佛祖統紀 10.54

10.54

Dharma Master Zhiyuan, styled Wuwai, styled himself Master Zhongyong, or alternatively Master Qianfu. He was from the Xu family of Qiantang. As soon as he learned to speak, he understood filial piety and fraternal respect. When he grew a bit older, he would often split pieces of wood, dip them in water, and write characters on stones. He arranged flowers and grasses as if setting out markers (read like "zu" and "yue"; in the *Hanshu*, Shusun Tong regulated court ritual by setting out boundary markers in the countryside to practice it; the commentary says that "markers" means bound bundles of thatch marking positions), playfully acting out the postures of lecturing and instructing. His parents marvelled at this and let him enter the Buddhist order. At the age of eight, he received the full precepts. At twenty-one, hearing that Master Qing of Fengxian was transmitting the way of Tiantai's Threefold Contemplation, he carried his book-box and visited him. Gathering his robes, he questioned and debated with him. After just two years, Qing passed away. Thereupon, he went to dwell on Gu Mountain by the West Lake. Students gathered like a marketplace. He closed his gates and delighted in the Way, becoming a neighbour and friend to the recluse Lin Bu. When Wang Qinruo came out to govern Qiantang, Ciyun dispatched an envoy to invite the Master to join him in greeting him. The Master smiled and said to the messenger, "Within the borders of Qiantang, let at least one monk remain behind." The Master had early on suffered from goitre and tuberculosis, so he also styled himself "the Sickly Man." Yet in lecturing on the Way and chanting poetry, he never showed the slightest weariness. In advance, he admonished his disciples, saying: "After my death, do not give me a lavish burial to burden me with blame. Do not erect a pagoda to bring false praise upon me. Do not visit those in high office to seek an epitaph to glorify me with hollow words. You need only join two earthenware vessels together to bury me, and set up a stone marking merely my name and the date." When he died, his disciples followed his injunctions, encoffined him in earthenware vessels, and buried them by cutting into the cliff of his dwelling place, erecting a simple altar instead of a building. It was the second month of the first year of the Qianxing era [1022 CE]. He lived to the age of forty-seven. Fifteen years later, after prolonged rains caused the mountain to collapse, his disciples opened and inspected the earthenware vessels: his physical body was undamaged, his nails and hair had grown, and his lips were slightly parted, showing teeth like jade conch shells. Thereupon, they dressed him anew in fresh robes, scattered various powdered perfumes over him, and reburied him (the character *zhong* is read in the falling tone, meaning "again"). In the third year of the Chongning era [1104 CE], he was posthumously granted the title Master Fahui. Among his writings were the *Commentary on the Mañjuśrī-prajñā-sūtra* and the *Commentary on the Bequeathed Teaching Sūtra*, each in two fascicles (Jingjue composed the *Record Assisting Propagation* [for them]); the *Commentary on the Heart of the Prajñā Sūtra*, the *Commentary on the Auspicious Response Sūtra*, the *Annotation on the Sūtra of Forty-Two Chapters*, the *Commentary on the Sūtra of the Inconceivable Dharma-Door*, the *Commentary on the Sūtra of Immeasurable Meanings* (Yuhuijue composed the *Record of Assorted Pearls* [for it]), the *Commentary on the Sūtra on the Method of Practicing the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra's Contemplation*, and the *Commentary on the Amitābha Sūtra*, each in one fascicle; and the *Commentary on the Śūraṅgama Sūtra* in ten fascicles. The world called him the "Master of Ten Commentaries." He also composed the *Sub-commentary Elucidating the Meaning* in three fascicles (explaining the *Commentary on the Sūtra on Invoking Guanyin*); the *Record Seeking the Hidden* in four fascicles (explaining the *Phrases of the Golden Light Sūtra*); the *Record of Rectifications* in two fascicles (explaining the *Commentary on the Contemplation Sūtra*); the *Record Displaying the Subtle* in one fascicle (explaining the *Profound Meaning of the Golden Light Sūtra*); the *Record Transmitting Abundance* in ten fascicles (explaining the *Abridged Commentary on the Vimalakīrti