How Inconceivable Is the Power of Earth Store Bodhisattva
HOW INCONCEIVABLE IS THE POWER OF EARTH STORE BODHISATTVA Mother’s Day is celebrated with flowers, gifts and treats at restaurants for most mothers. Last year, my 20 year-old son woke up very early in the morning, came to my room and wished me “Happy Mother’s Day”, with a beautifully wrapped gift, waiting anxiously for my response as I opened the box. Nestled in the box was a small and beautiful statuette of Earth Store Bodhisattva. The gift gave a poignant feeling, as my children had reminded me about filiality and gratitude to this Great Bodhisattva who had in the past displayed inconceivable power and kindness during times of grave illness. Back in 1995-1997 I was weak and tired due to my illness and constant dreams of demonic attacks. Prior to my illness I was from the Southern school but my husband who had taken refuge with Master Hua persuaded me to attend a full seven-day recitation of Earth Store Bodhisattva Sutra at Tze Yun Tung temple in Salak South, Malaysia. I was reluctant as I do not understand Chinese and felt that the chanting would not be effective for someone who does not understand. My husband being undeterred by my excuses, would however send me to the gates of Tze Yun Tung everyday. Everyday I would reluctantly go and everyday without fail he would make sure I was right in front of Tze Yun Tung’s gate. Due to my karmic retribution, attending the assembly was a torture as I felt my whole body being pierced by thousands of needles. However towards dawn on the last day of the assembly I had a strange dream. As if in between my sleeping and waking states, I heard strange resonance of chanting reverberating around me. A group of monks in a rather rough-clothed kind of robes were sitting around me and chanting. I could not understand what they were chanting, it did not sound like Chinese, it wasn’t English, and the sound was strangely powerful. As the mantra-like chanting was reverberating, I broke into cold sweat and I suddenly woke up and vomited. Since that incident I was on my way to recovery. Physically I slowly became stronger and the visions of visiting demonic beings started to disappear. As weeks went by, I soon forgot about my dream until I heard the same mantra being chanted while shopping in a Buddhist bookstore. The same mantra that I heard in my dream resonated. I was flooded with excitement and wanted to know what the mantra was. Upon asking the shop assistant, he presented me with a CD and I was filled with awe because the mantra was actually the Mantra of Earth Store Bodhisattva - but it is in Sanskrit! Though I chanted Earth Store Sutra in Chinese at Tze Yun Tung temple but in my dream I heard the Earth Store Mantra in Sanskrit – how inconceivable is the power and kindness of Earth Store Bodhisattva. Amara
submited on 2008-05-03 09:13:48 by Amara from Nilai, Malaysia

Prayer
I prayed for a man wanting to go home that he would get there.
submited on 2008-05-03 03:15:33 by Panu from Vantaa, Finland

A Next Journey
As a gratitude to an old mentor, I wrote a small poem to him a few weeks before he passed away this month. He was Director of the Council of Churches' civil rights organization based in Mississippi, where we met. He remained a Presbyterian minister while I became a lay-Buddhist but our commonality connected when we began sharing ideas of our spirituality. A Next Jouney--- It is okay for me to be Afraid to fear the inevitable to wander off into my past and torture myself for experiences I wish I'd had not had to wander then to deep moving moments in my lifetime that I will forever cherish all those moving experiences that have transformed me in so many minute and profound ways shaping me to who I am now. It is okay foe me to continue shaping myself even to the last moment like tiny sands of clay that molds and shapes a being inside and out from loving hands and loving minds from forgiving hands and forgiving minds. It is also okay for me to be alone and not fear how that is like to look at the stillness and be so alone that finally fear flitters away; I flip it off with a flick of my fingers in my mind letting it go disengaging saying 'bye but saying hello when it is revisited. For life is a continuous journey after all it does not really end we travel on to seek and to fulfill To live again for compassion, wisdom and joy. It is okay. I am ttansferring merit to you, Bob, as I think of you everyday.
submited on 2008-04-25 11:17:22 by marion kwan from san francisco,ca. and taos, nm., usa

