廬山蓮宗寶鑑 4.4

4.4

The Master's taboo name was Huiyuan. He was a native of Loufan in Yanmen, modern Daizhou in Hedong, and his secular surname was Jia. He was born in the jiawu year of the Yanxi era of the Shi-Zhao dynasty, which was the ninth year of the Xianhe era of Emperor Cheng of Jin. When the Master was twelve years old, he accompanied his maternal uncle of the Linghu clan to study in Xu and Luo, becoming widely versed in the Six Classics and especially conversant in the Zhouyi, the Zhuangzi, and the Laozi. At the age of twenty-one, wishing to cross the Yangtze River to live in reclusion together with Fan Xuanzi, he found the roads blocked by warfare in the Central Plains. Hearing that Dharma Master Dao'an was residing at Mount Taihang, he went together with his younger brother Huichi to join him. Upon hearing him expound the Prajñāpāramitā-sūtras, he was thoroughly and greatly awakened, and lamented, saying: 'Confucianism, Daoism, and the nine schools are mere chaff and husks.' He and his brother cast off their hairpins and had their heads shaved. He constantly took the Great Dharma as his own duty. Dao'an praised him, saying: 'If the Way is to flow into the Central Realm, will it not rest upon Yuan?' In the ninth year of the Taiyuan era of Emperor Xiaowu, he arrived at Mount Lu, planted his staff upon the ground, and said: 'If there is a spring, I shall reside here.' Suddenly a spring gushed forth, whereupon he cut the reeds to make a hut. When he expounded the Nirvāṇa-sūtra, he moved the mountain deity to display spirit efficacy, providing timber, while thunder and rain cleared the ground. The prefect of Jiangzhou, amazed by this miraculous omen, memorialized the throne to bestow the monastery name Donglin, and its hall was named Shenyun ('Spiritedly Moved'). In the eleventh year of the Taiyuan era, the monastery was completed. Because the scriptures and vinaya were not yet complete in the southeast and the methods of dhyāna were unheard of, the Master separately established a dhyāna chamber within the monastery and invited a dhyāna master to lead the assembly in the practice of dhyāna. He dispatched disciples across the desert to seek dhyāna scriptures, so that the four assemblies of the Jiangbiao region might all cultivate and practice them, wishing to cause the transformative influence of the Mahāyāna to spread from the north to the south. He often said that the method of dhyāna is profound and subtle, not to be transmitted to those without talent, whereas the essential gateway for entering the Way that is of supreme merit and easy to progress in is none other than buddhānusmṛti. The disciples and followers who came and went numbered three thousand, among whom were one hundred and twenty-three persons of true faith. Thereupon, with Liu Yimin and other eighteen worthies as leaders, before an image of Amitāyus Buddha, they established a fast and made vows to jointly cultivate the Western Pure Land, forming the White Lotus Society. Yimin composed the vow text, and the Master himself composed the preface to the buddhānusmṛti-samādhi. Relying on his talent, Xie Lingyun was haughty toward others, yet upon once seeing the Master he reverently submitted in his heart; he excavated ponds, planted lotuses, and sought admission into the society, but the Master barred him on account of his distracted mind. The mountain had many snakes. There was a practitioner whose origins were unknown who once attended upon the Master and was skilled at expelling snakes; to this day he is called the Snake-Expelling Holy One. Where the Master resided, flowing springs encircled the monastery and descended into Tiger Brook; whenever he saw off guests, he took the brook as the boundary. Once, when the Master was seeing off Tao Yuanming and Lu Xiujing, their discussion of the Way was so harmonious that they crossed the brook without realizing it, and laughed heartily together. Later generations thus transmitted the painting of the 'Three Laughs'. At that time, Dharma Master Kumārajīva exchanged letters with him, calling the Master the Bodhisattva Protector of the Dharma in the East. The foreign monks all stated that in the land of Han there was a Mahāyāna Daoist; whenever they burned incense and paid homage, they turned to face the east, bowed their heads, and dedicated their hearts to Mount Lu. The Yao ruler admired and received his virtues of the Way, his faith and direction continuing uninterrupted. In the first year of the Long'an era of Emperor An of Jin, Huan Xuan advised the emperor to weed out monks and nuns, stating that Mount Lu was the dwelling of moral virtue and not subject to search and purge; the Master sent a letter to Xuan, and they were entirely exempted. In the first year of the Yuanxing era, Xuan renewed the proposal of Yu Bing, wishing to make śramaṇas pay full homage to the sovereign; the Master again debated and argued in writing, and the matter was thereupon dropped. When Emperor An returned to the capital from Jiangling, the Auxiliary State General He Wuji advised the Master to await and welcome him, but he pleaded illness and did not rise. The emperor dispatched an envoy to console and inquire after the Master, who submitted a memorial reporting his state to the emperor, and the emperor answered him with a generous edict. On the first day of the eleventh month in the yimao year of the Yixi era, the Master entered samādhi; on the seventeenth day he emerged from samādhi and saw the purple-gold body of Amitābha Buddha filling the realm of space. The Longshu Jingtu Wen records that Master Yuan beheld the holy signs three times, but remained profound and spoke not of it. For thirty years, the Master's shadow did not leave the mountain, nor his footsteps enter the secular world. On the first day of the eighth month in the bingchen year, he manifested illness; by the sixth day he was gravely ill. Elders and venerable monks requested that he drink fermented black-bean wine, but he did not permit it. They also requested that he drink honey water, whereupon he ordered a vinaya master to inspect the canon, but it was not found [permitted]. He then gathered his disciples and left his final instructions, saying: 'From the year I knew my destiny, I entrusted my work to this mountain. Knowing that the time of my end must come, I severed my ties with external conditions to seek my aspiration. Unawares, my body has declined along with my fortune, and I am already eighty-three. Now that the time has arrived, I wish to lay my bones beneath the pine grove, using the ridge itself as my tomb, blending into the appearance of earth and trees. This is the ritual of the ancients; do not go against it. If only the spiritual principle remains undarkened and my sincerity is conveyed, the World-Honoured One of Great Compassion will surely protect me through the Way.' Having finished speaking, he passed away. His disciples, together with the prefect and officials of Xunyang, conveyed his whole body and buried it on the Western Ridge, piling stones to make a stūpa. Emperor An posthumously bestowed on him the titles 'Venerable of Mount Lu', 'Grand Minister of Honglu', and 'Master of the White Lotus Society'. For the Stūpa of Congealed Tranquility, Xie Lingyun erected a stele to commemorate his virtue, with a preface by Zhang Ye. His Kuangshan ji in ten fascicles circulates in the world.