佛祖統紀 13.25

13.25

Dharma Master Chuqian belonged to the Pan clan of Yongjia. His mother was moved by a dream of an auspicious cloud entering her bosom, becoming pregnant and giving birth after three years. At the age of nine, he left home under Qineng of Changning. During the reign of Zhangsheng, he was ordained through imperial favor. (In the first year of Xiangfu of Zhenzong, when the Mount Tai sacrifice was performed, an edict ordered monasteries and abbeys throughout the realm to ordain one person each.) He then went to study at Tianzhu. Ciyun marveled at him, saying, 'This is one capable of being a pillar of our Way.' He also visited Shenzhao and greatly clarified the purport of the perfect and sudden. He burned three fingers as an offering to the Buddhas and patriarchs, praying for wondrous awakening. Before long, he was elevated to the first seat. Shenzhao handed him a set of the *Zhiguan* (*Calming and Contemplation*), saying, 'You shall erect the great banner of the Dharma; I only regret that I will not see it.' Afterward, he returned to his home district to succeed to Master Neng's seat. He relocated to Ciyun, Miaoguo, and Chicheng, and his propagation of the Way became ever more flourishing. Junior Preceptor Li Duanque invited him to preside over Bailian. The Prince of Beihai Commandery petitioned for the title Shenwu ('Divine Awakening') for him. Prime Minister Wang Anshi and the court worthies of the time vied with one another to compose songs and poems praising his virtue. During a great drought in the commandery, the master was invited to pray for rain. The master arrived at the Dragon Pool and addressed it, saying, 'You received the entrustment of Great Master Zhizhe: when encountering a drought, you should bestow sweet moisture; why do you not remember?' Suddenly a gale and dark clouds arose from the pool, and torrential rain poured down. After seventeen years, as he was about to return to Yongjia, the commandery prefect, gentry, and commoners firmly detained him to expound the teachings. Thereupon, he lectured on the *Shorter Prajñā[pāramitā]* at the Huilin Vihāra on Mount Jinzi. Later, Patriarch Wuze of Hangzhou invited him to Baoge, Zhao Xian invited him to Jingzhu, Academician of the Hanlin Academy Yang Hui invited him to Nanping, and Secretariat Drafter Chen of the Purple Secretariat invited him to Tianzhu. Ten times he presided over bodhimaṇḍas over forty years, lecturing and chanting untiringly. Three thousand people came to his gate, and thirty received the Dharma. On the bingyin day in the fourth month of the yimao year of Xining, he arose in the morning, bathed, changed his robes, and assembled the congregation to chant the *Fahua sanmei xingfa* and the *Amitābha Sūtra*. He then said, 'I have attained the daily functioning of non-arising for a long time; now through non-arising I am born in the Pure Land.' He immediately entered samādhi and passed away peacefully. His intact body was entombed in a stūpa to the right of Nanping. His disciple Liangbi requested Yang Jie of Wuwei to compose an inscription for his stūpa, which read: The master once explained the *Ten Non-Dual Gates*, entitling it *Xianmiao* ('Revealing the Wondrous'). Regarding the non-duality of form and mind, it says: 'Differentiating form and mind is duality within non-duality, which is the realm of delusion. Their essence being one is non-duality within duality, which is the gate of the wondrous.' Thus, through the general and specific, he eliminated the characteristics of duality and non-duality across the ten gates, making the coarse and the wondrous evident and the purport of the gates unobstructed. From this, one knows that the non-dual gate of the wondrous object lies within a single thought of form and mind. Attaining this gate, the precious vehicle is mounted, and the bodhimaṇḍa can be reached.