Friday, December 7, 2012

A Pure Land death story

The Buddhist Pure Land tradition, which is quite large and diverse, focuses on the practice of reciting the name of the Buddha as means of calming the mind, encouraging faith, and creating wholesome conditions for daily life. The tradition is replete with stories of the deaths of sincere practitioners, which may be read for their amazing content or as inspiration for practice. Here is one.

Ven. Master Chin Kung has often told the following story to encourage us in our practice. The story was told to him by an older practitioner, Mrs. Gan, in 1984.
“Mrs. Gan had a relative, an elderly lady who had lived in San Francisco. This relative helped her son and daughter-in-law with the housework and took care of their children.
After several years, when the grandchildren had grown older and were attending elementary school, she had more time to herself. With this extra time, she was able to practice nianfo every day without interruption. Nobody knew about this. On the day she passed away, people discovered how much she had achieved in her cultivation. She passed away at night. In the morning, when her son and daughter-in-law went to her room to see why she was not yet up, they found her dead, sitting cross-legged on the bed.
They also found a will on the bed telling them how to arrange her funeral. There were even mourning clothes, which she had personally made for everyone, on the bed. She was a true practitioner, but nobody knew this when she was alive.
This elderly lady had no karmic obstacles. She knew when she would pass away. She performed her daily routine as usual and passed away without suffering from any illness. She passed away with ease and freedom. The elderly lady had achieved in her practice, so she had no obstacles.”

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