經律異相 8.32

8.32

Incalculable kalpas ago in the past, there was an ascetic aspirant named Yan Guang. Living in a forest thicket, he practiced the auspicious vow. For 4,200,000 years he had cultivated his practice without hindrance. Entering the kingdom of Śāgala, there was a potter's daughter. Seeing this ascetic aspirant's handsome and graceful countenance, lust arose intensely within her, and she threw herself at him. The ascetic aspirant replied, saying, "I do not delight in desire." The woman said, "If you will not, I shall take my own life." Yan Guang thought to himself: "I uphold the prohibitive precepts. If I now break them, it will not be auspicious." Stepping seven paces away from her, he then gave rise to compassion and pity: "Breaking the prohibitive precepts leads to the sin of falling into hell. If it is not done, this woman will harm herself. It is better to bring peace and security to this woman; I shall endure the torment of hell." Yan Guang thereupon returned and complied with the woman's desire, retreating into domestic life for twelve years. After his life ended, he was reborn in the Brahmā heaven. The Buddha said: "If you wish to know who the ascetic aspirant Yan Guang was at that time, could he have been anyone else? He was my very self. The potter's daughter was Gopī." (Extracted from the first fascicle of the Huisheng pusa jing).