佛祖統紀 6.17

6.17

The Third Patriarch, Venerable Huisi of Nanyue, surnamed Li, was a native of Wujin in Nanyuzhou under the Northern Wei. (In his own vow-text, Nanyue recounts: 'In the year of yiwei, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, I was born in Wujin County of Nanyuzhou in the Wei state.' This corresponds to the fourth year of the Yanchang reign-era of Emperor Xuanwu of the Wei, the fourteenth year of the Tianjian reign-era of Emperor Wu of the Liang, the year yiwei.) As a child, he dreamt of an Indian monk advising him to enter the path. He also saw his peers reciting the Lotus Sūtra, and his love for the Dharma deepened; having borrowed a copy, he contemplated it alone in an empty tomb. With no one to teach him, he wept day and night. Further, because a tomb is no place for humans to dwell, he relocated to an old city wall, digging a hole to lodge himself. By day he begged for food, and by night he did not attend to sleep. Facing the sūtra, tears streamed down as he bowed in veneration without cease. Prolonged rain and unventilated damp caused his whole body to swell with dropsy; patiently directing his mind toward the sūtra, the swelling suddenly disappeared. He also dreamt of Samantabhadra riding the king of white elephants, who rubbed the crown of his head and departed; what he had formerly been unable to read he now naturally comprehended, and where the crown was rubbed, a fleshy uṣṇīṣa faintly arose. At age fifteen (the second year of the Yong'an reign-era of Emperor Zhuang of the Wei), he went forth and received full ordination, cutting off mundane affairs to devote himself exclusively to reciting the Lotus Sūtra. He took only one meal a day and accepted no special invitations. The thatched hermitage he dwelt in was burned down by rustic folk, and they immediately contracted a virulent plague; coming to seek repentance, their illness was cured at once. He then rebuilt a thatched cottage and recited the sūtra as before. Again he dreamt of a monk who said: 'The precepts you previously received were by an inferior rite; how could they awaken the correct path?' Thereupon he saw forty-two monks perform the karmavācanā to confer the complete precept-dharma upon him. (The forty-two monks represent the forty-two stages, from the first abode up to wonderful enlightenment. This signifies that Nanyue was destined to attain purity of the six faculties and enter the ten faiths of the perfect teaching; therefore, the forty-two great beings along with the straightforward monk of wonderful enlightenment performed the rite for him to verify it.) Upon waking, he strove even more diligently in his regular practice. He also dreamt of the Buddhas Amitābha and Maitreya preaching the Dharma to him, and he followed Maitreya along with various noble companions to assemble at the Dragon Flower Tree; being extraordinarily moved and inspired, he redoubled his vigorous exertion. At age twenty (the first year of the Tianping reign-era of Emperor Xiaojing of the Eastern Wei), reading the Miaoshengding jing and seeing its praise of dhyāna-meditation, he extensively approached masters of dhyāna to study the Mahāyāna, constantly dwelling in forests and wilderness, practicing walking meditation and cultivating dhyāna. Later he visited Master Wen to ask for and receive oral instructions, and was instructed in the method of mind-contemplation. By day he labored in the affairs of the monastic assembly, and by night he sat in meditation until dawn. After the first three weeks, a slight tranquility initially arose, and he contemplated and saw the karmic marks of good and bad deeds from a single lifetime. Becoming ever more valiant, an obstacle to dhyāna suddenly arose: his four limbs became limp and weak, and his body would not obey his mind. He then contemplated within himself: 'This sickness I now have all arises from karma; karma arises from the mind, and originally has no external object.' Turning back to observe the source of the mind, karma was nowhere to be found. Thereupon the eight touches were activated, bringing forth the fundamental dhyāna (heaviness, lightness, cold, heat, roughness, smoothness, softness, and coarseness—these are the eight touches). Thereby he saw the traces of his practice of the path over three lifetimes. As the summer retreat concluded and he received his monastic seniority, he was about to ascend the hall when he lamented with a sigh: 'Formerly, when the Buddha was in the world, many realized the path upon completing the ninety-day retreat. Today I have received my Dharma seniority in vain, feeling profound inner shame.' As he went to lean his body against the wall, he had an open, great awakening to the Lotus Samādhi. From this point onward, sūtras he had never heard before were resolved naturally without doubt. In the