樂邦文類 3.98

3.98

I once listened to instruction in the Way from Chan Master Zhengjue, who requested that I read the Awakening of Faith. At that time, events were pressing; scurrying amid military horses, I had no leisure to reflect and investigate. Only when I was demoted and exiled to Tiantai did I first obtain the Awakening of Faith from a neighboring monk. Turning its pages again and again, I inwardly had doubts: this book was composed for practitioners of the Great Vehicle to demolish existence and disperse emptiness, leaving not a single dharma behind; yet its final chapter speaks of binding one's thoughts on Amitābha to seek rebirth in the Pure Land—what could be its purport? Later, passing by Xuefeng, I asked Chan Master Qingliao. Qingliao said: "The ground of ultimate principle does not admit a single dust mote, yet within the gate of myriad practices, not a single dharma is abandoned. Do you wish to destroy worldly characteristics, discarding existence to attach to emptiness, before realizing bodhi?" I said: "How could that be?" Qingliao said: "If so, how does the practice of the Pure Land detract from the Way?" For the first time, my mind was cleared and comforted. Recently, while traveling through Fuqing, I heard spiritual friends from near and far speak of Lady Feng's deeds, which confirmed even more that the elder Liao's words were trustworthy and not false. The Lady's name was Faxin, the daughter of Xun, posthumously granted the title of Junior Preceptor by the Palace Gate Office during the Zhenghe era. At sixteen years of age, she married Chen [Sigong], Military Commissioner of Zhentao Commandery and presently Layman Miaoming. In her youth the Lady suffered from many illnesses; her physical strength was frail and weak, as if she could hardly bear the weight of her clothes. After she married into the Chen family, her illness grew daily more acute; she repeatedly summoned physicians to prescribe medicine, yet she seemed almost devoid of vitality. The physician declined, saying: "The Lady's illness is not within the power of my medicine." At that time, Chan Master Cishou Shen was the patron of Dharma in the royal city. The Lady went directly to his chambers to seek a prescription for her illness. Cishou took pity on her and taught her to observe the vegetarian precepts, recite the Buddha's name, and silently seek her original mind. The Lady heard his words and believed them with absolute sincerity, without any doubt. Before she had observed the fast for a month, she suddenly said to her kin: "A morning vegetarian meal is good. But mixing it with evening meat merely confounds one's intention; why not eliminate it entirely?" From then on, she abstained from meat and blood, rejected the luxuries of powder, rouge, and fragrant ointments, wore garments fit for sweeping stupas, and dedicated herself exclusively to the pure contemplation of the Western Direction as her Buddhist practice. Her walking was the Western Direction, her sitting was the Western Direction; her daily routine, eating, and resting were the Western Direction; her speech, silence, movement, and stillness were the Western Direction; ladling water and offering flowers were the Western Direction; turning scriptures and circumambulating were the Western Direction. A moment's thought, a hair's breadth of good—all was made a bridge to the Western Direction. During the ten years from the renyin year to the renzi year, she never showed a lax demeanor or an arrogant countenance; her mind was at ease and her body flourished, her vitality vigorous, and everyone held her in high esteem. One day, she suddenly took up a brush and wrote several very strange lines, as though weary of the world and departing as a transcendent:
"Following conditions, acknowledging karma for many years, / In vain I acted as an old ox plowing the fields. / Packing up body and mind to cast off early, / I avoid having my nostrils pulled by others."
Her clan members were bewildered by this. The Lady said: "In the pure realm, I lost mindfulness to end up here. My affinity with China has ended, and I am about to return west. It accords with my wish; what is there to find strange?" In the ninth month of the renzi year, she manifested illness for a long time, her breath barely continuing. On the evening of the renyin day in the twelfth month, she suddenly awoke with alertness and said to those attending beside her: "My spirit has already traveled to the Pure Land and paid homage in person to the Merciful Honored One. Avalokiteśvara looks to the left, Mahāsthāmaprāpta gazes to the right, and hundreds of thousands of koṭis of pure disciples of the Buddha bow their heads, rejoicing that I am to be born in their land. As for the palaces, groves, ponds, radiance, and wondrous splendour, they are identical and no different from what is spoken of in the Avataṃsaka's transformations of the Buddha and the Contemplation Sūtra in Sixteen Contemplations. Only through realization is it known; it is not something to be explained to the likes of you." The attendants quickly called Miaoming and told him what had happened; they then joined their palms together to encourage each other, bidding her to keep her thoughts bound without forgetting. On the next day, a jiachen day, she lay peacefully on her right side and passed away auspiciously. Three days later she was encoffined; the family members frequently smelled a wondrous fragrance, unlike anything in the human world. When the cremation came, her corpse was lifted as if alive, serene and intact. The Lady lived thirty-six years; because Miaoming held prominent office, she was granted the title Lady of Guangping Commandery by imperial favor. Miaoming told me: "At first, I did not know the Way; it was truly the Lady who exhorted and inspired me. Moreover, I was indolent and took no delight in livelihood; the Lady truly managed its presence and absence. In ordinary life, when dealing with relatives on both sides, or nurturing and caring for children, nephews, servants, and concubines, she showed kindness in every matter. On the day of her death, those who wept lost their voices, even to the point of branding their crowns and burning their arms to dedicate posthumous merit; without having won their hearts, could she have achieved this? Because I was extremely poor, she once traveled alone in a bamboo palanquin for two thousand li to beg grain from her elder brother, Military Commissioner Deyu. At that time, bandits were rampant in Min, yet the attendants could recount her strategies for dealing with contingencies as she came and went, just like a sturdy man of the world. Because the Lady's resolve and strength were unyielding and decisive, incapable of being shaken or stripped away, her striving for the Way was valiant and resolute, and her accomplishment was like this; she is truly worthy of praise!" I, Yining, am old and sick, just now inquiring about the path to the Land of Immeasurable Life; hearing of the Lady's deeds, I gladly record them, not merely out of faith in the words of the two Chan Masters Zhengjue and Qingliao, but also so that future practitioners will not need further exhortation. Recorded on the twenty-first day of the second month of the third year of Shaoxing by Amitābha Buddha's disciple Wang [Yining], Waiting Attendant of Zhengxin Hermitage.