四明尊者教行錄 1.52

1.52

I, (Zongxiao), respectfully read the Biographies of Eminent Monks of the Three Dynasties, where the standards of the ten categories for selecting Buddhas by the western sages have exhausted all criteria for selecting talent. Yet our patriarch Fazhi served his duties by means of the Way; broadly surveying his writings, he vastly expounded and revived the great teaching, with doctrinal understanding taking the foremost place, while building temples, making statues, and cultivating merit came second. The preservation of his tongue and relics after extinction were clear and distinct, with supernatural wonders in abundance. At the time he was about to abandon his body, although he was stopped by the earnest pleas of Duke Yang Wen, how could a momentary, firm impediment separate him from his Way? Furthermore, he once burned three of his fingers as an offering to the Buddha; this was likewise an offshoot of abandoning the body. How great! Among the ten categories of eminent monks of antiquity, the Master combined four in himself alone; how could he be spoken of in the same breath as those who merely serve the Buddha in vain for a hundred years?