sixth year of the Wuding reign-era of the Eastern Wei (at age thirty-four), he was in Yanzhou, Henan; debating with the assembly, he was poisoned by evil monks, but revived when on the verge of death. In the first year of the Tianbao reign-era of Northern Qi (at age thirty-six), he often remained in Henan, learning the Mahāyāna, visiting great dhyāna masters, and traveling through various commanderies. That year, the regional inspector wished to escort him back to Ye (the capital of Emperor Wenxuan of the Qi); the Master intended to head south, so he left the assembly and crossed the Huai River. At that time, an imperial edict summoned the dhyāna masters throughout the realm to enter the imperial palace to receive offerings (the Northern and Southern Dynasties often called the court the Inner Terrace); the Master used expedient means to decline and avoid going. In the fourth year, he reached Yingzhou, where he lectured on the meaning of the Mahāyāna for the regional inspector Liu Huaibao. Various evil debating masters put raw gold poison into his food; with his life at its brink, the Master single-mindedly contemplated the Prajñāpāramitā, and the poison immediately dissolved. In the fifth year, he went to Kaiyue Monastery in Guangzhou; five hundred households of Ba Zili, together with the regional inspector, invited him to lecture on the Mahāyāna-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra. In the sixth year, he lectured on the Mahāyāna at Mount Dasu in Guangzhou. (The Dongpo ji states: 'Forty li south of Guangshan County, south of Mount Dasu and north of Mount Xiaosu, there is a monastery named Jingju. During the Tianbao era of Qi, Dhyāna Master Si passed by this place and saw an old elder; asking his surname, the elder replied, 'Su.' Asking further the names of the two mountains, the Master sighed and said, 'My master told me that when I meet the three Sus, I should dwell there.' He then remained to build a hermitage, but the old elder completely disappeared; he was indeed the mountain god. Later, Dhyāna Master Yi came to visit the Master and obtained the Dharma.') In the seventh year, he lectured on the Mahāyāna at Guanyi Monastery west of the city. A crowd of evil debating masters vied to harm him; the Master vowed to produce a gold-lettered Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, to manifest immeasurable bodies in the lands of the ten directions to preach this sūtra, and to lead all evil debating masters to attain faithful minds and abide in non-retrogression. In the eighth year, he went to South Dingzhou, lecturing on the Mahāyāna for the regional inspector. Various evil debating masters competitively aroused malicious thoughts and barred the dānapatis from delivering food. For fifty days, he constantly sent disciples to beg for food to sustain life. At that time, he again made a firm vow, pledging to produce the gold-lettered Prajñāpāramitā to lecture upon for the multitude. In the ninth year, at Mount Dasu, he proclaimed to all quarters the need to produce the sūtra. Suddenly there was a monk named Senghe, who said of himself: 'I can produce the sūtra.' Having obtained the beginning of the text, he transformed the region, obtaining wealth to buy gold; at Qiguang Monastery in Guangcheng County, he completed two texts: the Large Prajñāpāramitā and the Lotus Sūtra. He placed them in jeweled cases and composed an essay of vows to record the event, wishing that his own body and these sūtras would appear simultaneously at the time of Maitreya Buddha to broadly convert all beings. He also stated: 'Those worldly monastics and laity who earnestly invite one to preach, or who forcefully urge one to preach, are all bad spiritual friends: at first they seem well-intentioned, but afterward they become angry. The scholars are like enemies pretending to be intimates, and are likewise untrustworthy; the various kings and kṣatriyas are also like this. Discern, discern, discern, discern!' (Fazhi and Ciyun both speak of the 'four discernments of Zhuling', which refer to this: monastics and laity who urge preaching, those who forcefully urge preaching, scholars who feign intimacy, and kings and kṣatriyas—these four classes must all be discerned. The above passages are all found in Nanyue's vow-text.) As the Master's renown and practice spread afar, his disciples grew daily in number; the crowd mixed refined and coarse, and disputes frequently arose. He then addressed his disciples, saying: 'When the Great Sage was in the world, he did not escape rumors; how could I, lacking virtue, escape this debt? A debt was contracted in the past; when the time comes, it must be borne—this is a private matter. But the Qi dynasty's fortunes are about to collapse, and the Buddha-Dharma will be temporarily darkened (the Qi was later destroyed by the