廬山蓮宗寶鑑 4.37

4.37

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.