes could not be removed. But being able to live only passively was almost worse than death. Watching a close relative trapped in illness, unable even to have a say in dying well, I felt deeply the helplessness of life, and all the more gave rise to the intention to escape saṃsāra and break free from suffering; I understood even more personally that in the face of birth, aging, illness, and death, wealth, fame, and all the bustle of the world mean nothing at all.

With my grandmother gravely ill, and because I already had the wish to take refuge and receive precepts, I went to the City a second time to attend the Guanyin Seven Dharma Assembly.

This time my understanding advanced a little further, and I also saw my own “Lord Ye’s love of dragons” side. I had always thought I truly wanted to leave home, but when I actually threw myself into the high-intensity, nonstop Buddhist activities, I discovered how far I was from the monastics. In the mundane world, no matter how intense the work, it is never from opening my eyes to closing them—there is always time to slack off, catch my breath, eat, and every so often I could meet friends and go out; but at the City, everyone’s resolve is to apply effort at every moment.

The City’s schedule runs from the three-thirty morning recitation all the way to past ten at night, with only brief rest periods in between, and the rest of the time is spent applying effort—a tremendous test of willpower. On my first visit, I learned to pick and choose my activities—convinced that the morning recitation was most important, I would skip the evening Dharma listening and great dedication, wanting to take time to rest and recover from fatigue. In the first few days of my second visit, the same habit recurred: the winter nights were cold, and once the bed was warm one grew lazy, and I always thought of quietly slipping away from the great dedication.

Slacking off like this, one day I was caught red-handed by a master. At the time I was doing volunteer work at the monastery; she discovered I had not gone to the great dedication, and with a single sentence she woke me up: “If you’ve come to the City of Buddha to sleep, then why not go home and sleep?” That one sentence felt to me at the time like a direct blow of the vajra staff.

Then I looked at how this master herself practiced what she preached—still thinly clad in the depths of winter, cultivating day after day—and I admired her ascetic practice from the bottom of my heart.

Only then did I understand: to practice for a month or two out of a moment’s enthusiasm is not difficult; what is truly difficult is to keep at it day after day, year in and year out without slackening—that is real skill. I also saw clearly just how far I was from a true practitioner.

In the last few days of my volunteer work, this master also told me a koan: among the disciples of Elder Virtue Master Xuyun, there was one who single-mindedly focused on recitation and attained the Buddha-Recitation Samādhi; one year of his practice was worth five years of an ordinary person’s. When conditions matured, he asked Elder Xuyun for the Rebirth Hall; the Elder knew he was going to be reborn at will, and consented. But this disciple still had his master in his heart and could not let go of this attachment, so the Elder instructed him not to cling—rebirth was a good thing. Later, he indeed, by the power of the Buddha-Recitation Samādhi, cremated himself at will and was reborn in the Western Pure Land. And yet such a remarkable practitioner, when someone asked him the essentials of practice, answered with only four words: earnestly recite the Buddha’s name.

Landing on these four words—“earnestly recite the Buddha’s name”—I came to realize all the more that practice is hard yet also simple; in the end the core is still tempering the mind. Even when in a monastery, habits still surface from time to time: during the Chan session I was always lost in idle thoughts, and whenever it got dry I craved going back to drink sweet beverages like Heytea, and whenever tired I only wanted to rest. In the mundane world one can at least get up and move around, relax a bit; but the monastery’s activities push forward link by link, forcing you to polish yourself at every moment.

Then look at those masters—even when physically and mentally exhausted, in the evening recitation they still sit upright and proper—this is what years of steeping in precepts, concentration, and wisdom looks like. I therefore also gained a new understanding of the precepts: receiving the Five Precepts is like observing the laws of the world, the most basic restraint; while the true skill of precepts, concentration, and wisdom is like a craftsman polishing his craft—it must be tempered ceaselessly. The two are indispensable to each other.

During these days at the City, there were also two experiences I found especially unforgettable. One was this master’s teaching. That day happened to be my roommate’s birthday, and he sat down to expound the Dharma to a few of us. Because of the keen perception left from my earlier opened apertures, I suddenly saw a different kind of majesty shining in his eyes—a majesty cultivated over long years of precepts, concentration, and wisdom—and even the beings who followed me were in awe of it. From this I reflected that the power of Dharma protectors and heavenly deities is originally born from exactly such pure cultivation—only then did I truly realize the depth of this master’s practice.

Having made two trips to the City, my realization is this: cultivating at home on one’s own is too easily scattered and prone to regression; whereas a pure monastery has the protection of dragons and heavenly beings, and each visit to do good and protect the Dharma brings guidance, allows one to see one’s own shortcomings, and makes clear where to apply effort going forward. At parting, the master instructed me that after returning to the city I too should practice sincerely, treat people sincerely, live simply, and earnestly recite the Buddha’s name, hoping that when conditions mature I might return again.

There is an allusion called “orchid cause, willow-catkin fruit.” People often use it to lament marriage—at first a cause as beautiful as an orchid, yet in the end bearing fruit as drifting and scattered as willow catkins. But I have gradually tasted another meaning in it: all the entanglements of the world—if one only clings to the goodness of that bit of “orchid cause” and refuses to look deeper, one will ultimately drift with karma amid the impermanence of gathering and parting. Only by seeing early the origin of this cause and effect, no longer chasing after noise and vanity, and like a tree silently taking root and quietly settling, can one avoid floating and sinking in vain in the sea of suffering. The path of practice, in the end, is exactly like this.

Awakening early to the orchid cause, returning to this body through the floating and sinking of the sea of suffering.

In the days after leaving the City, there was a piece of music I kept listening to over and over—let me use it to close:

May the master be peaceful and at ease in body and mind, and may all his great vows be perfectly fulfilled. May this City of Ten Thousand Buddhas be known by more and more people, and may those with karmic affinity throughout the world be able to journey here to hear and contemplate the Buddhadharma, to propagate and protect the Dharma; and may fellow practitioners everywhere encounter this extraordinary karmic connection, gather at the City, and dwell under the Master’s seat. May the Master’s Dharma body remain ever healthy and at peace, cultivating year after year, and bearing fruit year after year. 🙏