法苑珠林 24.61

24.61

Song-dynasty Fei Chongxian was a native of Wuxing. In his youth, he had some faith in the Dharma, and past the age of thirty his diligence grew ever more earnest. In the third year of the Taishi era, he received the bodhisattva precepts and stayed for a retreat at the home of Xie Huiyuan, persevering without remiss day and night for twenty-four days. Whenever he listened to the sūtras, he would always place a magpie-tail censer before his knees. On the third night of the retreat, he saw a person of extraordinary countenance and attire come straight forward, pick up the censer, and carry it away. Chongxian looked at the censer before his knees, and it was still in its place. Looking more carefully at this person, he saw the censer being carried away quite distinctly. Only then did Chongxian realize this was a divine anomaly. He reflected to himself that his clothes were freshly washed and completely free of impurity; only by his seat was there a spittoon. Having ordered the spittoon removed, he immediately saw this person returning the censer before his seat again. Before it reached the mat, he still saw two censers; once it arrived, they merged into one. Could what this divine person carried have been merely the shadow of the censer? Chongxian had also heard people say that at Fuyuan Temple there was a nun named Sengqin who had attained the Way through energetic diligence. He joyfully wished to see her, but had not yet been able to go, keeping her deeply in his mind. Once while observing a retreat at another person's home, in the middle of the third watch of the night, he suddenly saw a nun of solemn demeanor wearing an ochre cloth kāṣāya standing upright before the retreat mat, vanishing after the duration of a meal. When Chongxian later saw this nun, her facial features and clothing were precisely what he had beheld before the window. (This verification is extracted from the *Signs from the Unseen Realm*.)