Dharma Master Chan-yun
My faith in Buddhism arose from the circumstances of my father’s passing. My father suffered from insomnia during his late years and there were some strange happenings (of spirits in his room). Later I understood that they were karmic creditors.
When my father was near his last breath, he exhibited an uncanny change to his usual mannerisms — he glared with his eyes wide open and seemed to claw at the air with both hands spread out. (Note: he was in this posture for two hours.) I went to the family’s shrine where I knelt down and prayed to Buddha very earnestly, “Whatever karmic creditors there are, I will make sure to deliver them later. I only pray that you allow my father to take rebirth in Sukhavati without any obstacles.”
After his death, I performed the Mengshan ritual (to benefit the deceased and spirits)… When I came to Taiwan, I fell ill seriously for a long time. I also had a bad fall and dislocated my leg. Later I recovered. During my illness, I was hospitalized at Shengli Hospital in Kaosiung district.
After I was discharged, I stayed at my younger sister’s home to recuperate. No one else was there, so I set up a table to recite the Diamond Sutra. Upon reciting it, I realized that my understanding of the sutra was deeper than it had been in the past.
This led me to understand that I had been obscured by karma previously. After the heavy sickness that almost killed me and the bad fall that almost crippled my leg, the negative karma was finished, so I could understand the Diamond Sutra more deeply than in the past. It was quite inconceivable.
Without the Dharma, this world is completely shrouded in the long night of darkness. Dharma provides the only beacon of light to us. This is how my understanding in the various workings of karma in the past, present and future arose, and how I first generated faith in my Buddha-nature. These are the basic views of Buddhism that everyone ought to possess.
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Dharma Master Chan-yun
27 years ago, I moved to Lianyin Monastery. After 1 or 2 years, I constructed a bell there and began the practice of striking the bell. Then I received a message that my mother had passed on. I felt sad and wanted to strike the bell as a practice to deliver my mother…
While I was striking the bell that night, my body warmed up from the exertion and there was a strong wind blowing which caused me to catch a cold. The next night, I felt slightly better and went to strike the bell again. Again, I caught a cold. This happened again on the third night. From then on, I developed a certain kind of allergic influenza.
I told myself, “If I had little faith in cause-and-effect, getting this influenza while doing the good deed of striking bell for my mother would make me resentful and doubtful instead.”
This sickness was quite dreadful. Once it flared up, it would last for 7 days. During these 7 days, I was afraid of any breeze. Because I had faith, I knew that it was a virtuous act to strike the bell for my mother and my cold was just a matter of a heavy karma ripening in a lighter form.
This sickness lasted for ten years. Each episode of catching cold lasted for 7 days. During these 7 days, I was exhausted, could not practice and was afraid of the slightest wind. After 10 years, this sickness gradually disappeared. The illness disappeared entirely about a decade ago.
After the sickness disappeared, I could enjoy any amount of wind from the electrical fans. Even 2 or 3 fans blowing at me is no problem now.
Everything arises from causes and conditions. Once it’s over, everything is well again. From this, you should understand that when you do something virtuous and meet with a negative outcome, this is a ripening of your past karma.
The action of virtue that we are doing is not wrong and will in time produce its positive results. You can’t say that just by practicing virtue today, everything becomes okay tomorrow; and if the slightest thing go wrong, you get upset and complain. This is not the correct way to view things.
