九二一大地震 天然古佛慈悲
This is a pair of spirit-writing transmissions from Tianran Ancient Buddha (天然古佛) — the posthumous celestial emanation of Zhang Tianran (張天然, 1889–1947), eighteenth patriarch of Yiguandao, who ascended in 1947 and continues to speak to his disciples through spirit-writing (扶鸞) at altars around the world.
The first transmission, from the Mid-Autumn Festival of 1997, takes the form of three acrostic poems whose opening characters spell hidden messages, followed by a free-verse prophecy prompted by a total lunar eclipse — the fifth and final of the century. Two years later, on September 21, 1999, a magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck central Taiwan at 1:47 AM, killing over 2,400 people and injuring 11,000. Three days after the earthquake, on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, Zhang Tianran descended again — this time in anguished prose, speaking directly to his disciples: blaming himself, offering to surrender his own lotus throne to bear their punishment, and pleading for more time.
The text moves from prophetic verse to desperate speech. The dead teacher returns not to command but to weep. "Palm and back of hand are both flesh — all are my disciples." This is Zhang Tianran at his most human: a father who died, watched disaster strike his children from beyond death, and came back to say — it was my fault. Please change. Please go out and save people. I will take the punishment.
Chinese source text from the Good Works Library (善書圖書館) at taolibrary.com. First English translation. Gospel register.
Mid-Autumn Festival, 1997
Two years before the earthquake, Zhang Tianran descended at a Mid-Autumn Festival altar and wrote three acrostic poems — each one's opening characters spell a hidden message when read vertically. The poems move from celebration to loneliness to grief: a father watching his children from across death.
First Acrostic
Hidden message: 慶賀中秋共團圓 — "Celebrating Mid-Autumn, together reunited."
Celebrating the Mid-Autumn reunion night,
With prayers for the completed Dao and the spreading of grace.
Piercing through with unwavering will, facing the great catastrophe;
Autumn winds carry word again and again — Heaven's time presses.
Joining strength to complete the sacred mission;
Gathering the utmost spirit-light to shine across a thousand worlds.
Fulfilling Heaven and Earth, ascending the stairway of clouds.
Second Acrostic
Hidden message: 月圓花好人獨缺 — "The moon is full, the flowers are fair, but one person is missing."
The moon is full, but in the Heavenly Palace a lone shadow is absent.
The full moon, half-orphaned, cannot find rest.
Flowers fill the pond in beauty, but who alone is drunk on this?
The scenery is unchanged, but human affairs have gone wrong.
Where have my children gone? Lost in the dusty east.
Alone, in the empty quiet, the old home waits far away.
The waning moon still waits for the traveler to keep the promise.
Third Acrostic
Hidden message: 眼景睹物悲淚垂也 — "Seeing this scene, witnessing these things — the tears fall."
Shadows pass one after another before my eyes.
Seeing the scene, thinking of you, tears fall in vain.
Watching, unable to bear it — grief cuts deeper.
Things remain, but only the heart is shattered.
The robe of sorrow soaked through — who understands?
Tears surge like springs, pain striking the heart's door.
I hope my disciples will press onward;
And also transcend the six paths of rebirth.
The Teacher's Lament
Still in the 1997 session — Zhang Tianran speaks directly after the acrostics, his voice shifting from coded verse to open grief.
All under Heaven are my students, every peach and plum.
How many kindred spirits have turned back to reflect?
Tianran, Tianran — what more could you ask for?
Only that your disciples remain steadfast in the center.
Accomplish the great work, transcend life and death,
And dwell forever beside your Teacher in the Land of Joy.
But who would have known the disciples would fall into bondage?
One by one, they wavered and turned back.
Once firm in will, now seized by others.
Unable to master themselves, they followed every temptation.
How could this not lock your Teacher's brow in anguish?
In the Court of Principle, he cannot sit at ease upon his lotus.
By now, your Teacher's mouth can barely speak.
Tears soak the brush and paper — they cannot hold it all.
The meaning is shallow on the surface but heavy underneath — I wait for my companions.
Awaken clearly, awaken clearly — do not be led astray.
Your Teacher hides nearby for now, waiting for the moment to ripen.
Watching for the time to encourage his disciples once again.
The Lunar Eclipse — A Prophecy
The compiler notes: on Mid-Autumn night of 1997, the fifth and final total lunar eclipse of the twentieth century occurred — an ominous sign. Zhang Tianran composed this free verse in response:
Mid-autumn midnight. The sky cold as water.
