Pan Jieyuan from Henan Province entered the province with two friends to participate in the township examination. In their lodging house, a mage who predicted well, quietly said to Pan’s two friends: “Pan Jun is going to be in trouble, let him avoid it.” The two friends used the excuse that the house is too small. The man gave Pan Jieyuan two silver coins and asked him to rent another house. Pan had to rent a small room elsewhere.
One night, when Pan Jun was walking by the river, he saw a woman who was about to throw herself into the river. He hurried forward to stop her and asked her why she committed suicide. The woman replied: "My husband bought cotton weaving and finally knit some. After my husband went out, I sold the cloth for four silver coins, but I didn't expect it to be all fake silver. My husband would scold me severely when he came home, so I wanted to die. That's it."
Pan Jun immediately took out the four silver coins from his sleeve to her. After returning to the residence, the landlord humiliated him because of lack of money. Pan Jun only got accommodation in the monastery. When the night monk dreamed of the gods beating gongs and drums from the sky, a god said: "The test list has been set, but the person who should have a good score this time has done bad things recently. God has removed him from the list. I still don’t know who to look for to replace it.” Another god said: “Pan who lives in this temple can be replaced.” Another god said: “Looking at his face is quite horrible, how can he be a Jie Yuan?” God approached Pan Sheng and stroked Pan Sheng's face with both hands and said, "Isn't it the face of good grades in the exam now?" The monk kept it in mind and gave him a generous hospitality.
After the exam, Pan went to the place where two friends lived to thank him. When the mage saw him, he was taken aback, and said, "What kind of virtue have you done recently that has turned into a full-faced look? You are the first place in this exam." After the test list was announced, it was true.
To do a good deed, it must be like a river in a rupture, without being able to resist it, in order to accomplish it. If Pan had counted the cost of entering the examination room, he would not have done the good thing to save people. Because he only thought about the interests of others, not his own interests, he only used four silver coins, which not only saved his life, but also saved himself from violent death. He also got good grades in the exam.
This reminds me of Kangxi’s JISI winter. I was taking a small test in Chengjiang (now Jiangyin, Jiangsu). At that time, Zhu Junyu, a servant in the government, lost the money deposited by others, and he was so sad that he almost didn’t want to live. . After hearing this, I felt sympathetic and wanted to help him a little bit, but I was not able to help him because of my own expenses. Soon, I will return to Kunshan. When the examiner came to distribute the case files of the Changzhou (now Suzhou) re-examination, I was already listed as the second seat. But the examiner found that there was only a seat number on the paper without a name. People didn't know who it was. For this reason, the examiner thought that I didn't take the retest, so he removed me. At that time, there was no Changzhou case file in Kunshan County, only Zhu Junyu had the case file. Zhu and I don't know each other very well, and I don't know that the second seat is me. If I disregarded my own disk fees and supported him a little on that day, he would definitely give me the re-examination file with his gratitude. Then I won't be expelled, and I will eventually wait two years before being admitted. Compared with Pan, I am even more ashamed!
Excerpted from An Shi Quan Book "Emperor Wenchang advised everyone to do good things"
There was a man named Rao Chang in Nanchang, Jiangxi during the Ming Dynasty. On the road, he saw someone who was so poor that he wanted to sell his wife to a distant place. Rao Chang felt compassionate and asked them how much money they needed, so he immediately went back and sold his farm, and gave the money to the couple so that they could go home to reunite. In this year’s imperial examination competition, the examiner dreamed that God said: "Why don’t you choose someone who abandoned the field?" The examiner re-examined one of the abandoned examination papers and gave the author of that paper the third place in the examination, which is Rao. Chang's test paper. It was only when the county governor set up a celebration banquet that people knew why. Later, Rao's three sons Jinghui, Jing Yao, and Jingwei all ascended the throne one after another.
Farms, assets, and wealth, the world regards them as their lifeblood. The Buddhist scriptures compare them to the moon in the water, the flower in the mirror, and the treasure in the dream. Why? Land and assets are only temporarily managed by people, and they cannot be taken away after death. Those who write property contracts nowadays always say: "Let us manage this industry forever." Alas! The property is the owner, and the owner of the property is the guest. Besides, the owner cannot keep his guests forever. How can the guest always have a director? If you definitely want to take everything away, there is also a way to take it away, that is, to do charity and create a body of good fortune, so that you can still live a safe and honorable life in the future. Understand this principle, then abandoning the land is just buying property! People can buy a property in this way, and then say that they can manage the property forever.
Excerpted from An Shi Quan Book "Emperor Wenchang advised everyone to do good things"
In the world of desire, materiality, and formlessness, if you understand that you are not attached to the physical form (thinking that you have me), and you also understand that you are not attached to the exact dharma (thinking that there is a dharma), that is, you understand all the dharma in the three realms and you are free from suffering.
If you don’t truly know greedy, and if you don’t let your heart give up greed, and if you are happy with greed, then you will suffer -"Greed Sutra II"
All sentient beings will attain perfection. ...If it encounters the Supreme Bodhi's path of practicing, it will become a Buddha regardless of the size of its root. -"Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment”
The equality of Buddhism lies in the equality of everyone’s nature, and there is no difference between a human and Buddha as of the nature of consciousness. Every person, every animal, every ghost and god we meet will eventually reach full consciousness, just like a Buddha. Therefore, Buddhism is vast, never disgusting, never different, I am all beings, all beings are me, equal and no difference.
All things exist because of their relative: because there is white, there is black, and because there is light, there is darkness. Therefore, there is nothing, only because there’s being. There is heaven only because there is hell. The heaven and hell are all different because of the consciousness. If there is no consciousness, then the heaven and hell are no different. Buddhism is the middle way. Therefore, the wisdom of perfect enlightenment is to know there is no “being” nor “ nothing” . Without "being" and "nothing" is the "reality" that contains everything.
American Buddhist monk Bhikkhu Bodhi wrote:
"The real meaning of upekkha is equanimity, not indifference in the sense of unconcern for others. As a spiritual virtue, upekkha means stability in the face of the fluctuations of worldly fortune. It is evenness of mind, unshakeable freedom of mind, a state of inner equipoise that cannot be upset by gain and loss, honor and dishonor, praise and blame, pleasure and pain. Upekkha is freedom from all points of self-reference; it is indifference only to the demands of the ego-self with its craving for pleasure and position, not to the well-being of one's fellow human beings. True equanimity is the pinnacle of the four social attitudes that the Buddhist texts call the 'divine abodes': boundless loving-kindness, compassion, altruistic joy, and equanimity. The last does not override and negate the preceding three, but perfects and consummates them."