Sūtra*); the *Record of the Essential Pivots Originating from the Source* in two fascicles (explaining the *Profound Meaning of the Nirvāṇa Sūtra*); the *Sub-commentary on the Hundred Negations* in one fascicle (explaining the meaning of the hundred negations in the Diamond Body Chapter of the *Commentary on the Nirvāṇa Sūtra*); the *Refuge of the Three Virtues* in twenty fascicles (explaining the *Commentary on the Nirvāṇa Sūtra*); the *Record Manifesting Nature* in four fascicles (explaining the *Gold Shovel*); the *Sub-commentary Gathering Blossoms* in two fascicles (explaining Guifeng's *Commentary on the Ullambana Sūtra*); the *Sub-commentary on Western Provision* in one fascicle (explaining his own *Commentary on the Amitābha Sūtra*); the *Sub-commentary Bequeathing Counsel* in one fascicle (explaining his own *Commentary on the Heart Sūtra*); the *Sub-commentary on the Valley Echo* in five fascicles (explaining his own *Commentary on the Śūraṅgama Sūtra*); the *Sub-commentary Dissecting the Weighty* in one fascicle (explaining his own *Commentary on the Mañjuśrī-prajñā-sūtra*; the *Great Treatise* says: "dissecting the weighty to make it light"); the *Correct Meaning* in one fascicle (explaining the *Ten Non-dual Doors*); and the *Anthology of Leisurely Dwelling* in fifty-one fascicles (miscellaneous poetry and prose). All these used the Way to accord with genuine feeling, acting as auxiliary endorsements to transform beings through the Dharma. He once stated that the single *Śūraṅgama Sūtra* profoundly discusses the permanently abiding true mind and precisely demonstrates the practice and verification of the One Vehicle, serving as the ultimate canonical model handed down for posterity. A disciple requested him to compose a commentary, saying: "Those who have explained this sūtra are already two or three houses, yet students are not settled with their explanations. Why, Master, do you not draw upon the Threefold Contemplation and the Four Teachings to examine the text and unfold its meaning so as to guide future generations?" The Master complied with this, thoroughly investigating its essential tenets and judging that Master Zhiyi's doctrine of the Threefold Cessation coincided seamlessly with the sūtra. Jingjue remarked that his profound grasp of the sūtra was beyond what other masters could match. (The *Record from the Forest Grove* states: Tiantai heard that in the Western Heavens there was the *Śūraṅgama Sūtra*, but because the earthly ruler kept it secretly guarded and was unwilling to disseminate it, Tiantai often bowed toward the distance, praying that it would soon arrive in this land. Furthermore, Qingliang said: "I shall not live to see this sūtra. There will surely be an official-bodhisattva who translates the Buddha's words with literary style. After several more centuries, there will surely be a living bhikṣu who uses our teaching to explain this sūtra.") His commentary on the *Sūtra of Forty-Two Chapters* states: "When Buddhism spread eastward, it formed a triad together with the teachings of Confucius and Laozi. Yet when the instructions of Confucius and Laozi discuss nature and destiny, they do not reach the culmination of mind-only; when they speak of retribution, they do not arrive at the three times. As for ordering the world and pacifying the state, however, they cannot be dispensed with for a single day. But as for the teaching of Śākya, it points out that the entire realm of empty space is nothing but one's own mind, not merely stating that the Great Ultimate generates the Two Modes, or that the mysterious female is the root of heaven and earth. When it examines the retribution of good and evil, they are all one's own karma, not merely stating that the High God is not constant, or that the net of heaven is vast. From this, one can see that although Confucius and Laozi are expansive and all-encompassing, in aligning with the divine brilliance and probing the ultimate principle, they merely indicate the direction. The one who fully articulates its wonders—does this not reside in the teaching of the Śākya clan?" He also stated: "In returning to one's nature, there are depths and shallows; in speaking of affairs, there are distances and proximities: they cannot but differ. But as for moving toward goodness and shunning evil, conquering ruthlessness and getting rid of killing: they cannot but be the same."