Families gathered — it should be joy.
But the pine-waves crash against the cliffs,
Wind rolling the broken moon, and in the darkness a mournful tune.
Nothing but flying sand and shattered stone — Heaven shaking, Earth reeling.
The lunar eclipse casts a cloud of dread. Heaven hangs strange omens hiding violent portents.
Killing intent lies coiled, a death-warrant in ambush. Looking back —
The tears fall unbidden. The heart aches.
Who knows that a great catastrophe will descend and sweep the Eastern Lands?
And of all the people under Heaven — how many
Are willing to join together and raise the great vow of compassion? Cast off the dust of the world,
Become the foot soldiers — the first to charge into the calamity of the Black Sun,
To smooth the wreckage of this human purgatory spread across the earth.
No selfish desire. Only Heavenly Principle.
One heart, one mind — only to save the mortal world,
To rescue the lost, to hold back the flood and stand against the storm,
To purify this burning house into a lotus land.
The foot soldiers of the Black Calamity General have already received their orders and appeared.
After the Earthquake — Mid-Autumn Festival, 1999
On September 21, 1999, at 1:47 AM, a magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck Jiji, Nantou County, Taiwan. Over 2,400 people died. Three days later, on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival (September 24, 1999, zi hour), Zhang Tianran descended at an altar and spoke.
The Black Calamity General has appeared. The Black Sun era has arrived! The Black Calamity General does not only take those who have not cultivated! The true Black Calamity General has already received the decree to harvest. Disciples — hurry and cultivate, hurry and spread the Dao! Save one person, count one person!
Gong-Chang had no power to teach his disciples well.
I beg the Mother's mercy — open the great pardon.
All the wrongs, all the sins — they are Tianran's fault.
I failed to teach them fully — the laziness was mine.
Tianran is willing to give up his lotus throne
And bear his disciples' punishment to delay the coming storm.
The Teacher says: My disciples are all good, all filial. But why is it that when you set your hearts on cultivating the Dao, your tempers and bad habits just will not change? Right and wrong, upside down and backwards — whose fault is it really? Everyone must go and reflect on this deeply. If something is wrong, change it! Know this: "Palm and back of hand are both flesh — all are my disciples. The flesh under the hand, the bone inside the palm — all are the Mother's children!" Because whether you are one who holds the Heavenly Mandate, a point-transmitting master, a lecturer, or a junior student — everyone is still cultivating in the post-heaven world. Your Teacher cannot bear to punish a single one of you!
The Teacher asks everyone: If you attained the Dao at the noon hour, when do you fall? (At the hour before noon.) This means that on the road of cultivation, the waves of testing never stop! Only by truly and sincerely understanding others, by diligently awakening yourself, and by single-heartedly saving all beings — only then can you stand unshaken by any wave of testing. Do you understand?
Disciples, know this: the Black Calamity General has already received the decree. Do not keep dragging your feet. If you truly cannot carry on with the work, then at least protect yourselves. But if you still can — then hurry and step out! Do you remember what your Teacher said at the very first dharma assembly? Heaven's time is truly urgent. Hurry and step out! You do not even need to worry about money. As long as you can spread the Dao, Heaven will naturally redirect its resources to you! Your Teacher's greatest regret in his life is this — he received only the mandate for universal sowing, not the mandate for the final harvest. That is why his disciples must endure the grinding of karmic debts! But now is not the time for sighing. Gather your hearts. The only way is to step forward bravely again. Tempers and bad habits — you must change them! Whatever is wrong, whatever is mistaken, whatever should not be — root it out!
When your Teacher spread the Dao in those years, it was at the height of the war against Japan. Even with a sky full of bombs flying overhead, he still went everywhere to transmit the Dao! You must be like your Teacher in this — only then can you truly fulfill the words "transmitting the Dao on horseback." Go to every corner and save all beings. Give up everything. Use your spirit and your body to stand against the storm! All of you, stop kneeling. Your Teacher's heart is in pain! I hope that everyone's hearts are joined together. Tomorrow will be clean and clear — there should be no more disasters.
