淨土論 3.26

3.26

又隋大業內，并洲汶水縣絇山有村，村有老翁老婆兩人，更無男女。家人三五口，恒有兼年糧食以自存養。識達苦空，每月二十九日，請山僧二人一宿行道。合村六十許家，並來隨喜聽法受戒。月盡日設齋，尋常如此。凡造齋時者，老母潔淨，自手營作。老父謂老婆曰：「身力劣弱，但用口教，何假手為？」母對父曰：「恐朝夕亡不能更作；若用口教，但是他福。」凡所營齋，必恒自作，二三年間相續不斷，所修功德、念誦業行迴向淨土。臨終之日，村人普共同者。初夜以去，忽有光入屋，燈火不現，猶如白日。齊聲念佛，尋後即見眾多菩薩捧一寶蓋莊嚴微妙，遍覆中庭。婆即捨壽，有此勝相。

Furthermore, during the Daye reign era of the Sui dynasty, at Qushan in Wenshui County of Bingzhou, there was a village; in the village were an old man and an old woman, with no other sons or daughters. There were three to five people in the household, and they constantly had surplus grain from year to year to sustain themselves. Having a thorough understanding of suffering and emptiness, on the twenty-ninth day of every month they would invite two mountain monks to practice the Way for one night. About sixty households of the entire village would all come to rejoice, listen to the Dharma, and receive the precepts. On the final day of the month they would set out a vegetarian feast; it was routinely like this. Whenever the feast was prepared, the old mother kept clean and prepared it with her own hands. The old father said to the old woman: “Your physical strength is frail and weak; just give verbal directions—why must you labor with your own hands?” The mother replied to the father: “I fear that dying morning or evening, I will not be able to do it again; if I only give verbal directions, it will only be another person's merit.” Whenever she prepared the feast, she always made it herself, continuing without interruption for two or three years; the merits she cultivated and the practice of recitation she dedicated to the Pure Land. On the day of her death, the villagers universally joined together. From the initial watch onward, suddenly a light entered the house, making the lamps and torches invisible, just like broad daylight. Chanting the Buddha's name with one voice, soon afterward they saw numerous bodhisattvas upholding a jeweled canopy, exquisitely adorned, completely covering the central courtyard. The old woman then relinquished her life, with such extraordinary omens as these.