佛祖統紀 45.28

45.28

In the seventh year, there was no rain in spring. An envoy was dispatched to Mount Dahong in Suizhou to pray for rain. The envoy arose early in the morning and knocked at the hall, where he met a divine monk in purple robes, who looked directly at him. On the following day, heavy rain fell. By imperial edict, [the monk] was conferred the title Master of Compassionate Endurance and Efficacious Succor (Ciren Lingji). ○ Zhang Fangping, Grand Protection of the Crown Prince, had once served [as prefect] in Chuzhou. Visiting a monks' lodge, he by chance caught sight of the *Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra*. Taking it in hand, he suddenly felt as though he had recovered an old belonging. Before finishing the roll he unrolled, past hindrances melted away like ice. Inspecting the brushstrokes closely, the handwriting was unmistakably his own. From this he attained awakening and entry, and he frequently elucidated the essentials of the mind using the four opening verses of the sūtra. Su Shi wrote an inscription at the back of the sūtra, stating: "What the former Buddha taught is the most wondrous, the real, definitive meaning; hence it is called the Chapter on the Buddha's Speech as the Mind. The ancestral teacher Bodhidharma transmitted it to the Second Patriarch, saying: 'I observe that among all the scriptures and teachings in Cīnasthāna, only this four-scroll *Laṅkāvatāra* can be used to imprint the mind.' Patriarch after patriarch transmitted it to one another as the mind-dharma, just as physicians have the *Nan jing*. Every phrase is principle, every character is Dharma. Later accomplished ones made it divine and illuminated it; like a pearl rolling in a basin, like a basin rolling about a pearl, nothing is unfeasible. Shi has visited the master's gate for thirty years. This year, passing through the Southern Capital, I saw the master at his private residence. The master was then seventy-nine; illusory extinction was completely exhausted, and the light of wisdom was round and complete. Shi is also old amid grief and hardship, with all hundred thoughts grown cold like ash. Deeming me capable of instruction, the master bestowed this sūtra on me, and gave thirty thousand cash to have it printed and distributed along the Yangzi and Huai rivers. Chan Master Foyin Yuan of Jinshan, considering that printing and distributing copies was limited while carving printing blocks would make it inexhaustible, wrote it out and had it carved on blocks, to be held in perpetuity at Jinshan." ○ An imperial laud on the translation of sūtras was bestowed upon the Tripiṭaka Master Dharmarakṣa (Fahu).