Finally, the Teacher asks everyone one more question: Where is the Buddha? Is it in the heart? In the golden statue? In wisdom? Or in the children? In the Three Talents? Where exactly? Sigh! How can your Teacher even begin to say it? How can he answer? Whether right or wrong — if there is a mistake, it must be corrected. The most important thing for every person who cultivates the Dao is to reflect deeply on yourself. Tempers and bad habits must be changed. Keep forgiving others, and also come to understand yourself. Those who practice meditation — you especially must turn the light inward.
The Teacher says he has no virtue! He could not teach his disciples well! Above — he has failed the Eternal Mother. Below — he has failed his disciples! The Teacher says: this is his fault! He will not ask anything more of his disciples. He will only go before the Eternal Mother to confess his sins. He will beg that the Black Calamity General's decree be temporarily delayed — so that his beloved disciples may have more time to cultivate, and a chance to complete the great vow of universal salvation! Everyone, stop kneeling! Those who are not here — please pass this on from your Teacher!
Colophon
921 Earthquake — Tianran Ancient Buddha Speaks (九二一大地震 天然古佛慈悲) is a pair of spirit-writing transmissions from Zhang Tianran (1889–1947), eighteenth patriarch of Yiguandao, speaking posthumously through spirit-writing as Tianran Ancient Buddha (天然古佛). The first transmission, from the Mid-Autumn Festival of 1997, consists of three acrostic poems and a free-verse prophecy about a coming catastrophe. The second, from three days after the September 21, 1999 earthquake that devastated central Taiwan, is Zhang Tianran's direct plea to his disciples — a mixture of verse and anguished prose in which he blames himself for his disciples' suffering, offers to surrender his own spiritual attainment to delay the coming judgment, and urges them to change their ways and step out to save others.
The text is notable for its emotional directness. Zhang Tianran is the most revered figure in Yiguandao — the patriarch who received the Heavenly Mandate and spread the Dao across China during the Second World War. To hear him say "I have no virtue" and "this is my fault" — to watch a dead patriarch kneel before the Mother on behalf of his living children — is to encounter the deepest register of Yiguandao devotion: the teacher who takes his students' karma onto himself.
The annotations in the source text, written by the compiler, connect the 1997 prophecy to the 1999 earthquake and interpret contemporary events as signs of the Black Sun era (黑陽期). These have been abridged in the translation to preserve the spirit-writing voice.
First English translation. Gospel register. Twenty-sixth text in the Yiguandao collection. Tenth seed from the Source Text Catalogue pipeline.
