佛祖統紀 26.38

26.38

Lei Cizong, courtesy name Zhonglun, was a native of Nanchang in Yuzhang. He was broadly learned and understood the Odes and the Rites. He entered Mount Lu, joined the Lotus Society, and established a lodge to the east of Donglin. In the fifteenth year of Yuanjia, he was summoned to the capital, where he established an academy on Mount Jilong with one hundred students enrolled. He was appointed as a supervising secretary, but did not accept the post. After some time, he returned to Nanchang; the grand ministers held a farewell banquet to see him off. In a letter to his sons and nephews, he wrote: "In my childhood years, I already harbored far-reaching ambitions; at the age of capping, I entrusted myself to Mount Lu to serve the upādhyāya Shi. For more than twenty years, I wandered in the Dao and tasted the wind. Once the profound master collapsed in death, I returned with you all to plow our ancestral fields. Living in the mountains and drinking from the valleys, ten years have suddenly passed again. While I am not yet old now, I can still exert my resolve to become a ferry and bridge for the westward return. From now on, in household affairs large or small, do not involve me at all." In the twenty-fifth year, he was summoned and appointed as a cavalier attendant-in-ordinary, but did not take it up. He was summoned again to the capital, where he built a lodge on Mount Zhong, calling it the "Lodge for Summoning the Recluse." Whenever he went from the Hualin Garden to the Hall of Extending Virtues, he lectured on the ritual classics for the crown prince and the various princes. That year, he died without illness at the age of sixty-three. His son Suzhi considerably continued his father's pure career and rose in official rank to assistant administrator of Yuzhang Commandery.