廬山蓮宗寶鑑 4.37

4.37

師，雁門人也。少遊五臺，感其靈異，自誓出俗，三乘頓漸具陶文理。又嘗抱疾行至汾州，俄見雲陰陡盡、天門洞開，六欲階位上下重複。鸞方瞬目，疾乃隨愈。鸞於是切用心佛道常如不及，開蒙誘俗無間遠邇。初鸞好為術學，聞陶隱居得長生法，涉遠就之。陶以仙經十卷授鸞，鸞躍然自得，以為神仙之術其必然也。後還洛下，遇菩提留支，意頗得之。問支曰：「佛道有長生乎？其能却老為不死乎？」支笑而對曰：「長生不死，吾佛道也。」即以《觀無量壽經》授之曰：「汝可誦此，則三界無復生、六道無復往，盈虛消息吉凶成敗無得而生。其為壽也，有劫石焉、有河沙焉，沙石之數有極、壽量之數無期，此吾金仙氏長生也。」鸞承其語，驟起深信，遂焚所學仙經而專《觀經》焉。每於《觀經》得其義理，修三福業、想像九品，雖云寒暑之變，疾病之來，不懈于始念。魏主憐其志尚，又嘉其自行化他道業弘廣，號為神鸞，勅住并州大嚴寺，未幾移住汾州玄中寺。一夕鸞正持誦，一梵僧軒昂而來，入其室曰：「吾龍樹也。所居淨土，以汝有淨土之心，故來見汝。」鸞曰：「何以教我？」樹曰：「已去不可及，未來未可追，現在今何在？白駒難與回。」言訖而失。鸞以所見勝異，必知死生之期屆矣。即集弟子數百人，盛陳教誡，言其四生役役其止無日，地獄諸苦不可以不懼，九品淨業不可以不修。因令弟子齊聲高唱阿彌陀佛，鸞乃西向瞑目頓顙而示滅。是時道俗同聞管絃絲竹之聲由西而來，良久乃寂。

The master was a native of Yanmen. In his youth he traveled to Mount Wutai; moved by its numinous wonders, he vowed to renounce the secular world, becoming thoroughly steeped in the literary principles of both the sudden and gradual of the triyāna. Once, while suffering from illness, he traveled to Fenzhou; suddenly he saw the dark clouds completely disperse, the heavenly gate wide open, and the tiers and stages of the six desire heavens repeated above and below. Just as Luan blinked his eyes, his illness was immediately cured. Thereupon Luan earnestly applied his mind to the Buddha's Way, always feeling as though he could not catch up, opening the ignorant and guiding the secular without distinguishing near or far. At first, Luan was fond of occult arts; hearing that Tao the Recluse had attained the method of long life, he traveled far to approach him. Tao bestowed ten scrolls of immortal scriptures upon Luan; Luan bounded with joy and was self-satisfied, believing that the arts of the divine immortals were certainly genuine. Later he returned to Luoyang and met Bodhiruci, finding great affinity with him. He asked Ruci: "Does the Buddha's Way have long life? Can it ward off old age and attain deathlessness?" Ruci smiled and replied: "Long life and deathlessness are our Buddha's Way." He then handed him the Guan Wuliangshou jing, saying: "If you recite this, then in the three realms you will no longer be born, and in the six destinies you will no longer wander; waxing and waning, rise and fall, good and bad fortune, success and failure can no longer arise. As for its lifespan, there is the kalpa stone, and there are the sands of the Ganges; the number of sands and stones has an end, but the count of this lifespan has no limit. This is the long life of our Golden Immortal." Luan received his words, suddenly gave rise to deep faith, and thereupon burned the immortal scriptures he had studied and devoted himself exclusively to the Guan jing. Whenever he attained its principles in the Guan jing, he cultivated the karma of the three blessings and visualized the nine grades; though seasons changed with heat and cold and illnesses arrived, he never flagged in his initial resolve. The ruler of the Wei pitied his aspiration, and further praised his self-cultivation and converting of others, in which his holy practice was vast, naming him "Divine Luan" and imperially ordering him to dwell at Dayan Temple in Bingzhou; shortly thereafter he moved to Xuanzhong Temple in Fenzhou. One evening, as Luan was reciting, an Indian monk arrived with an imposing air, entered his chamber, and said: "I am Nāgārjuna. I dwell in the Pure Land; because you have the aspiration for the Pure Land, I have come to see you." Luan asked: "What instruction do you have for me?" Nāgārjuna said: "What has already gone cannot be overtaken; the future cannot yet be pursued; where is the present now? The white colt cannot be turned back." Having finished speaking, he disappeared. Deeming what he had seen to be extraordinary, Luan knew for certain that the time of death and birth had arrived. He immediately gathered several hundred disciples and fully laid out his admonitions, stating that living beings in the four modes of birth toil without end, the various sufferings of hell cannot but be feared, and the pure karma of the nine grades cannot but be cultivated. He then bade his disciples to chant Amitābha Buddha in unison with a loud voice; Luan faced west, closed his eyes, bowed his head to the ground, and manifested passing away. At that time, clerics and laypeople alike heard the sounds of stringed and wind instruments coming from the west, which only fell silent after a long while.