Twenty Years of Worry—My Father Received by the Buddha: An Online Service for the Deceased
True Account
Twenty Years of Worry — My Father Received by the Buddha: An Online Service for the Deceased
Namo Amitabha Buddha. I am a lay practitioner surnamed Zhu, from Jiangxi, China, and I am thirty-six years old this year. What I would like to share with you is an inconceivable experience I had while reciting the Buddha's name for my late father.
In 2001, when I was still a boy, my father Zhu Tianchun was working in Ninghai, Zhejiang, when he was struck and injured by a crane—an accident at work. After he was brought home, my father was completely paralysed, and less than three months later he passed away, at only forty-four years of age.
What happened at my father's death is something I remember vividly to this day. Just as the sutras describe the separation of the four elements—the elements that make up the body coming apart at death—he alternated between cold and heat, his face full of fear, as if he were seeing karmic creditors coming to demand repayment. Even at the moment he stopped breathing, his eyes were still open, and his whole body was rigid. At that time not one person in our family was a Buddhist; we could only watch as my father left us in this way, and there was nothing at all we could do.
Later on I took up Buddhism. In those early years I studied many different methods, reciting mantras and sutras, always with the thought of delivering my father through the merit of these practices. For all these years, my greatest wish has been that my father might be freed from the realms of suffering—for his death was so full of pain, and in my heart I knew that he had most likely gone to a place of suffering. For over twenty years I never knew where my father had gone, or whether he was still suffering; this was something I carried in my heart, and could not let go of.
It was only this year that I came into contact with Master Shandao's Pure Land teaching. In the past I did recite the Buddha's name, but I recited it mixed together with other things, chanting other sutras and mantras as well. After hearing Master Shandao's teaching of "single-minded, exclusive recitation," I set all those sutras and mantras aside, and now I recite only this one Name: "Namo Amitabha Buddha." I love listening to Master Jingben speak about the Pure Land and about Amitabha Buddha—it fills me with joy. He teaches with such warmth, and with such skilful means.
Later, quite by chance, I came across the Pure Land school's WeChat official account, added them, and in this muddled way I signed up and joined the online Buddha-recitation service for the deceased held by the Dharma center on Sunday, 26 July 2026, requesting that my father be included. The service was led by Master Jingben, and several hundred people took part online that day; I was in China, and across the screen I recited "Namo Amitabha Buddha" together with everyone. From three or four days after the service, I kept praying in my heart to Amitabha Buddha: give me a dream, or some small sign, and let me know where my father has gone.
To my surprise, this wish was fulfilled very soon. On the night of 8 August, I had a dream. In the dream, I was making offerings before my father, burning paper money for him, and reciting the Buddha's name for him. When this was done, I looked up—and there in the sky were auspicious clouds of seven colours, and several lotus flowers!
In all these years of practice, I have never had a dream so wonderful. When I woke, I understood in my heart: Amitabha Buddha had heard the prayer I made in reciting his name, and had already received my father into his Pure Land. That burden I had carried for over twenty years, that I could not let go of—on this day, at last, I let it go. This dream is truly inconceivable; Amitabha Buddha is truly compassionate beyond words. Such a wonderful path of practice must be passed on well.
Namo Amitabha Buddha
With palms joined, Mr Zhu
A Note from Master Jingben
For a son or a daughter, what weighs most heavily upon the heart is often the way a loved one died—all that went badly, leaving a regret that cannot be set down. Such scenes take place in this world every single day.
And so many people carry the same question within them: "My loved one died many years ago. He never heard the Dharma while he lived, and his death was full of suffering. I do not know where he is suffering now—is it too late?"
The answer is: it is not too late. Amitabha's infinite life and infinite light mean that his deliverance is not bounded by time, and does not ask whether the departed believed while he lived. Once a being has fallen into the realms of suffering, he has no power to lift himself out; but the Buddha's light shines everywhere throughout the ten directions, and wherever someone is willing to recite this Name, "Namo Amitabha Buddha," for him, there the Buddha's power reaches—and where the Buddha's power reaches, beings in those realms are delivered. What Mr Zhu longed for over twenty years was not obtained through however much merit he accumulated by his own efforts—he says so himself: in his early years he kept up many practices, and yet his heart found no peace. It was only this year, when he accepted Master Shandao's teaching of single-minded, exclusive recitation and recited the Buddha's Name alone, offering that one Name for his father, that his father was received by the Buddha.
So if there are loved ones in your family who died long ago, do not blame yourself for being too late, and do not trouble yourself wondering where they have gone. Simply recite this Name, "Namo Amitabha Buddha," on their behalf. To join a service for the deceased is good; to recite at home yourself is just as real in its merit. May all the parents of this world be received by the Buddha and be reborn in the Land of Bliss. Namo Amitabha Buddha.
This article was finalized in August 2026.
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