Zhou; Emperor Wu of the Zhou abolished both Buddhism and Daoism); to what quarter should I go to avoid this disaster?' Suddenly a voice from the sky said: 'If you wish to cultivate samādhi, you should go to Wudang and Nanyue.' The Master lingered in Guangzhou, occasionally traveling to neighboring commanderies to preach for the assembly, for a total of fourteen years (from his arrival in Guangzhou in the fifth year of Tianbao to his entry into Nanyue in the second year of Guangda of the Chen, it was fourteen years from beginning to end). Guangzhou was on the border between Chen and Qi; beacon fires frequently flared up, leaving the assembly no peaceful dwelling. Thus in the second year of the Guangda reign-era of the Chen, he went to reside at Nanyue, telling his disciples: 'I shall lodge on this mountain for exactly ten years; after this, I will surely undertake a distant journey.' (The Master entered Nanyue and passed away in the ninth year of Dajian, precisely ten years later.) Prior to this, an eminent monk of the Liang dynasty, Dhyāna Master Hai, resided there; upon meeting, they felt like old acquaintances, and he yielded the mountain to the Master to practice the path. One day the Master ascended Zhurong Peak; the mountain god was playing weiqi. The god bowed to the Master and said: 'Why has the Master come here?' The Master said: 'I seek from the dānapati a space for one sitting mat.' The god agreed. The Master then cast his tin staff to determine the site (this is now Fuyan Monastery). The god said: 'The Master has already claimed the auspicious ground; where shall your disciple reside?' The Master rolled a stone drum, which rolled down until it met flat ground and stopped (the sculpted image of the Mountain Lord still sits upon the stone drum today). The mountain god requested the precepts, and the Master preached the essentials of the Dharma for him. One day the Master said to the mountain god: 'Another day, when I face disaster, the dānapati will also face disaster.' The Master pointed beneath a cliff and said: 'In one of my previous lives, I sat in dhyāna here; a bandit severed my head.' Searching, they found a heap of dry bones (now the First-Life Cliff of Fuyan). Arriving at the southwest corner, he pointed to a large rock and said: 'In my second previous life, I also lived here.' He picked up the skull and erected a stūpa to repay the kindness of his past cultivation (now the Second-Life Stūpa). Reaching a secluded and dense area, he said: 'This is an ancient monastery; in my third previous life, I lodged here.' He instructed people to dig, and there were indeed monastic utensils and foundation stones of halls; he then built a platform to preach the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra to the assembly (now the Three-Lifetimes Repository). The assembly suffered from lack of water; the Master planted his staff against the cliff, and a tiger scratched the ground, whereupon a spring gushed forth (now Tiger-Scratch Spring). In the first year of the Dajian reign-era, Ouyang Zhengze, a Daoist priest of the Nine Immortals Abbey, observed an extraordinary aura on the mountain and plotted with his fellows, saying: 'This aura indicates a brown-robed Dharma King; if he flourishes, our teaching will decline.' Thereupon they quarried and severed the heart of the mountain, driving iron spikes into the stone to practice witchcraft (see the note in Fascicle 3 of the Treatise on Prosperity and Decline), and buried weapons on the mountain. They deceitfully submitted a memorial claiming: 'The northern monk was recruited by the Qi to do this.' Emperor Xuan dispatched an envoy to investigate. When first crossing the stone bridge, two tigers roared, and the envoy retreated in fright. The next day he advanced again. The Master said: 'Let the dānapati go ahead; this poor monk shall follow shortly.' After an interval of seven days, the envoy had not yet arrived; the Master flew his tin staff and went to Jinling. He was seen entering through all four city gates. When the envoy arrived, they were granted audience together. The Emperor sat in the private hall and saw the Master descend through the sky, his monkly bearing extraordinary; astonished and convinced of his spiritual power, he asked no questions. Regarding the Daoist priests' false accusation and deception of the sovereign, he ordered an investigation; their offense warranted execution in the public marketplace. The Master pleaded: 'Taking people's lives is not the wish of this poor monk. I beg that they be released back to the mountain; to serve the monastic assembly as attendants would suffice as a minor punishment.' The Emperor consented, ordering the officials to cast iron into fourteen tallies, inscribed with the names of the fourteen Daoist priests encircling them, sealed with