One day, two monks came to the wilderness with a cart full of rice cakes, oil cakes and other food, and they kept spreading what they ate along the way, and a group of children followed back and forth, hugging each other and jumping with joy.
What are they doing here? I saw them kneeling on incense burning, and making a vow on the side of the road, saying, "May you all come to eat the food I have sprinkled today and become my disciples in the next life, and you will all become Buddhas together." ”
The children rushed up, ate their mouths full of pancakes, wiped them with their sleeves, and went back to playing.
All of a sudden, birds flying in the sky rushed down, swarms of ants on the ground, and snotty street children, who ate fragrant rice crackers, and their hearts were full of gratitude.
The two monks also carefully brought bowls of water to the birds, who were afraid that they would not have water to drink. The well-fed birds finally flew away, and they reluctantly looked back, and soared straight into the sky.
The birds flew away, and the ants were not idle, they quickly took the food in their mouths, and tirelessly, moved to the ant nest one after another. "Get rich!" The ants were happy and happy as if they were celebrating the New Year.
What is going on here? It turns out that there was a monk in the Tang Dynasty named Jizhou monk. He was an orphan, who had no parents since he was a child, was frail and sickly, and had no food, so he begged for food along the roadside.
A kind-hearted old monk kindly took him in a temple, and when he grew up, he became a monk in the temple. The little monk who became a monk was very diligent, he got up before dawn every day and cleaned the courtyard with a big broom.
Every morning, he gets up to do morning classes. Before dawn, I heard his crisp and pleasant children's chanting, and he also played a good magic weapon, soft, steady, crisp, and pleasant.
A little monk who has become a monk, he has a very smart mind, and he likes life in the temple very much. He was familiar with Buddhist scriptures in the monastery, and when he grew up, he was soon able to preach the scriptures on his own.
Although he practiced diligently and his attainments in Buddhism deepened, he gave a speech on stage, but few people in the audience listened to his teachings.
One day, he was speaking very attentively on the stage, but found that the people listening to his speech got up one by one, and only an old man was still sitting at the bottom, listening carefully.
He walked down curiously and asked, "Uncle, you are so fascinated by what you hear!" The uncle shook his head embarrassedly and said, "I'm waiting here to lock the door!"
The monk from Jizhou was very embarrassed, and he thought, "Maybe they don't understand my dialect!" So he stopped preaching on the stage.
He took to the streets, sold his family's valuable belongings, and filled his purse with copper plates. When he saw a child, he sent a copper plate and persuaded the child to recite the Buddha.
That's it, and there are not many children who chant with him, and they look at him timidly, their eyes full of incomprehension. There were even more timid ones who turned around and walked away.
The enthusiasm of the Jizhou monk was poured with cold water, and he really couldn't figure it out, what was the problem? Why didn't anyone listen to him when he preached the scriptures?
Could it be that he did not have enough knowledge and was not yet proficient in the teachings of Buddhism? So, he took a few changes of clothes, carried a burden on his back, visited famous monks in famous temples all over the world, and wrote a book on his experience in studying Buddhism.
One day, an old monk came and asked him for advice, "Please look at the books I have written, and if you think there is something wrong with my books, I will never give any more lectures." ”
The old monk smiled and said: It's not for other reasons, there is a saying in Buddhism: "Buddhism is boundless, and people who don't have a fate", you don't have a disciple to listen to your teachings, it's just that you have no fate with those people.
The Jizhou monk said to the old monk: "Then what am I going to do now?", the old monk replied: "Don't worry, you can buy more rice cakes." ”
So, the Jizhou monk sold seven expensive robes, bought all the rice cakes with the money in exchange, and pushed several small carts.
They sowed along the road, and the birds of the sky flew down and landed on the ground, and the ants on the earth also came in flocks to eat, and the birds in the sky were a group of dark clouds, and the ants on the ground were black and oppressive.
Seeing this, the old monk turned around and left. The Jizhou monk knelt down and begged to stay, and the old monk smiled and said: The good fate has been concluded, and after 20 years, you can see it again! As soon as the words were finished, the person was gone.
Twenty years later, the monks of Jizhou reopened the altar to preach, but thousands of believers came to listen to the lectures. Strangely, most of them were young people under the age of twenty.
Why are there so many young people? The monks of Jizhou are puzzled, could it be the rice cakes they bought back then, which are distributed and fed by birds and ants?
Could it be that they reincarnated themselves and became his young disciples, no wonder the old monk said: I want him to make good connections!