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A
Splitting Headache and More
•Guru's
Talk•
Translated
and Edited by True Buddha Foundation Translation Team
During my retreat, I wrote two
short articles titled, The Water at Leaf Lake has Turned Cold
and Praying to My Three Personal Deities.
Mainly I explained:
I was ill.
Life was painful.
I wished to be delivered by my Personal Deities.
Fifty-eight years old was good enough; I did not wish for a
long life.
I consulted a doctor, but after a complete examination, he
could not determine the underlying cause of my illness and
therefore could not give me any medication to treat it.
I very honestly tell you:
I could not sleep.
I had no appetite at all.
I had a splitting headache.
I experienced body temperature extremes as if I were in the
Eight Cold and Eight Hot Hells.
It was like a volcano had erupted in me, the lava spilling out
everywhere. It was like a great flood had burst forth inside
of me and I was drowning in it. It was like a fierce fire was
burning my body, burning it to ashes. It was like a raging
hurricane, splintering my heart and soul.
(The Four Elements [of my body] were going through a great
separation.)
My skull felt like it was splitting into eight petals, and
though I could describe the pain in countless ways, there are
simply no words to describe it. It was as if an eight-petalled
lotus were blooming, and with every degree of opening, the
pain would intensify a degree more. Every ten degrees of
opening, my pain would intensify ten degrees. This pain was
like Hell.
I felt like I was at the verge of death, and upon praying to
my Three Personal Deities, I saw my Personal Deity, the
Tathagata, abiding in the light, radiating his light upon me
several times. With each light emitted, my pain would diminish
a little, but after ten minutes, the pain would return. The
Tathagata would emit light again, it would be good for another
ten minutes, but again the excruciating pain would return.
I very honestly tell you, bearing the difficult burden of my
illness, I travelled to Korea to circumambulate the stupas, to
circumambulate the Buddhas, to circumambulate the temples. I
wept tears of pain again and again, gritting my teeth, forcing
myself to endure the pain!
While I was in Korea, my sleep was not like sleep—it seemed as
if I was in samadhi. Eating was not like eating—it was like I
was chewing rice straws.
But I forced myself to endure the pain!!
I can claim myself: I experienced a round of life and death, I
experienced the punishments of hell, I experienced the
greatest karmic illness of life—and I experienced all of this
while drifting as a stranger in a foreign land.
I entered the temple in Korea to prostrate to the Buddhas, but
I had to remove my shoes first and as I bent forward and
lowered my head, I felt like I was going to die, right then
and there. Such was my pain, yet I insisted on prostrating to
the Buddhas.
I forced myself to endure the pain!
My heart of Tao remained stable and still. In Korea, I
eventually witnessed the appearance of the Medicine Buddha and
his retinue of Bhaisajyaraja Bodhisattva, Bhaisajyasamudgata
Bodhisattva, Surya-prabha Bodhisattva, Candra-prabha
Bodhisattva, the twelve medicine warriors, diamond protectors,
and the eight major Bodhisattvas.
I wrote a poem:
Like the endless shimmering waves in a great ocean, the
celestial music flows endlessly in the air,
Reed pipes and bamboo flutes sounding softly as the gentle
heavenly wind blows.
All Buddhas and Bodhisattvas arrive to show their presence.
The cultivator at this moment is touched and his tears simply
flow.
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