the imperial seal, and ordered them to follow the Master back to the mountain. As he was about to depart, he saw him off with extraordinary honors, addressing him as the Great Dhyāna Master; the title 'Great [Master] Si' was derived from this. Initially, an edict housed him at Qixuan Monastery; he once visited the Waguan Vihāra, where rain did not wet him and mud did not soil his shoes. The Monastic Controller Huigao met him on the road and sighed: 'A person of such divine marvel—how did he come to this?' From then on, both monastics and laity throughout the court were inclined in heart to revere him. The Grand Area Commander Wu Mingche, whenever attending Dharma discussions, wished to present a rhinoceros horn pillow but dared not speak. The Master said: 'If you wish to give the pillow, simply do so.' Mingche was all the more astounded. After the Master returned to the mountain, he preached the Dharma as before. The Daoist priests reported their old age and sickness, offering several qing of land for the temple kitchen to redeem their elderly bodies. The Master said: 'If you wish to leave the land, I will grant your wish.' It was thus named Liutian Estate (commonly called the Daoists' Ransom Estate). The bestowed iron tallies were all stored away, and a stone inscription recorded the event, titled 'Record of the Iron Tallies Bestowed by the Emperor of the Chen Dynasty on Great Dhyāna Master Si of Nanyue for Subduing the Daoist Priests'. At that time, the Daoist priests made a secret vow: 'In this life, our supernormal powers and official influence are both inferior to yours; five hundred years later, we shall be born into your Dharma to destroy your teaching.' The Master also foretold: 'These Daoists harm me without cause; in a future day, wearing my kāṣāya, they will enter my saṅghārāma and destroy my remains.' (During the reign of Emperor Taizong of the Great Song, a grand minister went out to govern Hunan; passing by this mountain, he toured the remnants and said to the abbot: 'Another day, when the Daoists have their way, they will surely seek revenge; we should bury the stone stele and change the estate's name, so that no trace may be found.' Thus the name was changed to Tianzhu Estate, and the stele and tallies were buried in the Three-Lifetimes Repository cloister. During the Daguan era, the Daoist priest Lin Lingsu deluded the Emperor's ear, and indeed dispatched a document to search for this matter; finding no trace to investigate, he ceased. In the beginning of the Qiandao era, a certain Jiezhi'an came to preside over this mountain and said to the assembly: 'The Second-Life Stūpa has fallen into overgrown brambles; paying homage to it is inconvenient; it should be relocated and joined to the Three-Lifetimes Stūpa.' In fact, Jie intended to take the land privately for his own stūpa. Thereupon, with fourteen stewards equipped with axes and mattocks, they opened the stone niche and saw the sacred relics were golden in color; there was a stone screen engraved with the names of Ouyang Zhengze and others, whose reincarnations were the present abbot, managers, and temple servants, not differing in the least from their present names. The multitude was terrified. That evening, the Mountain Lord's temple was completely consumed by fire. Hearing of this, the prefectural and county authorities pursued their arrest with great urgency; Jie and his fellows all fled and scattered. The monastery assembly re-interred the bones. Later, when Jie resided at another mountain, whenever he took the high seat, he invariably repented and rebuked himself before the assembly, seeking to avoid retribution in future lives. Remarks: It has now been seven hundred years since Nanyue. Master Jie indeed fulfilled the secret vow, and the Master and the mountain god indeed matched the earlier prophecy; how extraordinary! Yet although Master Jie acted from an evil vow, he was ultimately able to take refuge in the Śākya clan, taking defamation as a condition; this is just enough to make manifest Nanyue's power of gathering beings.) When the Master was about to pass away, he gathered his disciples and preached the Dharma for consecutive days, rebuking them bitterly and earnestly so that his listeners were chilled at heart. He then said: 'If there are ten people who do not begrudge life or limb, constantly cultivating the Lotus Samādhi, the mindfulness-of-Buddha samādhi, the Vaipulya repentance, and the ascetic practice of constant sitting, I will personally supply whatever they need. If there is no such person, I shall depart far away.' In the end, no one responded; he dismissed the assembly, gathered his thoughts, and was about to enter quiescence. His disciple Lingbian wept aloud unawares; the Master scolded him, saying: 'Evil demon, be gone! The holy multitude has come to