廬山蓮宗寶鑑 4.47

4.47

The master was named Xingchang, courtesy name Zaowei, a son of the Yan family and a native of Qiantang. At seventeen, he left home and received full ordination. His monastic discipline was strict and careful; he mastered the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna, practiced the Tiantai teachings of śamatha-vipaśyanā, and carried on the legacy of Master Yuan of Mount Lu. During the Chunhua era of the Song, he resided at Zhaoqing Temple by West Lake in Hangzhou, exclusively cultivating pure karma and founding the Pure Conduct Society. Grand Councilor Lord Xiang and Lord Wang Wenzheng served as heads of the society, and the scholar-officials who joined the assembly all submitted poems and verses, calling themselves Disciples of Pure Conduct. The master then pricked his own finger for blood, mixed it with ink, and wrote out the "Pure Conduct Chapter" of the Avataṃsaka-sūtra. For every single character he wrote, he made three prostrations, circumambulated three times, and recited the Buddha's name three times. Printing blocks were carved to print one thousand fascicles, which were distributed to one thousand people. He also carved an image of Vairocana Buddha out of sandalwood; when the image was completed, he knelt on the ground with palms joined and made the vow: "I, together with one thousand members of the great assembly and eighty monks, from this day forth arouse the bodhimind and, to the ends of the future, will practice the bodhisattva path. We vow that when this saṃbhogakāya is exhausted, we will be reborn in the land of Sukhāvatī." Hanlin Academician Recipient Song Bai composed the stela inscription, Hanlin Academician Su Yijian wrote the preface to the Pure Conduct Chapter, Senior First Scholar Sun He inscribed the names of the society's guests on the back of the stela, and Dharma Master Yuan of Gushan, in his account of the master's deeds, quoted Master Su's preface: "I would spread my hair to receive his feet and cut my flesh to request his teaching without any resentment; how then could I be begrudging with my clumsy writing and shallow learning?" Lord Song's stela inscription stated: "The master admired Master Yuan's founding of the Pure Society on Mount Lu, and changed the name 'Lotus' to 'Pure Conduct.' When Master Yuan lived in an age of decline, those he gathered were largely recluses. When this superior person lived in an age of peace and prosperity, those he associated with were mostly virtuous worthies. Compared to the past, there are even more renowned scholars; in bequeathing abundance, how could the ford and bridge ever end?" From the words of these two lords, one can form a general picture of the flourishing of that time. On the twelfth day of the first month in the fourth year of Tianxi, he showed his passing at the age of sixty-two.