Budai monk, named Tingzi, a native of Fenghua, Mingzhou (Ningbo), was a renowned monk of the Later Liang Dynasty during the Five Dynasties.
The Budai monk is the incarnation of Maitreya Bodhisattva, also known as Buddha. He is fat, has frowning brows and a big belly. He speaks erratically and sleeps everywhere. He bares his chest and belly all day long and smiles all the time. Budai monk is humorous, intelligent, kind to others, optimistic, and tolerant, and is deeply respected and loved by people. Because “the principle of agreement with all Buddhas is above, and the mechanism of agreement with all living beings below”, it is named “Concord with this”.
What does Budai mean?
After he became a monk at Yuelin Temple, he often did some things that made people feel curious. The most special thing was that wherever he went, he carried a big cloth bag with him. When someone asked him his name, he would answer with verses. :
I have a cloth bag. The void has no worries.
Expand in all directions. See yourself at ease when you enter the moment.
From then on, he was named after the cloth bag on his staff, and was known as the “Budai Monk”.
What is a Budai?
His cloth bag is really curious. All the utensils in it, whether it is water bottles, clay bowls, wooden fish rosary beads, tattered clothes, and rotten straw sandals, are all stored in the bag. It seems that everything is available and can never be taken out. The Budai monk usually picks up trash discarded by people and puts it into the bag. People may ridicule his cloth bag as a garbage bag, and he laughs and replies with this verse:
Sometimes you are prepared but not always, and the useless becomes useful.
Budai begs for everything he sees
The Budai monk often picks up a cloth bag with his staff and goes to the market. He begs for things when he sees them. All the things offered by others are put into the cloth bag, but no one has ever seen him pour the things out. If someone asked him about Buddhism, he would put down the bag. If you still don’t understand what he means, if you continue to ask, he will immediately pick up the bag and leave without looking back. People still ignored him, so he started laughing.
ls Budai a god?
In the second year of Zhengming (916), Budai monk sat down on the rock in the east corridor of Yuelin Temple and left a verse:
Maitreya is really Maitreya. There are tens of billions of clones.
Show people the time at all times. At that time, people didn’t know it.
After he finished speaking, he smiled slightly and passed away. After his death, Qichi caused a sensation in the Buddhist world, and people suddenly realized that he was the incarnation of Maitreya Buddha, but “the world didn’t know it.”
Budai represents great fortune and great fortune
Therefore, the pot-bellied Maitreya commonly seen in Chinese Buddhist temples is modeled after Budai monk. In Buddhism, it is used as a representation of Buddhist teachings and is expressed as “great quantity and great blessing”, reminding the world to learn tolerance. Therefore, there is a couplet describing Budai monk:
A big belly can accommodate it.
Tolerate things that are difficult to tolerate in the world.
Smile often.
Laugh at the ridiculous people in the world.
