佛祖統紀 14.36

14.36

He devoted himself exclusively to the cultivation of the mindfulness-of-the-Buddha samādhi for ten years. He then traveled to Tiantai, Yandang, and Tianfeng, establishing Pure Land practice centers at each. In his later years, he returned to his place of study at Tianhua and built an Amitāyus Buddha Pavilion to receive clouds-and-water [traveling monks]. In the first year of the Zhenghe period, there was a drought. He went to the Temple of Emperor Shun on Mount Rizhu to pray for rain, which moved the Dragon King to manifest a golden body, and an abundant, soaking rain fell. At the end of the Jianyan period, he entered Mount Daowei and named his residence the Yixiang Hermitage. The clerics and laity of Kuaiji requested the Master to preside over continuous mindfulness. On the third night, the uṣṇīṣa jewel of the painted icon suddenly emitted light as large as a winnowing basket, and those attending the assembly became even more steadfast. On the last day of the first month in the fourteenth year of the Shaoxing period, he told his disciples, “The Buddha has come; I shall return to Sukhāvatī.” He wrote a verse as farewell: / “My years are ninety, my hair is already white; / in this world there should be no guests of a hundred years. / The Man of the Way of One Mark goes and returns; / sitting firmly upon the golden terrace, heaven and earth are narrow.” / Sitting upright, he forthwith passed away. On that day, people near the mountain saw extraordinary monks filling the valleys, none knowing whence they came. His whole body was interred behind his hermitage.