On this day, Lu Sheng arrived at Yuelin Temple. The abbot was very surprised.
Lu Sheng said: "On March 3 last year, the Budai monk personally told him: 'On this day next year, I will take Maitreya fruit and offer it to the public. You must go to Yuelin Temple.' So, I came here early this morning. "
After hearing this, the abbot of Yuelin Temple clasped his hands and said to the sky: "Namo Maitreya Bodhisattva. Budai monk, it is indeed the manifestation of Maitreya."
Everyone was puzzled, and the abbot said: "Budai monk, he converted to Hue safely last night."
"Ah..." Everyone was shocked, "But, he said that he would use Maitreya fruit as an offering to everyone..."
The abbot said: "He is now offering the pure nirvana path and fruit to all of us! Think about it, a year ago, he had predicted that he would pass away on this day. Is this something that ordinary practitioners can do? The so-called 'Maitreya Fruit' implies that he is the incarnation of Maitreya Bodhisattva!"
"Yes, yes!" Lu Sheng patted his knee and said, "Actually, Budai monk has revealed some information a long time ago. For example, he often takes out some objects from his cloth bag and shows them to people while saying: 'This It's from the Tusita Heaven. This is clearly implying to us that he comes from the Tusita Heaven."
"Yes, yes, he once said that the shit he pooped was from Maitreya's inner courtyard. Alas... people thought he was crazy, vulgar, and desecrated the sacred, so they ignored him and even despised him for it. Don’t you know that he is Maitreya who descended to earth?”
Lu Sheng chanted in a refined manner:
With an open belly and a smile, it looks like a fool;
It looks like the same kind, but I don’t know why;
It is difficult to measure the hidden and obvious, and unpredictable;
Real but not false, mixed but not impetuous;
Always hold a cloth bag to show the Buddha's ancestral lineage.
Traveling in all directions, the inner secret of Prajna is the pure wisdom of Chongxuan;
To hide one's strength and hide one's virtues is to show one's abjection.
His conversation is overwhelming, his behavior is extraordinary and unholy;
It contains immeasurable secret causes and transports out undestined magical effects.
The swan song contains the great ways of heaven and earth, but does not reincarnate;
The strange behavior contains the philosophy of life that no one can understand.
Hey, this Budai monk was absurd both in life and in death!
The abbot of Yuelin Temple clapped his hands and said: "What a great speech. Mr. Lu really spoke it well! Alas, I'm ashamed to say it. Monk Budai became a monk in Shaolin Temple and passed away in Yuelin Temple. He even assisted his predecessor, the old monk Xiankuang, in rebuilding Yuelin Temple. Lin Temple, but many monks in Yuelin Temple have always been disgusted by his irregular behavior and despised him for being embarrassing. As everyone knows, we are living in the hearts of saints with the hearts of ordinary people."
At this time, suddenly, a child's singing came from nowhere:
What kind of bag monk is leaving the heavenly palace with his staff?
The great cause and condition of the degree of transformation occasionally appears in the four luminaries.
The appearance is disrespectful and the behavior is rarely calm.
The cloth bag has magical functions and usually shows magical powers.
Going back and forth for thirty years, I enjoyed myself and avoided disaster.
It's ridiculous that people in the world are ignorant and unaware.
…
Hearing the children's song, people suddenly thought that the sixteen children who often played around the Budai monk came and went without a trace.
They cooperated with Budai monk tacitly and showed magical powers to each other. It seemed that they were definitely not ordinary children. They must be the manifestation of the Sixteen Arhats.
The Eighteen Arhats were formed by Venerable Qingyou and Venerable Bintulu. In fact, the Bin Toulu added later was a duplication due to different translations, while Qing You actually recorded the Sixteen Arhats.
When people were discussing how to bury Budai monk, a layman named Shen who lived at the foot of Hengshan Mountain in the north of the city hurried over and said that he had already prepared a cemetery for Budai monk and that he had chosen it himself.
It turns out that about a mile north of Fenghua County, there is a lush and beautiful Fengshan Mountain.
As early as a few years ago, Budai monk often went to visit the mountains.
One day, he happened to meet Jushi Shen in an area called "Zhongta" in the mountains. Seeing that he had been browsing the mountain for a long time, layman Shen joked, "If Master Butai likes the tranquility and elegance here, he can build a hut here and meditate for a long time."
