佛祖統紀 26.13

26.13

Dharma Master Yanshou, courtesy name Chongxuan, recited the Lotus Sūtra when his hair was still bound in tufts; he could read five columns at once, and finished it in sixty days. During the time of the Qian clan of Wuyue, he served as a tax commissioner. He used public funds to purchase fish and shrimp to release them. When the matter came to light, he was condemned to execution in the marketplace. The King of Wuyue sent someone to observe him, saying, 'If his countenance changes, behead him; if it does not change, release him.' When the time came, his countenance did not change, and his life was spared. He thereupon went to Chan Master Cuiyan of Siming to leave home. For clothing, he wore neither silk nor floss; for food, he took no multi-course meals. He then went to call upon State Preceptor Shao, who illuminated the essentials of mind for him, and once said to him, 'You have an affinity with Master Yuan. In the future, you will perform great Buddha-works. Alas, I will not live to see it!' At first he went to Master Zhizhe's Cliff on Mount Tiantai. For ninety days he practiced dhyāna, and birds nested in the folds of his robe. Later, at Guoqing Temple, he performed the Lotus Repentance. At night, he saw a spirit person holding a halberd enter. The Master rebuked him, saying, 'How dare you enter without leave?' [The spirit] replied, 'Only having long accumulated pure karma have I arrived here.' In the middle of the night, as he circumambulated the image, he saw a lotus flower in his hands before Samantabhadra. He thereupon went up to Zhizhe's Cliff and made two lots: one was 'A lifetime of dhyāna meditation'; the second was 'Reciting sūtras and performing the myriad good deeds to adorn the Pure Land.' Setting his mind in deep and focused prayer, he drew the lot for reciting sūtras and the myriad goods deeds—as many as seven times. Thereupon, with single-minded devotion, he cultivated pure karma. He shook his staff at Tianzhu Peak in Jinhua, reciting sūtras for three years. In meditative contemplation, he saw Avalokiteśvara pouring amṛta into his mouth, whereupon he acquired eloquence. He first expounded the Dharma at Xuedou. In the first year of the Jianlong era (the year the Taizu of our current dynasty received the abdication), King Zhongyi invited him to reside at Lingyin. In the second year, he moved to Yongming (now Jingci). He performed one hundred and eight daily practices, never setting them aside even for a moment. When students came to consult him, he pointed to the mind as the essential principle, taking awakening as the norm. At dusk, he would go to another peak to practice the path and recite the Buddha's name; bystanders heard the sounds of conch shells and heavenly music. King Zhongyi sighed and said, 'Since ancient times, among those who have sought the Western Direction, none has been so devoted and earnest as this!' He then built the Xiangyan Hall of the Western Direction for him to fulfill his aspiration. He resided at Yongming for fifteen years, with one thousand seven hundred disciples. He constantly conferred the Bodhisattva Precepts upon the assembly, taught them to give food to ghosts and spirits, and released living beings by day, dedicating all [merit] to the adornment of the Pure Land. People of the time called him an incarnation of Maitreya. On the twenty-sixth day of the second month of the eighth year of the Kaibao era, he arose in the morning, burned incense, took leave of the assembly, sat cross-legged, and transformed. He was bestowed the posthumous title 'Chan Master Zhijue'. The Master's teachings spread overseas; the King of Goryeo sent letters and offerings, observing the etiquette of a disciple. Because the three traditions of Tiantai, Xianshou, and Cien had mutual similarities and differences, the Master lodged those of his disciples who understood the Dharma, broadly perusing the ocean of doctrine and mutually interrogating difficult points. The Master weighed and balanced them using the scales of the Mind Tradition. Furthermore, he collected sixty works of Mahāyāna sūtras and treatises and the words of three hundred masters among the sages of both lands (India and China) to substantiate the tenet of consciousness-only, composing a work in one hundred scrolls titled the Zongjing [lu]. He also wrote the Wanshan tonggui ji (Treatise on the Common End of the Myriad Good Deeds), which points to the Pure Land and captures its essentials most profoundly. After the Master passed away, a stūpa was erected for him in the mountains. A monk came from Linchuan, saying, 'While ill, I entered the underworld. When I was released to return, I saw an image of a monk in a palace chamber. King Yama came in person to bow his head in reverence. I asked whose image this was, and the attendant official said: "It is Chan Master Shou of Hangzhou. Having heard that he has already been reborn in the highest grade of the Western Direction, the King reveres him and therefore pays homage to him here."' During the Chongning era, he was posthumously granted the posthumous title Chan Master Zongzhao. (See his main biography, the Longshu texts, and the Lin'an gazetteer).