淨土論 3.14

3.14

The nun Fasheng was originally surnamed Nie and was a native of Qinghe. In the tenth year of the Yuanjia reign era, she went forth from the household at Jianfu Monastery; her virtue and practice of the Way were grand and abundant. She constantly vowed to be reborn in Sukhāvatī. She said to her fellow students Tanjin and Tan'ai: “I have established myself and practice the Way, with my aspiration set on the West.” On the twenty-seventh day of the ninth month of the sixteenth year, while worshipping the Buddha beneath a stūpa, she was consequently stricken with illness, which gradually became critical. On the final evening of that month, during a light sleep in the early night, she saw the Tathāgata descend through the empty sky, discussing the Vehicle together with two Great Beings; shortly after, riding upon fragrance and treading upon mist together with the great assembly, he approached to visit Sheng in her illness. The radiant light shone brightly, so that the entire monastery saw it. Everyone came to ask Sheng: “What kind of light and colour is this?” Sheng recounted it in full. Having finished speaking, she soon expired at the age of seventy-two. Zhang Bian of Wu Commandery, the grand administrator of Yuzhang, had always revered her and wrote an account of her.