A Monk from the Ming Dynasty
Came to Visit during the Republic
He waited till a little past ten and saw a monk
wearing a tattered robe and carrying a stick with a bundle attached
that held his clothing and bedding. The monk put down his bundle and
spoke to him. Now, Filial Son Wong wasn't talking, but he mentally
asked the monk, "Where did you come from?" He spoke with his mind, not
his mouth.
The monk answered, saying, "I come from Mount
Guangning."
Filial Son Wong asked, "What is your
name? What
are you called?"
The monk replied, "My name? Well, are you
familiar with the Ming Dynasty? I was a general during the Ming
Dynasty. Later, I left home and started cultivating the Way. Recently,
I have felt that I have some affinities with you, so I have come here
today to see you." He also said, "I know you are thinking of going to
Mount Guangning to cultivate. That is a place for people who only take
care of their own virtue in solitude. As for you, you should take care
of the whole world. Your affinity with people in this place is very
strong. Don't go to Mount Guangning. After you finish your period of
filial mourning, stay here and build a monastery. It would be best to
propagate the Buddhadharma here." After saying those few sentences to
Filial Son Wong, the monk left.
That monk claimed that he was from the Ming
Dynasty. How can we prove what he said was true? The fact that he knew
the question asked in Filial Son Wong's mind proved that he was a
person who had already attained the penetration of knowing others'
thoughts--a state associated with the Five Eyes and Six Spiritual
Powers. However, Filial Son Wong lived during the Republic, about
three hundred years after the Ming Dynasty. Over three hundred years
had passed, and yet this monk was still alive and came to visit Filial
Son Wong. This incident proves that the claim that someone saw
Patriarch Bodhidharma in India a few hundred years after he entered
the stillness, and that the situation described by Fang Bian regarding
the transmission of the sash, are not that unusual. Those incidences
were, in fact, rather ordinary occurrences; not all that strange. The
inconceivable states of Patriarch Bodhidharma will never be forgotten.
The Chinese people will forever remember Patriarch Bodhidharma.
