Notes Beside the Bamboo Window — Third Collection, Part 11

Someone asked: "Layman Longshu died standing upright at the moment of his passing, and the auspicious signs of his rebirth were so clear and manifest — and yet the Great Amitābha Sutra he compiled is not free of errors, mixing up passages from earlier and later sections; this is one fault. And Song Jinglian further criticized him for not following Prince Zhaoming's own traditional thirty-two divisions in his treatment of the Diamond Sutra — setting that aside — and also for not following the divisions established by Vasubandhu and Asaṅga, instead creating his own arrangement entirely; this is a second fault. This seems to conflict with the Contemplation Sutra's own teaching that 'reciting Mahāyāna scripture' is a genuine cause for rebirth — so how, then, could he have died standing upright like that?"

I answered: "Though what you describe are indeed faults, Longshu's own devotion to Buddha-recitation and seeking rebirth was genuinely sincere and earnest in the extreme, benefiting both himself and others — his merit was no small thing, and these minor blemishes are not enough to obscure his greater virtue. Given that even those who carry unresolved karma can still attain rebirth, why should we doubt Longshu at all? Whether his own grade of rebirth falls short of the very highest, that we cannot say for certain."

In my own Hidden Meanings of the Commentary on the Precepts, I stated that one must first receive the five precepts, then the ten precepts, then the two hundred and fifty precepts, before receiving the bodhisattva's ten major and forty-eight minor precepts. A certain lecturing master, indignant and displeased, said: "Why not simply teach people to receive the bodhisattva precepts directly, rather than through such a roundabout process? The Buddha foretold that in the degenerate age, a demon king would infiltrate our own teaching and corrupt it — surely this man is exactly that demon!" I did not respond.

After this lecturing master died, his own disciples raised the same complaint again, wishing to gather monks, officials, and laypeople together for a great assembly to debate the matter with me. I still did not respond. Someone answered on my behalf instead, saying: "There is no need for this at all. Have you not read the very Sutra on the Bodhisattva's Good Precepts that your own teacher cited? The sutra says: 'It is like ascending a four-story tower — one must proceed from the bottom upward, level by level in strict order, never skipping a stage; receiving the precepts follows exactly the same principle.' These are the sutra's own words — there is nothing left to debate." The man then fell silent.

The venerable elder Lü Shujian composed a work called Warnings Against Cruel Punishment, which Mr. Zou Nangao had printed, and for which I wrote a postscript. It records one especially strange and remarkable story: a certain official, notoriously cruel and violent by nature, would order dozens of strokes of the cane at the slightest provocation, and though the sound of the victims' agonized screaming shook the very ground, he remained as though he had heard nothing at all.

One day, while he was carrying out just such a punishment, a Daoist priest suddenly pushed open the door and entered, standing bolt upright in the hall, glaring at him and pointing directly at him. The official flew into a rage, and ordered his attendants to beat the prisoner even more severely. Suddenly, a great cry erupted from the inner chambers: his own son was being struck by some unseen spirit, and was nearly dead. The official rushed, alarmed, from the hall into the inner rooms, where his son cried out: "Some spirit is beating me with a great cudgel — my skin is torn, my flesh mangled, blood soaking both my legs, the pain unbearable!" The official hastily sent men to the hall to detain the priest — but both the priest and the beaten prisoner had already vanished without a trace. He then broke into loud wailing, throwing himself violently to the ground, injuring his own head and face.

Ah! That Daoist priest must surely have been a heavenly spirit! Everyone has been, or will one day be, a parent — another man's son and one's own son are equally sons — why, then, treat one's own child as a treasure and another's as mere weeds? How can one's own heart possibly rest easy with that?

The book records another case as well: a certain high official doted on his young son, and had a butcher deliver a fresh pig's stomach to him every single day; when once the stomach delivered was somewhat small, he flew into a rage and had the butcher beaten so severely that it took two full months of treatment before he recovered. There are households, too, that inflict this same kind of severe punishment on their own servants and maids. I would say that this book, Warnings Against Cruel Punishment, ought to be spread throughout the land and handed down for a hundred generations to come.