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The news of the Venerable Master Hua’s Nirvana came so suddenly, so shockingly, and so painfully. Yet facts are facts. When I thought of the Venerable Master’s compassion and grace, I cried!
A few years ago, I observed that most vegetarian restaurants use egg products in their dishes. In order to make it easy for people to eat pure vegetarian food, I opened an orthodox vegetarian restaurant last year. Due to lack of experience and overexhaustion, I collapsed from illness. A hospital checkup showed that I had an ovarian tumor. Because I had lost an excessive amount of blood, the medicine prescribed by the doctor was ineffective. Later I met a Dharma Master who told me to recite the Great Compassion Mantra 108 times and then drink water that had been aided by the power of the mantra. I spent one day’s time reciting the Great Compassion Mantra 108 times and then drank the Great Compassion Water as medicine. By the next day, I had stopped bleeding. After a week, my red blood protein count rose from eight points to twelve points (healthy people have fourteen points).
Through the introduction of a Buddhist friend, I entered a well-known private hospital on March 7 of this year. The operation that was performed on me on March 8 went well. Three days after the operation, the nurse (a Christian) who was taking care of me asked me if I had asked a monk to come and recite Sutras for me, because she’d seen a monk sitting at my bedside reciting for me. One week later, I went home and dreamed for three nights in a row that the Venerable Master had come to Malaysia. In reality, the Jewelled Repentance Ceremony of the Emperor of Liang was being held at Long Beach Sagely Monastery in America at the time, but the Venerable Master was seriously ill and could not personally be present at the Dharma assembly to give a talk. Nevertheless, the Venerable Master still had the spirit of great kindness, great compassion, great joy, and great giving, and his hundred million transformation bodies saved living beings who were in difficulty. Ignorant living beings are confused and difficult to teach and subdue, yet the Master unselfishly committed his whole life to aiding the fourfold assembly of disciples with boundless grace.
Before the Venerable Master left, he instructed us to recite the
Flower Adornment Sutra. When I was bowing the Flower Adornment Repentance with the assembly, it seemed that every sentence and word was directed at my ignorance and stupidity. My body broke out in a cold sweat, my hands were trembling, and I couldn’t control myself from crying again. Venerable Master, you’re too compassionate!
September 18, 1995
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