虛堂和尚語錄 9.69

9.69

The next day, ascending the hall: "Two thousand years ago, the Greatly Awakened World-Honoured One gathered one thousand two hundred and fifty bhikṣus in Anāthapiṇḍada's park, and when the retreat day arrived, he set up the pattern and model, which has continued unbroken down to the present day. Today, if someone suddenly came forward and said, 'Here I have a universe inside a gourd with its own sun and moon, and I will not enter your commune'—this mountain monk could only arrange a place for him beneath a bright window. Why? A qilin is an auspicious sign of the highest order, rarely met in all the world."