淨土論 3.12

3.12

Dharma Master Śramaṇa Daochuo was also a native of Jinyang in Bingzhou. He was a remote disciple three generations below the former master of lofty virtue, Tanluan, and had lectured on the entire Nirvana Sutra. He constantly praised Master Luan's lofty wisdom and virtue, saying himself that they were as far apart as a thousand li, yet [Master Luan] still abandoned lecturing to cultivate the Pure Land karma. 'Having already witnessed his rebirth, how much less should I, an insignificant lad—in what I know and understand—consider it sufficient, or treat this as virtue?' From the fifth year of Daye onwards, he abandoned lecturing and cultivated the practices of the Pure Land. He single-mindedly and exclusively focused on mindfulness of Amitābha Buddha, worshipping and making offerings in unbroken succession. From the Zhenguan era onward, in order to awaken those with affinity, he from time to time expounded the single fascicle of the Guan wuliangshou jing, instructing monastics and laypeople in the three counties of Bingzhou—Jinyang, Taiyuan, and Wenshui—so that all who were seven years of age and older understood mindfulness of Amitābha Buddha: those of superior diligence used small beans to keep count, reciting [the name of] Amitābha Buddha to the amount of eighty or ninety dan; those of middling diligence recited fifty dan; those of lower diligence recited twenty dan. He instructed those with affinity never to spit or relieve themselves facing west, and never to sit or lie with their backs to the west. He composed the Anle ji in two fascicles, which currently circulates in the world. In the nineteenth year of Zhenguan, the year yisi, on the twenty-fourth day of the fourth month, he bid farewell to all monastics and laypeople. Disciples from within the three counties came to bid farewell, continuously without interruption, difficult to count. On the twenty-seventh day, his life ended at Xuanzhong Monastery. At that time, a white cloud came from the west and transformed into three beams of white light, illuminating and passing through his own room, disappearing only after he passed away. Later, when his burial mound was cremated, five-coloured light again appeared in the sky in three beams, circling the solar disk and stopping only after circling it. Furthermore, purple clouds appeared three times above the mound. His surviving disciples all saw these auspicious signs. If judged according to the scriptures, these are all the power of the compassionate roots of goodness of the Buddhas that can cause sentient beings to behold such things. Furthermore, as a verse in the Avataṃsaka Sūtra says: 'Again emitting light named Seeing the Buddha, / This light awakens those whose lives are ending. / Through buddhānusmṛti-samādhi one definitely sees the Buddha, / And after life ends, is born before the Buddha.'