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“Obeisance to the World Honored One. Bhiksu Celestial Flower in the former life did what kind of virtuous deed or merit, so that even when he was born, there were flowers from the sky, flying down, making offering to him to celebrate his birth? And then when he wanted to make offering to the Buddha, all kinds of beds, and seats, and beautiful jewels, furniture appeared, and even delicious food, delicacies appeared, without anybody doing anything. So please, could you please tell us?” So, the Buddha said, “Yes, Ananda, listen. Long, long, long time ago, at that time, there was a Buddha named Vipasyin.” That must be 91, probably something like that, 91 eons before. “He came into this world to save sentient beings. Most often, he always went into the village or city, to preach to the citizens, to the followers, to the people. And then at that time, many noble families, and rich families, and many people always made offering to him and his monks. There was a person, very, very poor, seeing that everybody made offering to the Buddha in such a respectful and sincere manner, he also felt very happy for them. But then he himself felt very sad, because he had nothing to offer to the Buddha to sow some merits for the future. So he saw the Buddha coming toward him. So he went out to the field next to it, and plucked some of these wild grassy flowers. And he kind of spread them, threw them onto the sangha when they passed by. And then he left. Ananda, the poor person who offered wild flowers that time is bhiksu Celestial Flower now. Because in that past life, he was praying for merit, and he was very sincere when he offered the wild flowers to the Buddha and the sangha. Therefore, from that time until now, 91 eons have passed. This merit led him to be born, in every world he was born, he was always beautiful looking. Whatever he needed was always there for him.”
Finally, the main point is to sow affinity with the Buddha, so sooner or later another Buddha would come. And then they probably follow that Buddha, and become enlightened, become Arhat, become liberated. That’s the main point at the end. Yeah, not just rich and famous for 91 eons. It’s just more at the end, enlightenment. Because affinity already sowed the seed, and it will grow, grow, grow, and in time, one becomes enlightened, and liberated. But because of this offering, offering to the Buddha, food or coin, whatever you offer, it becomes multiplied, multiplied, multiplied, thousand, million, hundreds of trillion, of zillion, of gazillion fold. That’s why he had to stay 91 eons to enjoy all these merits. So it’s better we make offering, but don’t think of anything. We do charity but don’t pray for any merit. It’s just somebody needs, we give. That’s it.
