Aspiration for the Law
Aspiration for the Law
楽法梵志 ( Jpn Gyobo-bonji)
The name of Shakyamuni in a past existence when he practiced bodhisattva austerities. The story appears in The Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom. The ascetic named Aspiration for the Law had been seeking the Law in every corner of the land, but had not yet met a Buddha. A devil disguised as a Brahman appeared to him and said that he would teach him one verse of a Buddhist teaching if the ascetic was ready to transcribe it using his skin as paper, one of his bones as a pen, and his blood as ink. When the ascetic gladly complied and prepared to write down the Buddhist teaching, the devil vanished. Instead, in response to his seeking mind, a Buddha appeared and taught him a profound teaching. As a result, he attained the stage of bodhisattva practice in which one realizes that nothing is born and nothing dies.
