樂邦遺稿 2.57

2.57

The Longshu Pure Land Writings says: "It is said of Elder Huigu: 'He first resided at Taiping in Shuzhou, and later moved to a great monastery in eastern Zhejiang. His virtue and practice were celebrated throughout the world, and both monastics and laity took refuge in him. Before long, after his death, he was reborn into the house of a prime minister.' As the retribution for having cultivated much merit and wisdom in his previous life, in his present life he passed the higher examinations; the world naturally deemed it an honor. Had old Gu cultivated for the West, he would have escaped saṃsāra and departed; how would he have today's downfall? The Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra says: 'A worldly practitioner is like clarifying turbid water. Although it becomes clear when settled, the sediment has not been removed, and when stirred it becomes turbid again.' This applies to old Gu. If a person is born in the West, sees the Buddha and attains the Way, and then returns to this realm, that is having swept away the sediment, so that even if stirred, it does not become turbid again."