Once upon a time, on an is land in the East China Sea, there lived a fish ing fam ily named Lin. They were popu lar among their fel low vil lag ers be cause they were al ways will ing to help any one in need. Although the Lin cou ple had six chil dren, only one was a son. They were wor ried that if some -thing should hap pen to the only male heir, the fam ily line would break. Keep ing a fam ily line un bro -ken was a se ri ous mat ter to the Chi nese. They prayed to Guanyin, God dess of Mercy, for an other boy. Read the rest of this entry »

Miao Shan was in tel li gent and ea ger to learn even when she was a small child. As she grew into a young lady, her par ents tried to marry her off because, accord ing to the so cial norms of the time, keep ing an un mar ried grown-up daugh ter would be a dis grace to the fam ily. Miao Shan, how ever, re -fused re peat edly. At their wits’ end, her par ents locked her up in a chamber in the back yard garden. There, tak ing ad van tage of her quiet, se ques tered en vi ron ment, Miao Shan med i tated and be came a de vout Bud dhist be liever, as she had been in her pre vi ous ex is tence as Shi Shan. No mat ter how King Miao Zhuang and Queen Boya rea soned with her, Miao Shan would not change her mind. She told her parents that she had de voted her self to Bud dha and would never think of worldly af fairs such as mar riage. Her sis ters, both mar ried by now, came to see her and, us ing them selves as ex am ples, tried to per suade her, but in vain. Read the rest of this entry »

One early spring morn ing, Xu Xuan, a young sales clerk in a drug store in the sub urbs of Hangzhou, went to visit a Buddhist ab bot named Fahai in the Tem ple of Golden Hill at the West Lake. A bene fac tor of the tem ple, Xu Xuan was a frequent guest of the ab bot. Antic i pating wet weather, which was a com mon oc cur rence in that re gion during the spring sea son, Xu Xuan brought with him an um brella. Read the rest of this entry »