觀彌勒上生兜率天經贊 2.218

2.218

Fascicle 4 of the Song Gaoseng Zhuan states: 'Later, he personally travelled to Mount Wutai, climbing the Taihang Mountains to Xihe, and stayed overnight in an ancient Buddhist temple. He dreamed that his body was beneath a cliff halfway up a mountain, where immeasurable people were crying out in pain. In the gloom, he could initially not bear to listen. Climbing on foot to that layered peak, which was entirely of lapis lazuli colour, he saw all the lands completely. Looking up at a city, a voice from within the city said: "Halt, halt! Ho! Master Ji has not yet been permitted to arrive here." Presently two heavenly youths came out from the city and asked: "Do you see the sinful, suffering sentient beings below the mountain?" He answered: "I hear their voices but do not see their forms." The youths then threw down a sword hilt and said: "Cut open your belly and you will see." Ji cut it open himself; when the belly opened, two beams of light shone down upon the mountain, and he saw countless people undergoing extreme suffering. Then the youths entered the city, took two scrolls of paper and a brush, threw them to him, and he received them in his hands and left. When dawn came, his amazement had not ceased. Over a trustworthy night, there was a light in the temple that did not extinguish for a long time. Searching for it, there were several scrolls emitting light; reaching for them, he obtained the Maitreya Ascent Sūtra. He then recalled the earlier dream: Maitreya must certainly be commanding me to compose a commentary to elucidate its principles. Thereupon, as he dropped the brush, fourteen relics fell from the tip of the brush, as large as Wu cherries and delightfully red. Those that fell subsequently were as small as yellow millet grains (and so forth).'