Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva

On the morning of Vu Lan, the pagoda courtyard smelled of flowers and incense smoke. A young boy stood close beside his grandmother. A deep red rose had just been pinned to the front of his shirt. He touched its petals, looked up, and asked softly why someone had pinned a flower to his shirt. The old woman smiled, drew him down beside her on the front step, and began to tell him a story.

Today was Vu Lan, a Buddhist festival when people show gratitude to their parents. It was a day for remembering all that a mother and father give. Anyone whose mother was still living wore a red rose on the chest, just as he did now. That red flower meant he was very lucky, she said, because his mother was still by his side.

The custom, she told him, came from a Vietnamese Zen master named Thích Nhất Hạnh. Once, someone pinned a flower to his robe to remind him of his mother. He was deeply moved, and in 1962 he wrote beautiful words about the rose pinned on the chest. He then brought the custom into Vu Lan. Since then, every Vu Lan season, Vietnamese people pin a rose on one another. It reminds them never to forget all that their parents have done for them.

The boy nodded. Then he asked who had taught people to love their parents so much. The old woman looked up toward the main hall. There stood a statue of a bodhisattva in a monk's robe, holding a staff and a bright jewel. That, she said, was the Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha, known in Vietnamese as Bồ Tát Địa Tạng. He had taught the whole world a lesson about devotion to one's parents. A bodhisattva, in Buddhism, is one who seeks awakening, someone on the path to becoming a buddha.

Buddhist teachers explain that the name Địa Tạng means treasury of the earth. The earth is gentle. It shelters and nourishes every living thing, and it leaves no one out. His compassion is just as wide. Buddhists say that many other bodhisattvas listen and help from on high. Ksitigarbha, though, goes himself into the darkest places, where souls are suffering, to find a way to lead each one out into the light.

Then she told him a story from the Ksitigarbha Sutra. She asked him to remember that it came from the Buddhist scriptures, a story that Vietnamese Buddhists chant and hold very dear.

Long ago, in a life far in the past, there lived a gentle young woman of a Brahmin family. Brahmins were the priestly class of ancient India. She was deeply devoted to her mother. In life, her mother did not believe in doing good, so after death she fell into a dark realm, gloomy and cold. Loving her mother beyond measure, the daughter sold the family house and everything in it. She bought incense and flowers to offer before an image of the Buddha, and she prayed for her mother day and night with all her heart.

Her sincerity was so great that it moved heaven and earth. During a time of quiet meditation, she seemed to be led, as if in a dream, all the way to the dark realm. There, a spirit who ruled over that place gave her happy news. Thanks to her merit and her prayers, her mother had left that place of suffering and been reborn in a place of peace.

She was overjoyed. But as she looked around, she saw that the dark place still held so many other suffering souls, with no one to help them. Her heart could not bear to go back alone. Right there, she made a great vow: to find every possible way to rescue all those still suffering in the dark realms.

That vow later became the great vow of the Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha. In the sutra, his vow is that as long as a single being still suffers in the dark realms, he will not become a buddha. Only when every being has been saved will he enter the highest state of awakening. It was, the grandmother said, a promise of great generosity.

People also believe, she went on, that he once appeared on earth as a monk. The story tells of a prince of Silla named Kim Gyo-gak, born in 696. Silla was one of the three kingdoms of ancient Korea. In Vietnamese the prince is called Kim Kiều Giác. He left behind his palace of gold and jade, and at the age of 24 he became a monk. Then he crossed the sea to a faraway land. He went up to practice on a mountain called Mount Jiuhua, in Anhui province, China. He lived a pure and quiet life there for the rest of his days, until the age of 99. Ever since, Mount Jiuhua has been a sacred place where people remember the Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha.

The boy listened, his eyes wide. The old woman stroked his hair and spoke quietly. Every Vu Lan season, she told him, Vietnamese people chant the Ksitigarbha Sutra to remember their grandparents and parents with gratitude. They also pray for peace for those who have passed away. The rose on his chest today came from that same devotion.

The story was over. The boy stood up and cupped his hand over the red rose to shield it from the wind, as if afraid it might fly away. In the early sunlight, its petals glowed bright red on his shirt. They were red and warm, like the vow of the Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha, still blooming in people's hearts from one Vu Lan season to the next.