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……父親來美後，上人非常關心照顧他，很多事情都出乎我意料之外，沒想到事情變得這麼圓滿。上人讓我父親住獨棟房，因他有病，也要我過去跟著家人一起照顧父親，在那邊過夜。有一次我過去看父親時，姊姊對我說，「妳知道嗎？師父突然來看我們了。」還給了他們鼓勵和開示，後來上人又去了幾次。當父親和姊姊要回臺灣了，臨走那天我記得清清楚楚，在現在的金山寺，父親靠在櫃臺邊寫東西；我看見上人站在他身後，默默地用兩指在他的脊椎部位不停加持，因為父親患的脊椎癌。父親一點都不知道，上人就是這樣，助人不為人知；直到父親要走時，上人還下金山寺幫他。上人為了度化眾生真是忘人無我！
我本來不了解上人對我說，「叫他來就會好了」這句話的意思。結果父親回去以後，果然一路一路地就好了，好了差不多有十年。後來雖走了，但我很安心，因為上人賜給他新生命，所以皈依時，上人給他的法名是果新，他用這將近十年的時間學佛。而且當他癌症復發，下半身癱瘓時，上人還在一九九三年元月於臺灣法界佛教印經會，為他落髮，讓他出家，滿他的願。
我還要提一提另一件上人善於知時知處地教化眾生之事。一九八九年，父親再次來到萬佛聖城住了一段時期。這一次他的身體已經好多了，上人讓他住在如來寺隨眾修行。初初來時大約生活飲食不太習慣吧，他住沒多久就說要回去了；我就去報告上人，上人說，「教他再住一段時間，慢一點再回去。」於是父親又住下了，可是沒多久，又說要回去了，上人又教他再住一住；就這麼來回來回，住了兩三個月。最後一次，他又說要回去了，上人就說，「好，這次他可以回去了！」當我向他提及上人說他可以回去時，沒想到他說，「我現在不想回去了！妳知道嗎？住在這兒我年輕時的靈感又回來了，我又可以重新提筆作詩了，這是四十多年來從來沒有的事！」
雖然父親最後還是沒能放下，回臺灣去了，但也就是在萬佛聖城這段時間打下了修行的基礎；這都是上人教化眾生不失時所致。父親往生後，我有因緣看到他當年在萬佛聖城所寫的詩，是用日文寫的，我看不懂，但看漢字的意思，大意是﹕
夜靜人深萬佛城
清涼皎潔月當空
一片清涼是我心
充滿靈性……
……
為什麼當時恒維師的病會好了呢？我現在了解了，上人要父親的業障跟著自己。在楞嚴咒後面第五會的每句咒，都是病鬼的名字。一九八○年代上人講楞嚴咒時，是一句一句解釋的；上人說有感冒鬼，有痢疾鬼，有瘋病的鬼，種種病都是有一種鬼，像癌症這種病，是非常嚴重的，所以那種病鬼的力量也非常大。上人要父親過來，就是要讓病鬼跟著他到萬佛聖城來，上人再度化那病鬼。所以父親回去後，就慢慢一路一路地好了。
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Once my father came to America, the Venerable Master went out of his way to care for him, which I had never expected. I never thought that things could turn out so perfectly. Since my father was ill, the Venerable Master allowed him to live by himself and also instructed me to spend the night there to take care of him along with my family. Once, when I went to visit to my father, my elder sister told me, “You know what? The Venerable Master suddenly came to see us. He encouraged us and gave us some instructions.” After that, the Venerable Master paid several more visits. I still remember very clearly the day that my father and sister were getting ready to return to Taiwan. We were at Gold Mountain Monastery in Chinatown, and my father was leaning on the counter writing something. I saw the Venerable Master standing behind him with his two fingers in a blessing mudra, blessing my father’s spine because the cancer was in that area. He did this silently without my father’s awareness. That was how the Venerable Master helped people without their knowing. He even helped my father down the stairs when he was preparing to leave. The Venerable Master forgot about himself for the sake of saving living beings.
Originally, I did not understand why the Venerable Master told me, “Tell him to come; he will get well.” But after my father went home, he gradually got better. He lived for another ten years or so. In the end, he passed away, but I was comforted by that fact that the Venerable Master had given him a new beginning in life. When my father took refuge, the Venerable Master gave him the Dharma name Guo Xin, “Fruit of New Beginning.” He spent the last ten years of his life studying the Buddhadharma. In January of 1993, in the midst of his illness, when my father could no longer move his lower body, the Venerable Master shaved his head at the Dharma Realm Buddhist Book Distribution Society in Taiwan, thus fulfilling his wish of leaving the home life.
I will mention another incident in which the Venerable Master skillfully chose the right time and right place to teach living beings. In 1989, my father again came to the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas for a short stay. This time, his physcial condition had improved greatly, so the Venerable Master allowed him to live at Tathagata Monastery and cultivate with the assembly. At first, he was perhaps not used to the lifestyle here, so he wanted to leave after a while. I told the Venerable Master about this, and he said, “Tell him to stay a while longer, then he can go back.” So my father stayed on. But after a while, he wanted to leave once again, and the Venerable Master told him to stay on again. So he stayed on for three months. The last time, when he said he wanted to go home, the Venerable Master answered, “Okay, this time he can go home!” But when I told my father that the Venerable Master said he could go, his reply surprised me: “I don’t want to return anymore! You know, living here I have regained the inspiration I had as a young man. I can once again pick up a brush to compose poetry. This has not happened in over forty years.”
Even though my father could not completely let go of everything and returned to Taiwan in the end, he had lay a foundation for his cultivation during his stay at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. That was all because the Venerable Master knew the right timing in teaching living beings. After my father passed away, I had the chance to take a look at the poetry he composed while he was living at the City. It was written in Japanese, but rendered into Chinese, one poem says:
At the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas
In the deep stillness of the night,
The cool, pristine moon appears in the sky.
This refreshing clarity is also my mind
Filled with the nature of the spirit…
Why was Heng Wei Shi able to get well? I now understand that the Master wanted my father’s karmic obstacles to follow the Master. The fifth assembly of the Shurangama Mantra consists of names of ghosts of disease. When the Master explained that mantra line by line in the 1980s, he said there were ghosts of colds, ghosts of diarrhea, ghosts of arthritis, and ghosts of every kind of disease. Cancer was a grave disease that had a very powerful ghost. The Master wanted my father to come so that the ghost making him ill would follow him to the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas and the Master would be able to liberate it. That’s why, after my father returned to Taiwan, his condition improved steadily.
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