How Chan meditation can halt the process of birth and death

In the final years of the Northern Song Dynasty in China, there lived a national hero, Yue Fei. His father passed away when he was young. His mother was worthy and wise. Mother and son had only each other to rely upon for support. She taught her young son to read and write. Since the family was too poor to afford brushes, ink and paper, he practiced writing characters in the sand, and eventually became an accomplished calligrapher. Yue Fei entered military service at an early age. His mother tattooed on his back the slogan, “Give your all in service to the country”. He never forgot his great vow to save his country’s people.

This was the era when the Tartars (of the Jin Dynasty) invaded the Song Dynasty and captured the capital of Bianjing (Kaifeng). They kidnapped the two Emperors Hui and Qin and took them to the North. Duke Kang established the Southern Song Dynasty in Hangzhou and proclaimed himself Emperor Gaozong. He appointed Qin Hui as his Prime Minister. At that time, the scholars advocated peace, while the military advocated going to war with the Tartars. General Yue Fei gave the Tartars a devastating defeat at the town of Zhuxian (close to Bianjing) and planned to attack their capital towards Yellow Dragon (near Jilin Nongan).

Unfortunately, Prime Minister Qin Hui was jealous of Yue Fei and so issued twelve false summons commanding Yue Fei to return to the capital. Yue Fei’s credo was “loyal subjects are patriots to the end”. Thus he led his troops back to the capital. En route he passed by Gold Mountain Monastery, in the middle of the Yangtze River, where he stopped to pay his respects to Chan Master Daoyue (Joy of the Way).

The monk urged him not to return to the capital, but to enter monastic life and cultivate the Way at Gold Mountain Monastery in Zhenjiang. That way, he could avoid all political scandals and conflict. Yue Fei did not take the matter of birth and death seriously, feeling instead that the duty of a military man was to follow orders. He did not follow the philosophy that, “When the general is in the field, he can choose not to follow the emperor’s commands”. Thus, he rejected Master Daoyue’s wise suggestion. Before he left, Master Daoyue wrote him a verse that said,

Before the New Year’s Day,
be very cautious of heaven’s tears.
A gift with two dots beneath it
will harm you grievously.

Yue Fei returned to Hangzhou and Qin Hui sent a message to his military reading “No grounds necessary”, which was a summons to imprison both Yue Fei and his son. As he approached the executioner’s block, Yue Fei suddenly realized the meaning hidden in Venerable Daoyue’s verse. On New Year’s Eve, which fell on the twenty-ninth day of the twelfth lunar month that year, the heavens poured forth a heavy rain. Hearing the rain as he sat in jail, Yue Fei knew his death was at hand.

The prophecy in the Chan Master’s verse was about to be fulfilled. When you write two dots beneath the word ‘gift’, you get the word ‘Qin’, the name of Prime Minister Qin Hui. Yue Fei was executed at Fengbo Pagoda. Qin Hui asked the executioner what Yue Fei’s final words had been. The executioner said, “I heard him say, ‘I have met my end today, only because I did not heed the advice of Chan Master Daoyue of Gold Mountain.’” Qin Hui flew into a rage and ordered Heli to hurry to Gold Mountain Monastery to arrest Master Daoyue. But the day before, while in Chan samadhi, Master Daoyue had foreseen this situation and had written another verse, which said,

Heli is coming from the South,
But I am going to the West.
If my strength in the Dharma
were not sufficient,
I would surely have fallen
into the villain’s hands.

After he wrote this verse, he entered the stillness of Nirvana. When Heli reached the temple the next day, Master Daoyue had already entered Nirvana. Heli had no choice but to return to the capital and make a report. This story proves that when you have perfected the skill of Chan meditation, you can control your own birth and death. You can go off to rebirth at any time you choose. You are in control of the process, and it is a very natural matter. Chan Masters of the past all possessed this ability. They could be born and die as they wished. In the Tang Dynasty, there was a Chan Master named Deng Yinfeng (Hidden Summit) who entered Nirvana while standing on his head. The contemporary monk, the Living Buddha of Gold Mountain, entered Nirvana while standing up. Due to their skill in Chan meditation, they could come and go as they pleased, without any restrictions.