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「陳頌淵你那麼愛哭，一定住不下來，你媽回來時一定會跟著回來的！」這是1994年，當黃富美準備帶著10歲的兒子從台灣到萬佛聖城參加夏令營時，臨行前同事們異口同聲地斷言。
現在，這些「未卜先知」的人都看走了眼。從小就好哭，依賴性重的兒子在夏令營結束後，居然樂不思蜀，繼續留在聖城讀書。即使在1995年回台探親時，第二天就說他想回聖城；家裡他住不習慣。那時適逢師父宣公上人入涅槃，從未見過上人的黃居士，趕緊帶著兒子又回聖城參加荼毘大典，終於在「無言堂」見到上人最後一面。
當晚黃居士就夢見上人清晰慈祥地叫著：「黃富美！黃富美！黃富美！」如是連續三聲。醒來後她悲喜交集，悲的是自認薄德少福，以致錯失親近上人的機會；喜的是上人雖入涅槃，卻在夢中示現，讓她得見一面。冥冥之中似乎上人正對著她說「不怕覺遲，只怕途迷」的妙法。
1994 年到聖城時，正逢打「觀音七」，她不願錯失機會。可是右肩胛骨裡俗稱「膏肓」之處，已酸痛了十餘年，群醫束手，苦不堪言。打七時，每念一句「觀世音菩薩」的聖號，就酸痛一下。到第三天時，痛得像萬蟻鑽動般地難以忍受，她真想逃出來；但決定硬是咬牙苦撐，不肯向業障投降。觀音七圓滿後，奇蹟出現，她的宿疾竟然不藥而癒，不再復發。
黃居士深深體會「萬般帶不去，只有業隨身」的可怕；也知道「人身難得，佛法難聞」的可貴。上人圓寂後，決定留在聖城常住，一方面陪兒子讀書，一方面精進修行；就像打七一樣，雖有障礙，但是永不退轉。（編按：黃居士現在萬佛聖城的君康真素齋做義工，每日功課認真不缺。） |
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“Chen Song-yuan, you cry so often, you won’t be able to stay there. When your Mom comes, you’ll come back with her for sure.” This was what Huang Fu-mei’s coworkers all said when she was about to take her ten-year-old son from Taiwan to the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas for a summer camp in 1994.Those predictions proved to be wrong. Her son, who always cried easily and was very dependent on her, enjoyed life here so much that he continued to study at the Boys School after the summer camp. Even when he went back to Taiwan to visit relatives in 1995, he wanted to return to CTTB the next day. He wasn’t used to his old home anymore. The Venerable Master entered Nirvana at that time, and Upasika Huang, who had never met the Master before, took her son back to CTTB right away to join the Memorial Ceremony. She too gazed upon the Venerable Master for the first and last time in the Wordless Hall.
That same night, she dreamed that the Venerable Master kindly and clearly called her name: “Huang Fumei! Huang Fumei! Huang Fumei!” Waking up, she felt both happy and sad: sad because she had missed the opportunity of drawing near the Master due to her scanty blessings, and happy that even though the Master had entered Nirvana, he had appeared to her in a dream. In her half-sleeping state, it seemed as if the Master was teaching her the wonderful Dharma: “Don’t worry about realizing things late; only be afraid of going astray.”
A Guanyin Recitation Session was in progress when she arrived at CTTB in 1994, and she didn’t let the chance slip away. A certain spot on her right shoulder had been aching for more than ten years. The pain was intense, but there was nothing the doctors could do. During the session, each recitation of “Guanshiyin Pusa” was accompanied by a throbbing ache. By the third day, the pain was so unbearable it was as if ten thousand ants were biting her, and she nearly ran away. But she grit her teeth and endured it, determined not to yield to her karmic obstructions. After the session was over, miraculously, her longtime pain was cured without any medicine, and it never returned.
Upasika Huang has deeply understood the terror of death, when one cannot take anything along except one’s karma. She has also recognized the value of having a human body, which is difficult to obtain, and of hearing the Buddhadharma, which is not easy to hear. After the Venerable Master’s Nirvana, she decided to stay at CTTB to accompany her son and do her spiritual cultivation as well. As she experienced in the Guanyin Session, obstacles are always there, but she is determined not to retreat. [Note: Upasika Huang now works as a volunteer at the vegetarian restaurant and the Girls’ School in the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. She participates vigorously in the daily ceremonies.] |
