佛祖統紀 10.46

10.46

Liang Su, courtesy name Jingzhi, was a native of Anding. During the Dali and Zhenyuan eras, many literati esteemed ancient learning, but Su was renowned as the most profound and obscure. Liu Zihou, in his record of departed friends, also praised him as the most skillful in prose. He once studied the Tiantai way under Jingxi, deeply grasping the essentials of the mind, and observed the etiquette of a disciple with great reverence. Deeming the text and meaning of Calm-and-Insight to be broad and extensive, costing readers many days, he abridged and established it in six fascicles (Ciyun stated: "Although the text is concise and essential, the aspects of cultivation are lacking and omitted"). He also composed the "General Principles" to append to the end, stating that Calm-and-Insight was a work for saving the world and illuminating the Way. Furthermore, he composed the "Treatise on the Master's Biography," fully recounting the great lineage of transmitting the teachings. The world regarded his writing as powerful, profound, elegant, and vigorous, and its principles as clear, penetrating, and thorough. The imperial censor Cui Gong praised him, saying: "Knowing the essentials of the Dharma and recognizing the provisional and the real, he composed the stele for the Tiantai Chanlin Temple; reaching the source of the teachings and applying the object and wisdom, he composed the stele for Great Master Jingxi." (See Cui Gong's preface to the Liang Collection.) He also said: "The imperial court esteemed virtue, and therefore appointed you as the Crown Prince's Reader-in-Waiting; the state esteemed veritable records, and therefore appointed you as an Historiographical Compiler; issuing orders and displaying royal policies, it therefore made you a Hanlin Academician. When three offices are held concurrently, one cannot say you were unsuccessful in official service at court. You passed the age of forty, and the literati turned to you in reverence, comparing you to Yanzi and Huang Shudu; one cannot say you lacked longevity. As for those mediocre individuals who grow old in the ministries, having white heads in the mortal world, what benefit do they bring?"