Now I will tell you about my experience of reciting the Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva Pūrvapraṇidhāna Sūtra. When I was sixteen years old, I started to teach people the " Platform Sutra" and "The Diamond Sutra".
I don't know how to preach at all, but I still want to preach. Why? Because at that time many people wanted to study the sutras but were illiterate. So, I thought, I should take on this job, so it was my duty to preach difficult sutras. One day, by chance, I found a copy of " Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva Pūrvapraṇidhāna Sūtra", which was like a treasure. After reading it once, I feel that Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva is too compassionate! Bodhisattva cares so much about us, but we don't know it yet.
So, I made up my mind to recite the Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva Pūrvapraṇidhāna Sūtra every day, and also made up my mind to kneel before the Buddha and recite it. The floor of the Buddhist temple is paved with bricks and there are no mats. I only wore a layer of cloth pants and knelt on the brick floor. It took about two hours to recite a sutra. I only focused on reciting the sutra, and my knees were broken when I knelt down, but I didn't feel any pain. The more I recited the sutra, the happier I became.
Kneel down in front of the Buddha on time every day and recite it devoutly. After more than a hundred days, it finally stopped due to a demonic obstacle. As a Taoist, if you don't practice hard, there will be no Māra to test you. If you achieve a little bit, the Māra will test whether you have concentration? When I was reciting Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva Pūrvapraṇidhāna Sūtra, a layman came to the temple to make offerings. Seeing me kneeling and reciting the sutra, he admired me very much and envied me. He said to the people in the temple: "He works so hard and is so diligent... ..." After the layman left, all the monks in the temple came to scold me: "You are pretending! You deliberately show it to the laymen to show that you are an old practitioner. This is climbing the social ladder!" I didn't argue at the time, I understood in my heart that I recite sutras for spiritual practice.
But from then on, unreasonable things happened often. Before reciting the sutra, they scolded me: "Pretend to practice." After reciting, they scolded me again: "You are pretending to practice and have finished pretending!" Sarcastically and ironically every day. But I could bear it without saying a word. After reciting the sutra for more than a hundred days, the real demonic obstacle came. One day after I had just finished reciting, my senior brother came to me and beat me. I was confused and did not dare to ask questions. Then, he scolded me: "You this thing, you are just hiding in laziness and seek ease comfort here, while others are at work, you are pretending reciting sutras and performing for people. Where is there a place for you to practice in the temple? What merit do you have that you can practice here?" So, I had to stop reciting the Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva Pūrvapraṇidhāna Sūtra.
Today is another day to practice Kṣitigarbha seven, which reminds me of the past. Cultivating the Tao is not easy and you will encounter obstacles from time to time. You are all very lucky to find such an ideal place to practice Tao. You are not scolded or beaten by others. How comfortable. You should also learn from your master to struggle in the face of adversity and not lose heart and keep working hard as usual.
