人受戒虎皈依

冬諸護法堅請受戒。頹垣破屋。不能住眾。加搭葵蓬。竹屋住客。粵韶官紳眷屬。來數百人。帶兵保衛。皈依者甚眾。冬月十七日入夜說菩薩戒時。虎來皈依。大眾譁然。公為說皈戒。三叩首馴然。公曰虎識皈依佛。正性無兩樣。人心與獸心。同一光明藏。

宣化偈曰：

獸王禮法王。皈依護戒壇。
年年來朝拜。月月持戒香。

Giving precepts to the people and letting a tiger take refuge

During the winter, the Dharma protectors persistently requested that the Master transmit the precepts; but the walls of the buildings had collapsed, and the dwellings were all but destroyed. They were uninhabitable, so makeshift structures of thatched palm and bamboo were put up for the guests to stay in. The gentry of Canton and Shao Chou arrived with their households, several hundred people in all, bringing soldiers for protection. A large number of people took refuge. On the seventeenth day of the eleventh lunar month, during the transmission of the Bodhisattva Precepts, night had fallen when suddenly a tiger arrived to take refuge. Everyone was aghast, but the Master transmitted the refuges and the precepts to him. The tiger bowed its head three times and was very tame. The Master said, "This tiger knows enough to take refuge with the Buddha. There are no two ways about it: the hearts of humans and the hearts of animals are equally endowed with a treasury of brilliance."

The gatha says:
The King of Beasts bowed down to the King of Dharma,
Taking refuge and protecting the Platform of the Precepts.
Every year it came to prostrate itself in reverence,
Month after month being perfumed with the fragrance of holding Precepts.