止觀輔行傳弘決 3.35

3.35

As for the marks of the fulfillment of dhyāna: take, for example, the shell-coiled-topknot ṛṣi named Śāṅkarī—those who paint his image in the form of a monk are mistaken. Having attained the fourth dhyāna, his inhalation and exhalation were severed, and he sat beneath a tree motionless. A bird, seeing him motionless, took him for wood and laid eggs in the ṛṣi's topknot. When the ṛṣi emerged from absorption and noticed there were bird eggs on his head, he reflected: "If I get up and walk, the mother bird will never return, and the bird eggs will certainly be ruined." He immediately re-entered meditative absorption until the young birds flew away, and only then did he get up and walk.