Master Yin Guang: Guanyin Saves Man from Robbers
In the 19th year of the Republic, a young man from Suzhou by the name of Guo Zhen Sheng was the proprietor of a small paper shop on Jingde rd. One day, he accompanied one of his elder relatives to Baoguo Temple to take refuge in the Buddha-dharma. Master Yin Guang told him: “We now live in times of chaos and danger, you ought to recite the name of Amitabha and Avalokitesvara often.” Unfortunately, being young and impulsive, he did not heed the advice and dismissed it.
During the winter of the next year, Guo Zhen Sheng went to Shanghai on business, but was stuck when conflict broke out, and he was unable to return home. In fear, he sheltered in place until the new year, but the fighting continued. Unwilling to wait further and wanting to go home, he decided to take a longer route to bypass the fighting, which had severed the main railway line. He thus boarded a small ferry to Jiaxing. As the chaos was everywhere, bandits and pirates infested the sea route and often robbed the ferryboats. At this point, he remembered Master Yin Guang’s words, and he silently recited the holy name of Avalokitesvara. At nightfall, they were indeed boarded by robbers. They robbed the first class cabins first (he was in second class) before turning on the poorer passengers of second class. Everyone was robbed, yet Guo Zhen Sheng, a large man wearing a leather coat, was completely overlooked by the robbers. He was the only one unscathed. This was because the Buddha’s protecting light prevented the robbers from seeing him.
Recitation of the name of Amitabha and or Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva is a wondrously efficacious way to dissolve disasters and turn misfortune into fortune. The unwise who refuse to recite are helpless before karmic creditors and ripening evil karma.
— From the Collected Works of Master Yin Guang (1861–1940)《印光法師文鈔三編卷三-復淨善居士書四》
