Hi everyone. It is great to meet everyone in front of the TV
I'm based in Canada, Toronto, and
today we are going to talk about a little story about Guanyin.
The Guanyin Bodhisattva (Guanyin Pusa) is very famous in Greater Chinese area, and
if you ask your mother who is Guanyin Pusa?
I'm sure every single one of them will tell you that Guanyin Pusa represents great compassion.
Which is the core
virtue of the Bodhisattva. And because this great compassion, then we can develop
bodhicitta.
And then having developed bodhicitta,
finally all sentient beings can reach enlightenment / Buddhahood.
So today we are going to choose a story about Guanyin Pusa, and we know that Guanyin Pusa has so many
forms of the body. She can be reborn as a very
elderly sick lady. She can also appear as a very young little girl, or she can be a young
beautiful woman. And today, we choose this story, which we in Chinese
we call "Yu Lan Guanyin," in English it is
"Fish Basket Guanyin Pusa." This story dates back to the Tang
Dynasty in a small village. In that village, there is no one that believes in Buddhism at all.
They don't know about the Three Jewels: which are the Buddha,
the Dhamma, and the Sangha. One day in this small village
there was a very beautiful young lady. She walked into this village and
So many of the young men in the village could hardly ever find us such a beautiful young girl
appearing in front of them. So they were impressed and
attracted to this young lady, and they kept asking her: "What's your name young lady?"
Every young man wanted to propose to her and wanted to marry this young lady.
And the lady said: "My name is very simple. You see, I'm carrying a basket. A
basket with the inside full of fish. And my name is
Yulan."
So all of the young men said "Oh please marry me Yulan. I really want to
marry you." The Yulan Guanyin said "Okay, I'm only one woman.
how can I marry over 100 people with a young man living in this small Village?" And
Suddenly the Young Lady Yulan said "Okay, now
I'm going to give you a test. If any one of you can memorize
in one night is
Pu Men Pin [the Universal Door Chapter of the Lotus Sutra] then I can marry you right away the following day, and
On the second day in the morning, wow - all the village's young men were
unbelievable. Over 20 of the young men could memorize the Pu Men Pin in one single night, and
all of them proposed to the young Guanyin. Guanyin said: "No,
I cannot marry any one of you because there are still more than one. How can I marry all of you?"
She continued to say: "Okay,
let me give you another exam. If any one of you can memorize the Jin Gang Jing (the Diamond Sutra) in
one single night,
which the Jin Gang Jing is a part of the
Da Bo Re Jing (the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras). It is longer than the Pu Men Pin of course."
And she said "Okay at this point, maybe not maybe only one young man can memorize
the Jin Gang Jing."
Then you know all the men happily went back to their homes.
They started to memorize the Jin Gang Jing. On the second day in the morning. Oh,
they still have ten men young men
who came to Yulan Guanyin and said:
"Can you please marry me, because I
already memorized the Jin Gang Jing as you requested us to do." Now Yulan Guanyin said: "Okay
no way, no, I cannot marry ten of you. I cannot. I'm going to give you one more
most difficult test, and then you guys can try to see
how you can memorize this or not." Then she said "The ten of you young men, please go back home and
try to memorize the Lotus Sutra in Chinese way say it is:
The Fa Hua Jing. Consider that it is one of the longer Sutras during the Buddha's
42 years of giving Dhamma talks in India. The young men said: "Okay,
If I can memorize the Jin Gang Jing, I am sure I can finally
still complete my mission, which is memorizing the
Fa Hua Jing." So the ten young men back home in one single night were
focused and they concentrated. Only one man remembered. His name was Ma Lang.
His real name Ma Lang, but because he was very handsome looking, everyone in the town
said his name was Ma Lang.
Finally, Ma Lang was the only person
who memorized the Fa Hua Jing (lotus stura).
Of course Yulan Guanyin finally nodding her head said: "Okay, you are the one.
