人受戒虎皈依

冬诸护法坚请受戒。颓垣破屋。不能住众。加搭葵蓬。竹屋住客。粤韶官绅眷属。来数百人。带兵保卫。皈依者甚众。冬月十七日入夜说菩萨戒时。虎来皈依。大众哗然。公为说皈戒。三叩首驯然。公曰虎识皈依佛。正性无两样。人心与兽心。同一光明藏。

宣化偈曰：

兽王礼法王。皈依护戒坛。
年年来朝拜。月月持戒香。　

Giving precepts to the people and letting a tiger take refuge

During the winter, the Dharma protectors persistently requested that the Master transmit the precepts; but the walls of the buildings had collapsed, and the dwellings were all but destroyed. They were uninhabitable, so makeshift structures of thatched palm and bamboo were put up for the guests to stay in. The gentry of Canton and Shao Chou arrived with their households, several hundred people in all, bringing soldiers for protection. A large number of people took refuge. On the seventeenth day of the eleventh lunar month, during the transmission of the Bodhisattva Precepts, night had fallen when suddenly a tiger arrived to take refuge. Everyone was aghast, but the Master transmitted the refuges and the precepts to him. The tiger bowed its head three times and was very tame. The Master said, "This tiger knows enough to take refuge with the Buddha. There are no two ways about it: the hearts of humans and the hearts of animals are equally endowed with a treasury of brilliance."

The gatha says:
The King of Beasts bowed down to the King of Dharma,
Taking refuge and protecting the Platform of the Precepts.
Every year it came to prostrate itself in reverence,
Month after month being perfumed with the fragrance of holding Precepts.