The Venerable Master has completed the stillness. Aside from being deeply grieved, I am filled with boundless gratitude!
One day in 1979, I came to the Sagely City of Ten Thousand Buddhas
for the first time. The weather was very cold and it
was very early in the morning, so I went to my room
to sleep. In a dream, I heard the Venerable Master
say to me, “Guoneng, you’ve come late!” I answered,
“I’m not late.” After waking up, I didn’t know what the dream meant. Only when I heard the news of the Venerable Master’s completion of stillness did I understand that I really had come too late! Right when I was seeking the teaching of this Bright-eyed Wise Advisor, he left... As it is said,
“It is difficult to obtain a human body, difficult to be born in a central country, difficult to get to hear the Buddhadharma,
and difficult to encounter a wise advisor.”
I never really recognized that the Venerable Master was a one-of-a-kind Bright-eyed Wise Advisor before, and so I didn’t cherish the precious opportunity I had to be near the Master. I was truly short-sighted and pitiful!
Amitabha Buddha
Perhaps he manifests to be beginning his cultivation
of the most supreme conducts.
Or maybe he manifests birth, or leaving home.
Or he manifests realizing Bodhi under the tree,
Or for the sake of living beings, he manifests entry into Nirvana.
Chapter on The Merit and Virtue from First Bringing Forth the Mind, the
Flower Adornment Sutra
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