welcome me and is just discussing the place of my rebirth; why do you disturb me?' Thereupon, sitting upright, he chanted that the Buddha had come to welcome him, joined his palms, and passed away. His countenance was like life, and an extraordinary fragrance filled the room. This was on the twenty-second day of the sixth month of the ninth year of Dajian, at the age of sixty-three, having forty-nine summer retreats. Initially at Dasu, he entrusted the Dharma to Master Yi, who afterward often lectured on the Prajñāpāramitā on his behalf. Coming to the phrase 'one mind is endowed with the ten thousand practices', he suddenly had a doubt. The Master said: 'Your doubt pertains only to the graded intent of the Large Sūtra; it is not yet the perfect and sudden import of the Lotus. Formerly, during the summer retreat, I realized in a single thought all phenomena appearing before me; since I have personally verified it, you need not doubt.' Master Yi asked whether what he realized was the ten grounds. He replied: 'In this life, I hoped to enter the copper wheel (the ten abodes of the perfect teaching); because I led disciples too early, harming myself while benefiting others, I reside only in the iron wheel.' (The Master attained purity of the six faculties, which is the ten faiths of the perfect teaching, the thirty minds of the distinct teaching, the pure conduct of the Avataṃsaka, and the iron wheel stage of the Yingluo.) The Master had an upright and sturdy physique; his ears had double lobes, and the crown of his head had a fleshy uṣṇīṣa; his gait was like that of an ox or an elephant, leaning neither left nor right. Ordinarily, against the cold, he wore only a patch-robe (The Lotus Sūtra says: 'A patch-robe in seclusion.' The Vinaya calls it the five-patch robe, meaning patching together five kinds of old rags to make a robe; the popular character na loses the meaning); silks and paddings he would not accept at all. Wherever he resided, auspicious wonders were redoubled; offering vessels were fully prepared, and pitchers filled themselves with water. Various heavenly youths served as his attendants, sometimes manifesting in great or small forms, sometimes hiding their forms in silence; extraordinary fragrances and wondrous signs were beyond recording. He often instructed the assembly, saying: 'The source of the Way is not far; the ocean of nature is not remote. Seek it only within yourself; do not pursue it from another. If you pursue it, you will not get it; and what is gotten is not real.' He also said in verse: 'Awakening suddenly to the mind-source opens the jewel treasury; / Hidden or manifest, divine penetrations reveal the true mark. / Walking alone, sitting alone, ever towering; / Hundreds of billions of transformation bodies beyond count. / Even if they crowd and fill empty space, / When inspected, not the mark of a single fine dust particle is seen. / How laughable a thing, beyond comparison! / The mouth emits a bright pearl of dazzling radiance. / One usually hears talk of the inconceivable; / A single word reveals the name, hitting the mark beneath the word.' He also said in verse: 'Heaven cannot cover it; / Earth cannot carry it. / No going, no coming, unobstructed; / No long, no short, neither blue nor yellow; / Not in the middle, nor inside or outside. / Transcending the multitude, standing out, extremely vast and mysterious; / Pointing to things to transmit the mind, people do not understand.' His writings were mostly dictated orally, written down into chapters and phrases by his disciples: the Forty-Two Characters Gate, the Gate of Non-Contention Practice, the Mahāyāna Cessation and Contemplation, each in two fascicles; the Essentials of the Commentary, Practice According to One's Own Mind, Peaceful Practice, Gradual Essentials of Dhyāna, and Contemplation Gate of the Three Wisdoms, each in one fascicle. (Extracted variously from Nanyue's vow-text, the Record of Iron Tallies, and the Southern Mountain Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks. ○ The Chuandeng lu states: 'Master Zhi sent someone to say to Master Si: 'Why do you not descend the mountain to convert sentient beings?' The Master replied: 'The Buddhas of the three periods have been swallowed down in a single gulp by me; what sentient beings are there to convert?' Examining Nanyue's vow-text now, his self-recorded year of birth corresponds to the fourteenth year of the Tianjian reign-era of Emperor Wu of the Liang; arriving at Nanyue only in the second year of Guangda of the Chen, he was fifty-four years of age. Master Zhi had already passed away, long before, in the era of Emperor Wu of the Liang. There could not have been such an emissary and question. We suspect today that this was another master, whom later people mistakenly transmitted as Master Zhi.')