Budai monk said: "In this geomantic treasure land, if there is no Buddha to sleep, there can be no monks to meditate." Shen layman teased him and said: "Then you should sleep here first."
Budai monk said seriously: "Occupying someone else's place requires the owner's consent. Otherwise, it is theft and a violation of the precepts."
Jushi Shen said: "The mountains in Zhongta belong to my family."
The Budai monk smiled and said, "The mountain monk will beg you for alms."
Lay Master Shen asked him: "How big of an area does the monk want? One acre? Two acres? Or..."
Budai monk shook his head and said, "I just want a piece of land as big as my cassock." After saying that, Budai monk really lay down on the hillside.
Jushi Shen smiled and said, "But if there is a house to sleep in, you can't just sleep on the ground, right?"
Budai monk said inexplicably: "I don't want a house, nor do I want to sleep on the ground. I want to sleep underground."
So, everyone dug a pit and built a tomb where Budai monk had laid his body, and buried his body.
However, it is unbelievable that after the death of Budai monk, people still often see him in Mingzhou, Hangzhou and Yuezhou.
As usual, he has no fixed place to live, no track to move, and no words to speak.
However, the monks at Yuelin Temple who personally buried Budai monk did not believe it and always laughed it off - how could the dead be resurrected? It was simply ridiculous.
One day, two monks who traveled from Tiantai Mountain said, "Budai monk is currently waiting for orders at Guoqing Temple in Tiantai Mountain."
Although monks do not tell lies, people in Yuelin Temple are still skeptical.
Some time later, a monk from Yuelin Temple came back from outside. He said, "When he was passing through Dongyang Road, he met the Budai monk."
The Budai monk was as usual, laughing and joking, his feet were bare, but he was holding a shoe in his hand.
The monk asked him, "Where to go?"
He said, "To Tiantai Mountain."
Budai monk said to him: "When I came out of Yuelin Temple, I took a shoe by mistake. Please take it back."
The monk returned to Yuelin Temple and found out that Budai monk had been silent for several months.
The public repeatedly viewed the pair of shoes he brought back and found that they indeed belonged to Budai Monk.
Therefore, people felt very strange and opened the coffin to take a look.
When the coffin lid was opened, people only saw a shoe, but not the body of the monk...
Now that the bag is empty, I look back and smile, all kinds of feelings are in my heart;
In the future, Maitreya will be reborn, Longhua will be reborn three times, and hundreds of millions of people will be reborn in the Buddha's path.
After Budai monk passed away, his lay disciple Jiang Maha built a special pagoda in Yingjiashan where he lived, and named it "Fengshi Pagoda".
In the pagoda, there is a statue of the Budai monk painted by Lu Sheng. Jiang Mohe wrote a poem:
Tushita Heavenly Palace Ajita,
Never leave the heaven to descend into Saha.
Meeting each other brings peace of mind to me,
A thousand eons and a thousand lifetimes in one moment.
Maitreya Bodhisattva's real name is "Ajita".
Later, Jiang Maha wandered to Xiaopan Mountain in Dongxiang, Yin County, and built a nunnery on a high mountain for meditation.
He refused to go down the mountain easily, and specially trained a big yellow dog. Whenever the rice was exhausted, he would tie a hundred copper coins around the dog's neck, and the yellow dog would go to the market alone to buy rice and carry it back, traveling for twenty miles. Nothing ever went wrong.
Ten years after Budai monk moved there, a man from Fenghua was sent by the Wuyue Kingdom to go to the former Shu Kingdom on official business.
On his way back, when he reached the plank road, he unexpectedly met this pot-bellied monk! At that time, the man was shocked.
The Budai monk still laughed and said: "Donor, don't panic, you didn't see a ghost during the day. The reason why the poor monk wants to meet you is to ask you to send a message to Jiang Mohe." The man said: "Jiang Mohe He I know, he lives in Yingjiashan."
Budai monk said: "No, no, he is currently studying in Xiaopanshan, Dongxiang, Yinxian County."
The man said, "He was returning to his hometown on a business trip, and he happened to have to go to Mingzhou to meet a friend first. The administrative seat of Mingzhou is in Yin County, so it is very convenient."
