Ancient Cultivation Story: Eight Hundred Coins

There was a temple in east Anren Township, in Yichun County, where a monk in his 90’s lived. He had a great many pupils and disciples at the temple. Regardless of whether they were monks or laymen, they all called him Shang Gong (the Superior Reverend). As time went on nobody could remember what his real name was as he was always referred to as Shang Gong. The temple owned a farm in Changzhu and used it as a place to raise live stock.

One night when the old monk had fallen asleep he dreamt that an old woman in black approached him, bowed down and then left. Before she left, she said to Shang Gong, “I just owed your temple eight hundred coins.” Shang Gong then woke up and felt very strange about what she had said in the dream. He then took a pen and wrote down the story on a wall in his bedroom. The disciples living with him had no idea what the story meant.

About five days later, an old cow that had been raised by the temple died. The monk in charge of the livestock tried to sell the corpse on the street. The monk found that no matter who he approached, the buyer would only offer 800 coins to pay for the cow. The monk then wrote a report to Shang Gong about it that stated, “One of the cows in Changzhu died, and I wanted to sell it. Although there were many butchers, they all offered the same price of eight hundred coins.” Shang Gong sighed and said, “It’s okay, as the debt has now been repaid.” Then Shang Gong asked the monk to read the account that he had written earlier on his bedroom wall. Both of them felt quite sad and emotional afterwards.

Reference: Yutang Xianhua (Conversation at the Jade Hall)