Publisher's Synopsis
The stories in the books came from a collection of scriptures that had been recorded by Sangha (monks) called The Chinese Buddhist Canon. As the Canon was written in classic Chinese and the depth of its content is not a common literature for people to appreciate, I arranged his teachings in a timeline according to his life sequence in this book. It is my principle that I can only select from the abundance of events without any changes over the original scripts trying not to add my personal views. It is, nonetheless, prone to my personal style of speech in the literature of storytelling. I can only wish readers to use those story to cultivate their minds like vitamins to supplement our health instead of treating them as medicine to cure our diseases. Nonetheless, those stories can truly be used as step stones to further personal understanding of scriptures, though. I'd also like to point out immediately after the index are two articles on the subject of Heart Sutra. Especially chapter 2, the secret key to the Heart Sutra, written by Kukai (Kobo Dashi), is extremely philosophical. About 4 miles from Tokyo Narita Airport there is a temple called Naritasan Shin-Jo Temple. Kukai left his blessings to the world in that place.