The Budai monk said with a smile: "The poor monk knew that you were going to stay in Mingzhou, so he entrusted you with it. When you see Jiang Maha, say to him: 'The day of meeting is near, I wish you to love yourself!'"
After this man returned to Mingzhou, he found Jiang Mohe and told him the message conveyed by Budai monk.
Jiang Maha heard this and said, "I already know it."
So Jama Maha visited his relatives and friends, saying goodbye to them one by one, then took a bath and changed clothes, sat cross-legged on the futon, passed away peacefully, and was reborn in Tusita heaven.
After Maha layman died, he was buried in Xiaopanshan, Dongxiang, Mingzhou. His descendants believed in and worshiped Buddhism from generation to generation, and the practice of Buddhism continued for thousands of years.
At that time, there was an alternate official named Wang Renji, who was from Putian County, Fujian Province. While waiting for his appointment, he met a pot-bellied monk while visiting Tianxing Temple in Jiangnan.
The monk held a huge cloth bag on the head of his Zen staff. He walked up to Wang Renji with a smile and said, "I have met my parents."
Wang Renji was stunned and said: "Student has not been appointed to an official position, how can he be your parent official? I wonder where the master's fairyland is?"
The pot-bellied monk laughed and said, "You will know when the time comes."
After saying that, he suddenly disappeared.
The next day, Wang Renji was assigned to Fenghua County as county magistrate. Not long after he took office, he met the somewhat mysterious pot-bellied monk again in the government office.
The fat monk smiled and said, "Congratulations."
Wang Renji put his hands together and said: "Master turns out to be from Fenghua. Master is an expert from outside the world. How did you know in advance that your subordinate will be appointed to Xianxiang? Are you a clairvoyant, or..."
The fat monk did not answer. He took out a round book from his arms and said to Wang Renji, "If I don't come for seven days, you can read it."
After saying that, he disappeared again and disappeared.
Wang Renji was an honest gentleman. After seven days, before waiting for the fat monk, he opened the envelope. There was a verse in it:
Maitreya, true Maitreya,
There are tens of billions of clones.
Show the world from time to time,
No one in the world knows it.
There are nine words written on the back: "You can't describe my appearance, this is the truth."
After Wang Renji inquired about it, he found out that the fat monk was actually the Budai monk from Fenghua! The Budai monk is the manifestation of Maitreya Bodhisattva.
Wang Renji recorded the incident in detail and engraved the verse on the stone tablet.
This stanza is exactly the same as the Silence stanza of Budai monk. People are even more convinced that Budai monk is Maitreya Bodhisattva.
As a result, people rushed to tell each other and competed to describe the image of Budai monk and enshrine it in the Buddhist niche.
In the vast areas of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and southern Fujian where Budai monk once traveled, temples also began to use statues of Budai monk to replace the original Tianguan Maitreya and enshrine them in the Hall of Heavenly Kings.
Gradually, Budai monk was the incarnation of Maitreya, and was unanimously recognized by monks and laypeople across the country.
Therefore, the Big-Belly Laughing Maitreya, a Buddha statue shaped according to the appearance of the Budai monk, entered the Buddhist hall majestically for people to pay homage to.
Carrying cloth bags in the air every day,
Little rice and no money,
But ended up with a big belly and a wide intestine,
I don’t know that when everyone is more confident,
What to feed with?
Sitting at the mountain gate in the cold year after year,
Take Zhang San and Li Si,
I always see him happy,
May I ask what is the origin of this Tutu's pride?
The tomb of Budai monk buried on Fengshan Mountain, although his body was not seen in the coffin during the inspection, the tomb kept emitting strange lights.
Every major Buddhist festival, you can see colorful Buddha lights in the morning and evening, which is very efficacious.
Local officials reported this miraculous phenomenon to the imperial court, and the emperor issued an edict, conferring the title of "Master Dingying" on Budai monk.
The royal recognition made Budai monk's reputation even more prominent. His image has spread all over the country and even overseas... Wherever Buddhism spreads, he has a smile on his face...
This is exactly:
Maitreya Bodhisattva's big belly can accommodate things that are difficult to tolerate in the world, how happy it is;
The Budai monk had a smile on his cheeks. He was very happy to laugh at the ridiculous people in the world.
