A Zen master on Mount Wutai once took on a disciple who was only three years old at the time. Mount Wutai is extremely high, and the master and disciple practiced on the summit, never descending the mountain. After more than ten years, the master and the disciple descended the mountain together. The young monk saw cows, horses, chickens, and dogs but didn’t know what they were.
The master pointed and told him, “This is a cow, used for plowing fields.
In Luoyang’s Shuilu Temple, there was a monk named Da Le, who was quite wealthy. His neighbor, surnamed Zhou, worked in the government office and was very poor. The supervisor of his post often extorted money when collecting taxes, taking advantage whenever possible. Whenever it was time to turn in the collected sum, Zhou would frequently borrow money from Monk Da Le to make up the shortfall. Over a span of a few years, he ended up owing the monk a total of seven taels of silver.
In Jingxiang, there is a temple nestled close to mountains and water, where a dragon resides. This dragon often stirs up storms, damaging trees. Within the temple, there is an old man named Zhang who strikes the bell; he is a sorcerer, unknown to the monks. Zhang detests the havoc caused by this dragon and desires to capture and kill it, secretly performing magic.
The dragon, aware of this, transforms into a human and secretly informs one of the monks, saying, ‘I am a dragon, living in these waters for many years.
