A monk practicing self-reliance (jirigyo) was running along the mountain peaks. He prayed and picked flowers to offer to the main hall. As he ran over the usual peak, he saw a woman standing in a wide forest. When the monk tried to approach, she disappeared. He picked a bamboo lily blooming beneath the figure, returned to his temple, and went to bed. In his dream, the figure appeared again and told the monk, "My younger brother disappeared one day. Some people say they saw him enter this peak. I have been searching for him for hundreds of years. Where is he?" The monk replied, "Isn't the brother you are looking for already dead and in nirvana? Let me perform a ritual so that you can also attain nirvana and go to meet your brother." After the monk performed the ritual, the woman clasped her hands together in peace and disappeared again in his dream.

This was the monk's fifth year of mountain climbing, and his final night of self-interest practice.

He found a Hiei white chrysanthemum still blooming on the peak, frozen and unwithered, and offered it to the Thousand-Armed Kannon at his temple.

During a brief sleep, the monk dreamed of his past life. "When I was a child, I was raped by a grown man. No matter how much time passes, I can still remember that memory as if it were yesterday. Even when I reached marriageable age, I was unable to start a family, so I ran away from home and continued walking up the mountain. Eventually, I ran out of strength and jumped off a cliff, taking my own life." "I wanted to be alone in the next life, so I decided that if I were reborn, I would devote my life to training. That is who I am now."

He woke up from his dream and jumped out of his bed. It was a new moon night and the stars were shining brightly. The monk spoke to the stars, "O stars in the sky, please let me see my sister standing under the bamboo lilies once more."

The younger brother speaks to his older sister, who has turned into starlight. "I remembered something that happened in my past life, but I don't have the courage to tell anyone about it in this life," the starlight replies. "It doesn't have to be a person. If you talk to plants, trees, and flowers, they will quietly listen to you. Your heart, which you spoke to the stars, has now reached me."

"Your sister was liberated from her suffering and became a starlight through your prayers. We will always watch over you as you climb the mountain."

At that moment, the starlight turned into snowflakes and fell to the ground, just like the white chrysanthemums I found on Mt. Hiei today.

The monk and the snowflakes danced together. The snowflakes danced playfully on the monk's sleeves.

After entering the hall, the monks begin their practice of evangelism the following spring.