佛祖統紀 16.47

16.47

Dharma Master Zongyin, courtesy name Yuanshi, of the Chen family of Yanguan, was styled Beifeng. The Master was neighboring in wisdom and virtue. At age fifteen he received the full precepts, and first visited Zhu'an of Danghu, obtaining the essential principles of the teachings and contemplation. Whatever standard sayings of the patriarchs he encountered, he unfailingly recited them a full thousand times. He entered Nanhu to cultivate the extended repentance. The Zhou family invited him to dwell in a hermitage; he admonished them to reform their unlawful rent measurements, reducing them by five hundred bushels a year. He went to visit Yan of Xiangtian (Yuanwu) and in turn questioned him on the meaning of [Bodhidharma's] coming from the West. The Master replied, "Suffering an injustice with nowhere to cry out." Yan approved of him. On the anniversary of Zhiyi's passing, he burned incense at night in the hall brazier and wept aloud; Yan was moved by his devotion and sent him back to Nanhu with generous gifts. He once reflected on the meaning of the Land of Quiescent Light possessing form; he heard a voice in the void say, "The substance of the Land of Quiescent Light is like the moon in the water." Xu Tang of Zijiao invited him to occupy the seat of head monk. Tang composed the Zongji lun (Treatise on the Ultimate Tenet) upholding Zhiyong's view that phenomena and principle each establish a distinct nature. The Master posed nine objections, and the Zongji lun was conceptually defeated. Controller-general Su Pin contemplated the Entrance to Non-Duality, but because the text was concise, he remained obscure about its explanation; the Master highlighted its pivotal essentials, and Pin immediately understood. Pin reported this to the Master's teacher, requesting that he reside at Zhengjue. A hurricane raged (the character ju is pronounced like ju; violent winds are frequent in coastal commanderies, meaning winds from all four quarters; Dongpo has a Rhapsody on the Hurricane), and only the Tripitaka Hall survived; the Master stood fast even unto death without leaving, and the wind ceased for him. When someone asked him to administer the precepts to a shrine deity to eliminate blood sacrifices, he was first moved by a dream to go to another shrine's medium; the deity spoke, requesting that the sacrifices be changed, in over a dozen shrines. He was transferred to preside over Yinxue; not long after, Pin was also recalled and urged the Master to accompany him, saying, "Why not return west and propagate [the teachings] together?" Having dwelt in the east for twenty-seven years, he now returned to Western Zhejiang. He served as assistant at Shangzhu, lecturing on the Great Calming and Contemplation, deeply lancing the students' ailment of dissecting names and characteristics. As students surrounded his seat holding books, the abbot became jealous of his winning people over, so he departed to live in seclusion at the Mao family hermitage on Leifeng. Those inquiring after the Way arrived in swarms. The Du family built the Puguang quarter and welcomed him with full ritual decorum. Meditation and lecturing proceeded together, and the path of the Dharma flourished all the more. Just then, an invitation came from Dezan; the Master said, "This is the place where I pursued my studies; I have long wished to repay it." He successively transferred to Chaoguo, Yuantong, and Beichan. His reputation for virtue and the Way having already spread, the achievements of his building projects were also accomplished. Haikong Ying took leave of Lingshan and recommended the Master to succeed him; an imperial decree approved it. Five hundred disciples were all won over by his Way, and long-standing abuses and old habits were completely reformed. Emperor Ningzong had long heard the Master's fame and summoned him for an audience in an informal palace hall, asking about the main tenets of the Buddhadharma; his words were concise and his reasoning clear. The Emperor was greatly reverent and pleased, bestowing very generous gifts and granting him the title Dharma Master Huixing. In the sixth year of Jiading, in order to construct a contemplation chamber, he traveled to convert people in the Wu region. When he reached the hermitage of his disciple Xingyi in Songjiang, he said to his followers, "My transformative affinity ends here," and then peacefully passed away lying on his right side; it was the eighth day of the twelfth month. His casket was entombed beside the Ciyun Stūpa. The Master kept the three robes in accordance with the vinaya and strictly refrained from the five pungent roots; his power in the Way was purely realized, moving both the unseen and the visible realms. He corrected evil, delivered the stagnant, eradicated consumptive illnesses, and quelled pestilence; whenever a prayer was offered, none failed to be cured. He often said that a lecturer must possess three dharmas: maintaining dignified deportment to face the great assembly; presenting the main outline to exhaust the meaning of the text; and possessing the ancestral eye to reveal object and contemplation. Only when possessing these three might one vaguely presume to lecture. He authored the Jin'gang xinjie (New Commentary on the Diamond Sūtra), explaining Maitreya's verses and concisely indicating the agreements and differences between Vasubandhu and Kumārajīva; his textual verification of the various editions of this sūtra, particularly regarding the words "jí" (即) and "zé" (則), was exceptionally well grounded. He composed over a hundred chapters on doctrinal meanings, which were especially transcribed and circulated by students. Among those who inherited his Dharma and attained renown were Guiyun Yuancui and more than ten others. As for those who transmitted the teachings to Japan, there was Shunjō alone. Among officials and Confucian scholars who received his Way, there were three or four. Only Foguang Fazhao succeeded him with great prosperity across generations, shedding luster upon the Way of the patriarchs.