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How my father became the disciple of the Venerable Master Hua2014-01-21

 

By Wu Peiyan
English Translation by Lotus Lee

All Dharma Masters and Dharma friends, Amitabha!

My name is Wu Peiyan. Like Dharma Master said earlier, I grew up in a Buddhist family. But even though we were technically a Buddhist family, my father had his own views and did not believe in anything. His encounter with the Venerable Master was a special affinity.

This is how it happened. Once, my mother met a Dharma Master who read the lines on her palm and said, “If you have not married yet, don’t get married, because you will become a widow in the future.” My mother became very anxious when she heard this, because she was already married and my father was the only one financially supporting the household, which also included my grandmother and three children. The bookshelves in our house were filled with Buddhist books. Since my mother was quite worried, so one day she picked one out and opened it to a random page. On this page it read: “If there is a high Sangha who is holding a Dharma Assembly, you should attend it. Because of his great virtue; the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas will descend to the Dharma Assembly. Since the Buddha’s light shines everywhere, all disasters and calamities will be eradicated.”

One day, my mother was reading the newspaper and saw an article announcing that American High Sangha Venerable Master Hsuan Hua would be coming to Taiwan to propagate the Dharma, and there would be a Dharma Assembly in Taichung. At the time, my father was working in Taichung. Before he left for work that day, my mother cut out the article and gave it to him, saying: “If you have some free time, you should go check this out.” During his break, my father went to the Dharma Assembly, thinking, “American High Sangha? American? How can there be monks in America?” With a skeptical attitude, he went to the Dharma Assembly wanting to see how awesome this High Sangha was supposed to be.

When my father arrived, he stood right in front of the Venerable Master’s seat, because he thought that if he stood in the very front, he’d be able to get a clear view. When the Venerable Master came out, he looked the Master from head to toe and from toe to head, and thought, “That’s it? There’s nothing special about him. He doesn’t even have horns.” He was going to leave then and there, but when he had this thought, he was suddenly surrounded by people wearing robes and sashes. He couldn’t even move an inch. Then he thought, since he was little, he had gone to many temples with my grandmother. Having bowed to many deities in many temples, staying for this Dharma Assembly shouldn’t make too much difference, so he decided to stay. When he changed his mind, all the people surrounding him disappeared.

The Dharma Assembly started, and my father stayed there and bowed along with everyone. After it was over, he was the first person to barrel his way out of the door because he wanted to leave as quickly as possible. On the way out, someone stopped him and handed him a form to fill out. He thought, “What is this? Why do I have to fill out a form after the Dharma Assembly?” The volunteer told him: “That Dharma Assembly you just went to was the ceremony for taking refuge.” My father later said that he took refuge under very unwilling and confused circumstances. The Venerable Master established a rule that anyone who took refuge must bow to the Buddhas ten thousand times, but my father refused to do so until after he received his certificate of taking refuge and read the Venerable Master’s eighteen great vows. He was really moved and vigorously finished all ten thousand bows in twelve days.

I think it was my father’s doing all of this recitation work that my mother did not become a widow according to the prediction that I mentioned earlier. One rainy day, my father was going to work, and he was riding his motorcycle at a high speed. It was already drizzling at the time. He got to an intersection, and there was a car approaching. Both of them were going at about seventy to eighty kilometers per hour, and there was no time to hit the brakes. He thought that this was probably the end. Just when they were about to collide, my father’s motorcycle made a ninety-degree turn so that it was parallel to the car. When the motorcycle did the hairpin turn, he didn’t fall over. The driver and bystanders were all very shocked, because everyone thought he should have died.

More than ten years afterwards, a person said to my father: “What happened that year when you were thirty-eight years old?” My father described said incident, and the person said: “It was your teacher the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua who saved you.” I believe there were many troubles in our household that were eradicated with the help of the Venerable Master. Since then, my father had deep faith in the Venerable Master. Therefore, from a young age, whenever my parents went to Dharma assemblies, they would bring me along as well.

This is my first time going out of the country. I took refuge with the Venerable Master a long time ago, but I’ve never been to CTTB, so I decided to take this opportunity to pay CTTB a visit. The time I’ve spent here for the past two weeks was very happy. Before coming here, I never thought that I’d be able to get up every day at 3:30 in the morning and go to morning recitation, meal offering, and evening recitation, and go without eating dinner. I hope that in the future, if affinities allow, I will be able to come to CTTB and Gold Sage Monastery again.

Dharma Master Yun’s words of encouragement:

Your parents fostered you with the Buddhadharma. As the saying goes “When we drink water, we should be mindful of its source.” You can use the Buddhadharma that you have learned to help other people. You are unlike most young people of this generation, who, even if they have encountered the Buddhadharma, do not learn or practice it. You fit in with monastery life quite well. You must have wholesome roots of goodness and deep affinities with the Buddha. Perhaps you were a monastic in a previous life. In the cultivation of the Bodhisattva Path, one should enlighten the self and enlighten others, benefit the self and benefit others.

You have the ability to help yourself, and you should help the young people of this generation. You are not very young, but you are not old yet either. However, time passes very quickly. In the past, there were some people who said that they wanted to leave the home life with the Venerable Master, but they are already as old as I am, and they have not yet succeeded and are unsure of the current state of their lives. It is not that you have to leave the home life, but I am sure you can learn the Buddhadharma to help society and others.