Bandits
After
the transmission of the precepts, the Venerable Master Yun returned
quietly and alone to Yunmen, where he was supervising the construction
of buildings. That summer, I went to the district of Nancheng in
Jiangxi to lecture on the Amitabha Sutra at the invitation of Elder
Layman Huang Juzai. I returned to Nanhua Monastery in the middle of the
eighth month. In the middle of the ninth month, a group of bandits who
were intent on ransacking the monastery broke down the door and entered
the Nanhua Vinaya Academy. When I went out to meet them, they pointed
their guns at my chest and said, "We're going to shoot you." I said,
"Why do you want to shoot me?" The bandits said, "Because you didn't
open the door." I said, "I didn't open the door because you have come
to rob me, not to give me gifts. If you had been in my place, you
wouldn't have dared to open the door either." The bandits said, "Hand
over your money!" I pointed at my ragged robe and said, "Look! Would
someone wearing such tattered clothes have money?" The bandits asked,
"Well, who does?" I said, "I'm the Dharma Master here, and all the rest
are student monks. If I am penniless, surely they will be poorer yet.
This room is where I live. You are welcome to look around and take
whatever you like." Hearing me conversing with the bandits as if
nothing were going on, Dharma Master Huaiyi came out from the inner
rooms to join the conversation. The bandits promptly let go of me and
seized him, giving him the same treatment they had given me. Master
Huai burst into tears and hung his head, afraid to look up. The thieves
then said, "Give us your money!" Master Huai said, "Go to my room and
get it." They entered his room and took everything in it, leaving it
empty.
The following day at class, Master Huai announced to
the students, "Of the hundred or more monks at Nanhua Monastery, only
one man showed no sign of fear--Dharma Master To Lun." When it came
time for me to teach, I said, "Master Huai said I was the only one in
this monastery who was not afraid. He was wrong. As far as I know,
there were four people: First of all, the Sixth Patriarch, Great Master
Huineng, sat unmoving in bright samadhi, without worrying or paying any
attention, as if nothing were going on. Second, Patriarch Hanshan sat
erect, nourishing his spirit with eyes closed, in a state of internal
and external emptiness in which concepts of self and others were both
gone. Third, Patriarch Dantian stuck out his head to take a look around
and see what was going on, yet did not say a single word. The fourth
one was me, the mountain monk To Lun, who not only looked but also
spoke. I conversed with the thieves and got all excited, but I was not
afraid either." After I said this, the class broke into laughter.
The
news soon reached the Venerable Master Yun, who hurried back from
Yunmen and called a general meeting. Present at the meeting were Dharma
Masters Huaiyi and To Lun, and the Venerable Master Yun himself chaired
the meeting. There were over thirty students, including Zuyin, Yunmiao,
Wuyun, Xuanyang, Hengding, Tihui, Tiguang, Faliang, Hailong, Fahui,
Wanxin, Zhikong, Faming, and Fakai. After the incident of the bandits,
everyone in the monastery was unsettled and wished to leave. The
Venerable Master Yun urged Master Huai to stay on, but he refused. He
tried to detain the students, but they wouldn't listen. Under these
circumstances, he broke down and wept bitterly. He said, "To the end of
time, I will never again run a Buddhist Academy." Then he got up and
returned to the Abbot's quarters. I was deeply moved and vowed to
assume the duties of managing and continuing to run the Buddhist
Academy. Later Master Huai went to Guangxi, and I became solely
responsible for all the classes at the Nanhua Vinaya Academy.
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