法苑珠林 50.26

50.26

During the Tang, there was an old monk at Shibi Temple in Bingzhou who took meditation and recitation as his vocation, diligently practicing his conduct. At the end of the Zhenguan era, a pigeon nested on the rafters of his room and nurtured two chicks. Whenever the Dharma master had leftover food, he would regularly go to the nest to feed them. Later, although the pigeon chicks gradually grew, their wings were not yet fully formed; they both practiced flying, fell to the ground together, and died. The monk gathered and buried them. Ten days later, the monk dreamed at night that two young boys reported to him, saying, 'Because we previously committed minor offenses, we received the bodies of pigeons. Recently, we heard the Dharma master recite the *Lotus Sūtra* and the *Diamond Prajñā Sūtra*; having heard the marvelous Dharma, we have succeeded in receiving human bodies. We are now being reborn as boys in the house of a certain surname in a certain village more than ten li beside this temple. After ten months, we shall be born.' In accordance with the expected date, the monk went to check, and saw that a woman of this household had given birth to two boys at the same time. He therefore held a vegetarian feast for their first-month celebration. The monk called them 'pigeon boys,' and both boys responded to him, saying, 'Yes.' After this single response, it was more than a year before they began to speak. (The one verified account above comes from the *Omissions from the Records of Karmic Retribution*.) The matters of repaying kindness are extensive and cannot be recounted in full.