Why did Spring want King Winter to step outside and leave?
Answers
Answer:
IF the sun and moon were not in the heavens, how could plants and trees grow? Human beings have both a father and a mother. It is hard for children to grow up when even one parent is missing. Your husband had to leave behind a daughter, a son who is ill, and you, their mother, who suffer from a poor constitution. To whom could he have entrusted his family before leaving this world?
At the time of his extinction, the World-Honored One of Great Enlightenment lamented, “Now I am about to enter nirvana. The only thing that worries me is King Ajātashatru.” Bodhisattva Kāshyapa then asked him, “Since the Buddha’s mercy is impartial, your regret in dying should stem from compassion for all living beings. Why do you single out only King Ajātashatru?” The Buddha replied, “Suppose that a couple has seven children, one of whom falls ill. Though the parents love all their children equally, they worry most about the sick child.”1 T’ien-t’ai, commenting on this sutra passage in his Great Concentration and Insight, said “Even if the parents of seven children are never partial, they are still particularly concerned about the sick one.” In essence, the sutra is saying that, even if there are many children, the parents’ hearts are with the child who is ill. To the Buddha, all living beings are his children. Among them, the sinful man who slays his own parents and becomes an enemy of the Buddha and the sutras is like the sick child.
King Ajātashatru was the ruler of Magadha. He murdered his father, King Bimbisāra, a powerful patron of Shakyamuni Buddha, and became an enemy of the Buddha. In consequence, the heavenly gods forsook him, the sun and moon rose out of rhythm, and the earth shook violently to cast him off. All his subjects defied the Buddha’s teachings, and other kingdoms began to attack Magadha. All this happened because King Ajātashatru took the wicked Devadatta for his teacher. As a result, one day virulent sores broke out all over his body, and it was foretold that on the seventh day of the third month he would die and fall into the hell of incessant suffering. Saddened by this, the Buddha was reluctant to enter nirvana. He lamented, “If I can save King Ajātashatru, I can save all offenders in the same way.”