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Updated Monday, December 22, 2008 9:44 am TWN, By Joe Hung, The China Post

Moginlin VI

A grateful Moginlin thanked Yama, the king of the Hades, again and again for absolving him of intrusion and trespassing into Hell out of filial piety and presenting him with a plate full of lotus leaves, which, when ingested, would get her out of the Sea of Duhkha (suffering). (The lotus is sacred to the Buddhists. The Buddha is often depicted sitting on a lotus pedestal. One of the holiest Buddhist sutras is the Saddharma-Pundarika or the Lotus of the Good Law. It is the most beloved of all Mahayanist scriptures, filled, as it is, with supposed discourses of the Buddha on Ghridhrakuta or Vulture Mountain in the Radjagriha (city of royal palace) near Bodh-gaya before bhiksu, or Buddhist monks, and senior bodhisattvas who were Buddhists with right wisdom but not yet consummate penetration in this secular world.)

Carrying the plate, Moginlin rushed down to the lowest stratum of Hell in search of his mother. He was escorted by ghost soldiers Yama had dispatched. It was dark on the eighteenth stratum of Hell. The place was full of cries of everlasting agony, for it was where all those evildoers sentenced by Yama to stay there forever without any chance of rebirth. Because it was completely dark, Moginlin could not locate his mother. He groped and groped, but failed to find her. Afraid he could never reach her, Moginlin shouted in convulsive agony, “Mother, Mother, Where are you!”

His mother heard Moginlin. She was blind, however. She could not see him. “Child, Here I am,” she shouted. He followed the cry-out back to her. With trembling hands, he presented the plate full of lotus leaves to her. On touching the plate, she grabbed the leaves and swallowed all of them without sufficiently munching them. She was that hungry, for never had she been fed in all the time she stayed in Hell. A tearful Moginlin tried to embrace and comfort her. But the trouble was that she was a ghost and he was alive. When he tried to hug her, she was gone. He just hugged nothing but air.

Moginlin sobbed bitterly. Then the voice of his mother came. “Come, come, don¡¦t cry, my child,” the voice soothed him. “You ought to be happy,” she said, “because I am now able to be reborn, thanks to your filial piety. Only because I have such a filial son as you, can I get out of the Sea of Duhkha free. Come, stop crying. Be joyous.” She added: “This is Hell. Anyone who is alive shouldn’t stay here long. Listen to me, my child. You’d better go back to where you belong. I will be all right. Don’t you ever worry about me!”

So the son and his mother parted. After he had returned to this world, Moginlin continued to mourn for his mother. Finally, he took the vow to become a bhiksu. Countless years later, he became a senior bodhisattva and stayed at the Buddha’s service together with Sariputta.

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