65. TEN DAYS FORE THE PLOW

　　Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva is called DiZang, Jizo, or Earthstore, in Chinese,Japanese, and English. He is so kind that he enters Hell to save suffering souls.

　　In a temple on Nine Flower Mountain in Anhui you can see the body he left behind after one of his reincarnations. In 1840, a group of believers went to pay their respects to him, but among them was a mean guy named Diao Zuan.

　　He loved to eat meat, especially beef. But cows and bulls are big, patient animals,and since Chinese farmers plow with water buffaloes, beef is taboo for most Chinese. In the temple they visited, they saw a picture teaching people to be nice to cows and bulls.

　　Diao didn't think much of that. He sniffed and said, "Not me! I can't do without beef, let me tell you！"

　　No sooner had the words left his mouth than he dropped to the floor, foaming at the mouth and twitching.

　　"He has desecrated the temple!" The whole group got down on their knees to plead Ksitigarbha to forgive Diao. He stopped twitching, but he didn't seem to know who or where he was.

　　His friends put him on a stretcher and took him to the house of a relative who lived nearby. "We don't have a bedroom for him, so he'll have to go into the study," his relative said. They were afraid he might go into another fit, so they tied him to the couch and made plans to take him home the next day.

　　The next morning when they opened the door, the study looked like a typhoon had hit. Somehow Diao had gotten out of the ropes. All the furniture was turned over, there were books and papers all over the floor, and the blanket they had covered him with was in shreds. Diao was down on all fours, snorting and pawing like a bull.

　　Somehow they got him back to his own house. When his wife saw him, she fainted dead away. She woke up and wailed and asked what had happened to her husband.

　　When she heard, the whole family swore off beef immediately. They made a vow that every summer, they would make a pilgrimage to Nine Flower Mountain.

　　They prayed and prayed, but Diao stayed down on all fours and kept crawling back and forth across the room. Nobody could stop him, even if they tied him.

　　His family kept asking Ksitigarbha for help. Suddenly, on the tenth day, Tiao dropped to the floor again. When he opened his eyes again, he was normal.

　　"What happened to you?" his relatives crowded around to ask.

　　"Don't ask! I've spent the last ten days plowing fields," Tiao answered with a shudder.

　　From then on, Diao never ate another piece of meat. Whenever he saw a cow or bull, he made a special point of patting it and saying a few kinds words to it.

　　He knew what it was like.

65.耕作十天

　　地藏菩萨在中文、日文、英文里分别叫做地藏、Jizo, 或者Earthstore。他非常慈悲，所以进入地狱去拯救那些倍受煎熬的众生。

　　在安徽九华山的一个庙里，你能看到他圆寂后的肉身。在1840年的时候，有一群信众去朝拜他。这群信众中有一个很卑劣的人，叫做刁钻。

　　他很爱吃肉，尤其是牛肉。牛是庞大而且温顺的动物，中国的农夫都用水牛来耕田，因此，牛肉对大多数中国人来说是一种禁忌食物。在他们拜访的这座寺庙里，他们就看到了一幅教导人们要善待牛的图画。

　　刁不以为然。他嗤之以鼻，说，“我可不行！我不能不吃牛肉，我告诉你们！”

　　他的话刚出口，就倒在地上，口吐白沫，四肢抽搐。

　　“他亵渎了寺院！”同来的人跪在地藏菩萨前，请他原谅刁。他不再抽搐了，但是他看上去好像不知道自己是谁，也不知道这是什么地方。

　　他的朋友们用担架把他抬到他附近的一个亲戚家里。“我们没有多余的床，所以他只能去书房。”他的亲戚说。他们怕他又抽搐得昏过去，所以他们把他捆在躺椅上，决定第二天就送他回家。

　　第二天早上他们开门后发现，书房看上去就像被台风席卷过一样。刁不知道怎么挣脱了绳子。所有的家具都被翻了过来，所有的书和纸都被扔在地上，他们盖在他身上的毯子成了碎布。刁四肢着地，喘着气，还不断地刨着地，就像一头牛一样。

　　他们想办法把他送回了他的家。当他的妻子看到他这副模样，马上昏死过去。她醒过来后嚎啕大哭，质问他丈夫这是怎么回事。

   当她知道后，全家发誓马上戒除吃牛肉。他们还发誓，每年夏天都去九华山朝拜。

　　他们不停地祈祷，但是刁还是四肢着地，在房间里不断爬来爬去。没人可以阻止他，即使把他绑起来。

　　他的家人向地藏菩萨祈祷。在第十天的时候，刁又忽然昏倒了。当他再次睁开眼睛时，又恢复了正常。

   “你到底是怎么回事？”他的亲戚们围上来问。

　　“别提了！我犁了十天的地，”刁颤栗着说。

　　从那时候开始，刁再也没吃过肉。每当他看到牛 ，他就拍拍它，说一些好话。

　　他知道当牛是什么滋味。