Helping a friend
I was helping a monk yesterday, he has less than perfect lungs, and has developed a cough. My training allows me to help out , and try to keep him well. Whilst we talked he told me about Drarma Radio , and played me the music, one song was written by our Abbot. The monastery is such a source of help for me, and helping others there seems to be so natural , I almost can't tell if I'm helping them or they me. Generosity touches my heart , and so it opens up. We all benefit.
submited on 2008-04-22 06:45:16 by Simon from Chichester, England

Taking care of my sick dog
I have a 12 1/2 year old Lab who is an amputee because of cancer. (She had her leg amputated 2 years ago) She started throwing up over the weekend. Test confirmed she has a recurring bladder infection. The Vet put her on an antibiotic, which upset her stomach. Thursday she was not feeling well at all. I needed to get food in her system so she could take her medications. She would not eat the small portions I put in her bowl, which mean she is really sick because she never refused food! In the evening, I sat with her off and on and fed her by hand. She took little bits here and there. The next morning she was bright and chipper and begging to eat.
submited on 2008-04-19 14:20:00 by Mel from Somewhere, USA

Me
When my daughters went off to college I was struck by how unprepared I was to be alone. This loneliness, while selfish, caused me to run away. I ran far. All the way to India where I met a man who was taking care of his family, and another 11 other children along with his extended family. I gave him the last of my savings to start a school because it felt good to be able to help some one. I realized that someone in this world still needed me. But was most profound was that I realized that my daughters leaving home did not mean that they did not need me still. It was a long journey; half way around the world, that reminded me that we are all needed here to love and care for each other.
submited on 2008-04-19 10:55:17 by jodevi from Berkeley, USA

I would like to hear the songs
I submit the story last time, I haven't receive your songs. I would love to play those songs to my patients in my clinic. So would you email me the songs in paramita? Thanks very much.
submited on 2008-04-16 17:05:00 by Lingyun Zhu from Menlo Park CA, USA

No Question
I found a purse in a shopping cart at a local grocery store. It took a while to find anything with her phone number on it because there were at least a dozen credit cards, cash, driver's license, etc. there. Finally, I found a business card and called the lady - from her expensive cell phone. She hadn't realized she had left it yet and was thrilled to hear from me. We met halfway between our homes and when she took the purse from me she gave me an autographed signed copy of a inspirational book that she had written. Besides the type of book being right on for me as I love inspirational/motivational books, the inscription spelled my name correctly -I spell it in a way that almost no one else does. I thought that was as remarkable as anything in the whole situation.
submited on 2008-04-15 08:52:18 by Dayna from The Woodlands, US

Feeling Better by Acting Better
I've looked into Buddhism quite a few times before, but it never seemed right for me. I was afraid to be seen as some granola-crunching, New Age poseur hippie or something, so I would briefly surf some websites, and be done with it. But at this current time, I am kind of at a cross-roads in my life, and unemployed, and i decided that i have plenty of time to right my wrongs, & try to become a better person. I have borderline personality disorder, & i was amazed to read that facets of the Buddhist mindfulness training were appropriated for Dialectic Behavioral Therapy, a treatment for this disorder. So--in order to improve myself, and help out other people, i have been -exercising, so i remain as attractive as ever to my boyfriend, as well as for other reasons -cooking dinner for my family (with actual steps, and recipes and such, which is brand new to me because my dinner always comes out of a box!) -volunteering at the book store at my local library, twice a week -and just over all attempting to control my anger, & make right by everybody that i've inadvertently been rude to for such a long time, like my family, & friends, too. All that isn't really a story, though, just blabber, so I apologize if it doesn't meet the criteria, and to everybody who is reading this who expects a grand old yarn!
submited on 2008-04-14 16:42:06 by Mardou from Newport News, USA

Simple things
All I did was run to catch a shopping cart that was blown by the wind just enough to catch a downslope and head toward parked cars in the parking lot. It doesn't seem like much, but I know that it can be annoying to come out of a store and see a new scratch or dent on a brand new car. It must have been enough, because one of the other patrons thanked me for my action, even though (I know this for a fact because she had parked next to me, nowhere near the carts) it wasn't her car that was going to be hit. It felt good to do something helpful, just because it needed to be done. And perhaps someone will have come out of the store, to a car that would have been hit by a cart, but wasn't, and did not have a good mood marred by an unexpected occurrence.
submited on 2008-04-13 23:39:11 by Evan K. from Albuquerque, NM, USA