I'm going to marry you." On the following day,
Ma Lang was so excited he prepared all of the ceremonies, and got the marriage ceremony
with all the most
luxurious the most
fancy goods
He invited all of the young men, all of the people, relatives in the town
to attend his wedding on the
following day. But unfortunately,
something happened.
Because Yulan Guanyin you know, as we said she had a very attractive
face, very generous compassion. On the day she married Ma Lang,
unfortunately he discovered that
she suddenly died.
Inside the house.
So that's why she was he was so shocked. He finally won the 3 exams:
He could memorize the Pu Men Pin, he could memorize the Jing Gang Jing, he could memorize the Fo Hua Jing.
But he still cannot win Yulan Guanyin in order to have a happy life with
her.
So he was so depressed, but on the same night Yulan Guanyin's body, even though she was so beautiful
when she was alive,
immediately after she died her body began to so smell bad.
It became dark,
and then all the family members of Ma said "Oh, please
please please, take her dead body out of the house."
Ma Lang could not reject all the family members' and requests, and
he was so sad because he just got married to this young young lady he has been fighting for, and
on that day he still tried to keep her dead body outside the house and
didn't want to bury her yet.
On the following day, very early in the morning, Ma Lang had not been able to sleep at all for the whole night, and
he was awake,
Sitting next to Yulan Guanyin's dead body, in a very soul sad mood.
And he suddenly heard inside his house
someone knocking on the door.
Knock, Knock, Knock!
Ma Lang said: "Okay, this early in the morning
why is someone knocking at my door?" And then he felt that he should check who is the person was.
He was so sad, and he was so sorrowful when he opened the door. He
suddenly
saw this is a monk
So he Ma Lang sudden if you're very relieved. He said: "Okay, please come in," and Ma Lang told this monk
"Okay, I just married this young lady."
He tried his best, doing all the things you know, to win this woman
on the final run.
But unfortunately,
impermanence happened. Yulan Guanyin passed away,
but no one knew that she was Guanyin at the time.
So the monk heard this long story, and
after he finished hearing Ma Lang's story, the monk was laughing. He said "Ha ha ha ha, you don't understand!
This Yulan Guanyin was not an ordinary
lady. She was not an ordinary woman at all
She was Guanyin Pusa. She appeared in the form of the human body
She came to this town to make all you young men in the town
believe in Buddhism, to respect the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha."
So Ma Lang suddenly realized
Okay
He realized the woman was not a regular ordinary woman
She was Guanyin Pusa
in the form of the human body.
So he decided
not to you live an ordinary man's life. He was not going to marry another woman
He decide to follow this monk's life.
He wanted to become a monk, so he continued to study all the Buddhist Sutras.
He realized what in this life is called
impermanence.
Nothing is permanent.
So he decided to follow the monk
To take the path to study Buddhism. And finally he also became a monk.
So all these little towns of young men,
all of the villages, the people, senior, young, men, women,
realized this young lady's name was Yulan.
She was not a ordinary girl. She was a Guanyin Pusa's
representative. So all of the small towns and villages' citizens, all of them
believed they must change their behaviour. They no longer fished for fish,
They became non-killing, they believed in the Buddha, they believed in the Dhamma, and they believed in the Sangha.
So, now we
have heard the very famous story about Guanyin Pusa in Chinese history.
And this is called the
Yulan Guanyin.
Today we are just briefly telling you this interesting story about Guanyin Pusa, and on the next day, the
following section, we are going to talk more about Guanyin Pusa:
How Guanyin Pusa has been in different bodily forms,
in order to help the six realms of sentient beings. As you know, in Buddhist terms under the Buddha's
teachings, we have a lowest realm is the sentient beings in hell,
the sentient being hungry ghosts, the sentient being animals, and
of course, you know we are born as humans. And
above, we have
angry deities, and also we have
angel deities [Celestial Beings]. So we in Buddhist terms we say these are the six
realms
in which to be reborn. If we don't reach our
enlightenment of Buddhahood. So today we are going to end our story here,
and we hope in to see you on the next day in the next section.
Thank you very much for your cooperation, and I hope to see you soon. Amituofo.