Compiled, translated, and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
🌲
Source Text: 九二一大地震 天然古佛慈悲
Chinese source text from the Good Works Library (善書圖書館) at taolibrary.com (category9/c914.htm). The text is a spirit-writing transmission attributed to Tianran Ancient Buddha (天然古佛). Presented here for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above. Note: the source contains Big5 encoding corruptions (HTML entity fragments); corrupted characters have been reconstructed from context and marked with [rec.] where reconstruction was uncertain.
九二一大地震-天然古佛慈悲
民國八十六年歲次丁丑八月十五日
國曆九月十六日
慶賀中秋團圓夜 賀禱成道法恩垂
中貫矢志頂浩劫 秋風頻傳天時催
共沆瀣力完使業 團極靈光耀千界
圓滿天地登雲階
冠頂訓：慶賀中秋共團圓
月圓天宮獨影缺 圓月半孤難止歇
花美滿池唯獨醉 好景依舊人事非
人兒何去塵東昧 獨孤空幽梓遙闕
缺月更待遊守約
冠頂訓：月圓花好人獨缺
眼影幕幕在眼睫 景睹思人空垂淚
賭目難忍添悲切 物何仍存唯心碎
悲衫濕透誰知解 淚濤泉湧痛心扉
垂冀徒兒邁前追 也乎超脫六道迴
冠頂訓：眼景睹物悲淚垂也
桃李天下皆徒兒 幾多知音返思索
天然天然要求何 不就徒兒定中鎖
完成偉業了生死 長伴師旁居樂國
那知徒兒遭困囚 個個動搖返回走
本堅意定受人奪 自宰無力隨他誘
豈不令師眉焦鎖 理天難安定蓮坐
此時師已口難說 涕淚筆紙難盡透
淺意深重盼徒儔 悟清悟清莫受左
師暫隱旁待機熟 伺時再結勉徒右
註：按中秋之日，本乃人倫共享團圓樂之佳節；惟今年中秋之深夜，奈何竟遭逢本世紀第五次，也是世紀末的月全食天文奇景。觀此天象中所隱藏之不祥預兆，遂以詩紀曰：
中秋子夜 天涼似水
人倫團聚本是歡愉
怎奈松濤拍巖
風捲殘月 暗地傳悲曲
只見飛沙走石 天驚地駭
月食疑雲懼 天垂異象藏凶兆
隱伏殺機摧命符 驀回首
不禁淚潸潸 心酸楚
誰人知曉 浩劫將降掃東土
更問普天下 有幾人
願共齊發大悲愿 拋塵俗
當黑卒－黑陽劫煞裡身先士卒
撫平災殃遍地的人間煉獄
沒有私欲 只有天理
一心一意 只為拯凡塵
濟蒼愚 力挽狂瀾頂劫戾
淨化火宅成蓮域
黑煞將的腳力已然領旨現身
天然古佛通靈慈悲於台灣百年浩劫－九二一大地震後之中秋節
民國八十八年歲次已卯八月十五日子時
國曆九月廿四日
黑煞將出現，黑陽期就到！黑煞將不是只收沒修之人！真正的黑煞將已經領到收煞的旨令了，徒兒要趕快修、趕快辦，渡一個，算一個！
弓長無能教徒兒 求母慈悲大開赦
是非罪過天然錯 教徒不週師之惰
天然願去蓮花果 替徒擔罪延劫厄
老師說，徒兒都很乖、都很孝順，但為什麼有心修道，脾氣毛病就是不改？是是非非，顛顛倒倒，到底是錯在誰之身？大家要好好去體悟，有不對就要改！要知道：「手心、手背都是肉，皆乃師之徒；手底肉、掌中骨，也都是皇母子！」因為不管是領天命也好，是點傳師也好，是講師也好，是後學也好，大家都還是在後天修煉，老師捨不得處罰任何一個！
老師問大家，午時成道，何時墮？（巳時）意謂修道路上，考波是不會斷的！惟有真誠體諒他人，精進開悟自我，一心救渡眾生，方才無懼於任何考程之波盪，明白否？
徒兒要知道：黑煞將已然領到旨令了，你們不要再拖慢，要是真的無法辦下去，你們只好保住自己；如果是還可以，那就要趕快踏出去！還記得老師在第一次法會時，所說的話嗎？天時確實已經很緊急，要趕快踏出去！還不必擔心沒有錢。只要辦得出去，上天自然會撥轉財源下來！老師一生最遺憾的是－祂只有領普渡播種的旨命，沒有領收圓收成的旨令，才會讓徒兒們受冤業百般來拖磨！此時此刻，不能再嘆氣，收拾心緒，只有勇敢再踏起，脾氣毛病一定改！不對、錯誤、種種不是，就是要革除！
老師當年傳道，正值抗日戰爭如火如荼開打之際，就算是有滿天的炸彈飛來飛去，也是一樣到處去「點」！你們也要像為師這樣，才有辦法做到「走馬點玄」這句話，真正去四處救渡眾生，喜捨一切，用你們的精神和肉體來頂劫！你們都不要跪了，老師的心很痛！希望大家心連心，明天都是清清淨淨，應該不會有劫數。
最後，老師再問大家：佛在哪裡？是在心中？是在金身？或是在智慧？還是在童子？三才？到底是在哪裡？唉！要老師如何說起？如何回答？是對也好，是不對也好，總是有錯誤，就一定要改正。每一個人修道，最最重要的就是好好反省自己，脾氣毛病一定要改，不斷包容別人，也能體會自己。有煉禪功的人，更要能迴光返照。
老師說祂沒德性！無法將徒兒們都教好！祂上－對不起皇母，下－對不起徒兒！老師說，這是祂的錯！祂不會再來要求徒兒，祂只有向皇母請罪，祈求黑煞將的旨令能暫時延後，希望讓愛徒有更多修煉的時間，有去完成普渡三曹大愿的機會！大家都別跪了！沒有來的人，請替老師將此傳知！
Source Colophon
Chinese source text from the Good Works Library (善書圖書館) at taolibrary.com (category9/c914.htm). Spirit-writing transmissions attributed to Tianran Ancient Buddha (天然古佛), 1997 and 1999. The compiler's annotations connecting the 1997 prophecy to the 1999 earthquake and interpreting contemporary events as signs of the Black Sun era have been abridged in the English translation. Source text presented here with encoding corruptions silently reconstructed from context. The original HTML source contained Big5 0x5C artifacts.
🌲