樂邦文類 3.123

3.123

釋道珍，梁天鑒中憩錫廬山，聞昔遠公結社淨方，心頗慕之。然其所行，心尚猶豫。異時忽夢海上數十人櫓舟前邁，珍問之，對曰：「將適彌陀國也。」珍曰：「願將隨往，得否？」曰：「以子之意，孰敢相拒。但於此一日之修，功超永劫。彌陀一經存，而子未之誦，及未曾浴僧，如何求適也？」珍夢覺嗟嘆愧悚，若於勝法有差焉。遂專其經，大設沐浴。後二年一日，忽堂虛戶扃有捧銀臺而至者，曰：「法華報盡，當陞此臺。」又曰：「師之功行，當乘金臺。奈何始心猶豫，故止此耳。」珍謝曰：「果能越三界出五苦，則珍也見佛之基有漸，奚必金臺也？」然珍少言語，雖睹其事未甞矜示於人，乃自書之藏於經函。其亡之夕，所居之山，崖壑萬疊，若烈火千炬交相輝爍，鄉民望之驚異。及旦，即山問之，乃知珍亡。其所見者，往生之驗矣。異日，經函獲其所紀，因得傳世。

Shi Daozhen rested his staff at Mount Lu during the Tianjian era of the Liang. Hearing that Master Yuan had in the past formed a society for the pure realm, he admired it deeply in his heart. However, regarding his own practice, his mind still hesitated. At a later time, he suddenly dreamt of several tens of people on the sea rowing a boat forward. Zhen asked them, and they replied: 'We are going to Amitābha's land.' Zhen said: 'May I follow you there?' They replied: 'With your intention, who would dare refuse you? Yet cultivating for a single day here yields merit surpassing eternal kalpas. The single Amitābha Sūtra exists, but you have not yet recited it, nor have you bathed the saṅgha; how can you seek to go?' Zhen awoke from the dream, sighing with regret and fearful shame, as if he had fallen short regarding the supreme Dharma. He thereupon devoted himself to that sutra and offered grand baths. One day two years later, in the empty hall with locked doors, someone arrived holding a silver dais and said: 'Your Lotus retribution has ended; you should ascend this dais.' He also said: 'With the Master's meritorious practice, you ought to have mounted a golden dais. How regrettable that your initial mind hesitated; therefore it is limited to this.' Zhen thanked him, saying: 'If I can indeed transcend the three realms and escape the five sufferings, then Zhen's foundation for seeing the Buddha will have begun; why must it be a golden dais?' Zhen was a man of few words; though he witnessed these events, he never boasted of them to others, but wrote them down himself and hid the record in a sutra chest. On the night of his death, across the myriad folds of cliffs and gorges of the mountain where he lived, it was as if thousands of blazing torches were shining against one another. The local villagers looked upon it in astonishment. At dawn, they went to the mountain to inquire, and only then learned of Zhen's death. What they had seen was the verification of his rebirth. On a later day, his record was retrieved from the sutra chest, and thus came to be transmitted to the world.