recite the Great Compassion Mantra. I had said to them, "Each of you should learn to recite the Great Compassion Mantra. It will be of great help to you. If you are in danger and distress and you recite it, Guanyin Bodhisattva will protect you." Since then, many of them had been reciting the Great Compassion Mantra. The mother and her daughter began immediately to recite the mantra. Just as they recited the first line of the mantra, Na mo he la da nuo duo la ye ye, the old woman slipped to the ground and lay inert, exactly like a corpse. Seeing that, the family was greatly upset. If somebody were to die in their home, it would not be good. They went for the sheriff. When the sheriff saw the old woman lying on the floor as if she were dying, he picked her up with one hand and set her outside. Then he took her to the village courthouse for questioning. "Where are you from?" he asked, "and why have you come here?"
"Don't ask me," she said. "I'm a corpse. I have no name and no home. I just live wherever I am."

Frightened by her strange talk and behavior, the sheriff escorted her at pistol point some fifty paces outside the village. But when he returned to the village gate, she was right behind him. The second time he took her seventy paces from the village, but on the way back he discovered that she was following him again. Finally, he and three or four other deputies took her 150 paces outside the village and said, "Get out or get shot!" and they fired two shots in the air.
The old woman fell to the ground in terror, thinking the shots were thunder, which had destroyed her before. This time she didn't follow them back to the village.

Although the old woman was gone, Xia Wenshan's daughter, who was seventeen or eighteen at the time, fell sick. After the old woman left their house, the daughter lay on the bed with her head buried in the pillow and and her bottom sticking up in the air. She glared in rage and didn't speak, nor did she sleep at night. She looked as if she were making bows on the bed. She didn't eat for seven or eight days. She had been possessed by a demon.
Before we went to Xia Wenshan's home, I said to Han Gangji, "You said that if we tried to handle the matter we would die. Well, I would rather die than not save one of my disciples. First of all, this sick girl has taken refuge with me. She has been possessed by a demon, and I have to help her out of this trouble. I can't just stand by and let her die. Secondly, I must save the demon. You say no one can control her, but she has committed so many offenses and harmed so many people that there's bound to be someone who can subdue her. She's bound to be punished. If she were to be destroyed, it would be a great pity, for she has cultivated diligently for many years. Even if she has enough power to kill me, I'll still save her and teach her to be good. Finally, I must save all living beings in the world, and if I don't subdue her now, in the future many people will be harmed by her. For these three reasons, then, I'm going to work."
Just then the sheriff happened by and overheard us saying that the old woman was a demon. "No wonder!" he exclaimed. "That's why I was able to pick her up with one hand, just as if there were nothing there at all. It didn't occur to me at the time, but now I realize she's a demon. She was as light as a sheet of paper."

We then had to find the demon. How did we do that? There are five kinds of dharmas in the Shurangama Mantra. One is the dharma for extinguishing calamities. If you are due to suffer a calamity, you can use this dharma to avert it. There is also the dharma for creating auspiciousness, which turns inauspicious events into auspicious ones. With the dharma of summoning and hooking, you can catch goblins, demons, and ghosts no matter how far away they are. There is also the dharma of subduing and conquering, which allows you to subdue any demon that comes. I employed these dharmas from the Shurangama Mantra to capture the As-You-Will demon woman. When she entered the room, she had about her an intense and nauseating stench. She came in and tried to put her magic weapon--the black hat--on my head, but couldn't get it on me. Then she took out her round balls and tried to hit me, but they missed my body.

Both of her magic weapons had failed. Knowing she was finished, she turned to run, but when she first arrived, I had set up an invisible boundary that would trap her no matter where she tried to go. The gods, dragons, and others of the eightfold division of Dharma-protectors watched her from the left, right, front, rear, above, and below. Seeing that she couldn't get away, she knelt and wept. She said, "I never thought I would meet my subduer today. Please forgive me and let me go." "I will certainly let you go, but I can only forgive you if you reform and take refuge with the Triple Jewel," I said. She nodded in acquiescence. I then spoke the Dharma for her. I explained the Four Noble Truths, the Twelve Causes and Conditions, and the Six Perfections. She immediately understood, resolved to realize Bodhi, and asked to take refuge with the Triple Jewel. I accepted her and gave her the name "Vajra As-You-Will Maiden."

I had a small hut then, and I let her stay in there after she took refuge. Later she often followed me around to save people, but her basic make-up was that of a demon, and no matter where she went she emitted an overwhelming stench. The putrid odor didn't bother me, but it made most people so nauseated that they wanted to vomit. Seeing that it wouldn't do for her to follow me, I sent her to Leifa Mountain in Jiaohe County, Jilin Province, to cultivate in the Exquisite Cave of the Ten Thousand Saints. She is still there now. She was a great demon leader that I encountered in Manchuria when there was no government in force there.

I have sent many of my strange and unusual disciples there to cultivate, and I have also been there myself. She cultivated vigorously and soon attained spiritual powers and could rescue people. When she rescued them, she didn't like it to be known, since good done hoping others will know is not true good, and evil done in secret for fear that others will know is truly great evil. Thus, the former demon woman became one of the Buddha's followers.
Why is the cave called the "Exquisite Cave of the Ten Thousand Saints"? It's said to be exquisite because it has three entrances, which are mutually visible to each other. It's like a glass cup, in that one can see in from the outside and out from the inside. The three entrances to the cave are mutually connected. Inside the cave there is a temple made of bricks and lumber that were carried up the steep mountain crags on the backs of goats. One goat could carry two bricks or a piece of lumber at a time. Off the western entrance of the cave, there is another cave called the Cave of Lao Zi. Off the eastern entrance is the Dripping Water Cave, which drips enough water to satisfy a troop of ten thousand men and horses.

The cave in the back is called the Cave of Patriarch Ji, named after Ji Xiaotang, a native of Manchuria who, in the Ming Dynasty, subdued five ghosts, one of whom was the Black Fish Spirit. The Black Fish Spirit was a Ming Dynasty official in Beijing called Blackie the Great. His last name was Black, but he wasn't a human; he was a fish. Ji Xiaotang knew this and was determined to capture him. He knew that "Blackie" would pass by the mountain one day, and so he waited for him. When he passed by, Ji Xiaotang released thunder from the palm of his hand and killed him.
No one actually knows how many caves there are in Leifa Mountain. Each time you count them, the number is different--seventy-two today, seventy-three tomorrow, and maybe seventy the day after that.
A man once went there and saw two old men playing chess in a cave. When he coughed, the two long-bearded men said to themselves, "How did he get here?" and then the stone gate of the entrance closed by itself. The man knelt there
seeking the truth from them until he finally died. His grave may still be seen outside the Stone Door Cave. How sincerely he sought for the truth!

There are many spirits and immortals up in the mountain. One was a man named Lee Mingfu, who had mastered kung fu and could run as fast as a monkey. Once I visited the cave at four in the morning and saw him bowing to the Buddha. His hair, which he never washed, was held by a hairpin and matted in a lump that weighed five or six pounds. His facial features--eyes, nose, and mouth--and his body, were very small, but his body was strong. He alone could carry two railroad tracks so heavy that eight ordinary men would be needed to carry one; he would tuck one track under each arm. No one knew how old he was or where he was from. He was one of the strange men I met there.
I was very inspired today, and that's why I told you these things. These are true stories; I didn't make them up. Most of you probably don't believe them. Whether you believe or not is up to you. But I have told you the truth.