佛祖統紀 7.5

7.5

The Sixth Patriarch, the Venerable Fahua, Zhiwei, had the family name Jiang and was a native of Jinyun in Chuzhou. His mother was of the Zhu clan. For generations his family had been Confucian scholars. At the age of eighteen, he became the head of students (an office of the commandery school) of his native commandery. His parents bade him return home to take a wife. On the road he met an Indian monk who said to him, 'Young man, what mind have you to violate your solemn vows of the past?' Thereupon he showed him his five vows, which said: 'First, I vow to maintain right mindfulness at the end of life. Second, I vow not to fall into the three miserable destinies. Third, I vow to take birth among human beings. Fourth, I vow to leave household life as a youth. Fifth, I vow not to be a monk of worldly fashion.' For in his previous life he had been Xu Ling, who had listened to Zhiyi expounding the sūtras and attained deep understanding, personally making these vows before Zhiyi. Having heard his vows, the Master did not return home, but went directly to Guoqing [Monastery] to place himself under Zhang'an as his teacher. After receiving the full precepts, he inquired after and received the essentials of the mind; both concentration and wisdom burst forth, and he immediately realized the Lotus Samādhi. In the first year of the Shangyuan reign of the Tang (Gaozong), wishing to divine an auspicious site to expound the Dharma and save people, he held his monk's staff and vowed, 'Wherever my staff comes to rest shall be my dwelling place.' His staff flew from Guoqing to Mount Putong on Cangling (the boundary between Taizhou and Wuzhou), some five hundred li away. Because it was narrow and could not accommodate a great multitude, he cast it into the air again, and it reached Mount Xuanyuan Liandan. Having arrived there, the Master cut away thorns, mowed the reeds, spread brushwood for a seat, and gathered stones as disciples. By day he expounded the teachings and by night sat in meditation, copying the scriptures of the canon by hand. He then named the place Fahua ('Lotus'). Before long, learners came like children [gathering around a father]: three hundred practiced meditation and seven hundred listened to the lectures. They were regularly divided into nine places for the retreat. The Master was seven feet tall, with an ancient and refined skeletal frame. Whenever he ascended the seat, a purple cloud covered his crown, shaped like a jeweled canopy. Birds perched at his side just like domestic fowl. The community suffered from a lack of water; he dug a stone well only three feet deep, which supplied a thousand people daily and never dried up, winter or summer. From Fahua to Shangban in Xianju (Xianju was an administrative district of Taizhou; 'ban' [阪] is the same as 'ban' [坂], meaning a slope; pronounced fan) was about eighty li. The Master traveled back and forth every day, yet was never slightly late for meals, meditation, or lectures. Everyone said he possessed the supernatural power of swift travel. On the twenty-eighth day of the eleventh month in the first year of the Yonglong reign, he sat cross-legged in the meditation hall and passed away. The extraordinary fragrance did not cease for seven days. (From the initial construction of the monastery in the first year of Shangyuan until his entering into extinction in the first year of Yonglong, it was merely seven years.) On that day, the multitude saw him pass away sitting in the monastery, while the people of Shangban saw the Master going to a donor's house. The arising and extinction of a perfect person are unfathomable like this. Although many received the Dharma from him, only Master Tiangong Wei was his true successor. During the reign of Emperor Taizong, his renown and virtue reached the imperial hearing; he was summoned and appointed Grand Master of Closing Court, and enfeoffed as a 'Great Master of the Four' (Elders pass down the tradition that the Tang had four Great Masters, meaning the Imperial Chariot Escort Great Master, the State-Protecting Great Master, while the other two have not been heard of. Now, investigating the biographies of monks of the Sui and Tang in detail, there is only the title of Imperial Chariot Escort, and of these officials there were four). The King of Wuyue requested the posthumous title 'Venerable Xuanda'. In the first year of the Huangyou reign of the Song dynasty, Wu Zhi, magistrate of Xianju, rebuilt the hall and courtyard at the site where he had transmitted the Way and enshrined his true image. That night, a tiger circled the hall three times and departed. In the fifth year of the Yuanfeng reign, Dharma Master Zhong, his descendant in the thirteenth generation, bowed in person to his relics, embellished his stūpa, and recorded his actual conduct, writing: 'The Master and Tiangong carried out their transformations at the same time; both received official titles and succeeded to the position of patriarch. If counted horizontally, they form only eight generations, but if distinguished vertically, there are nine generations. In ancient times, when the Tathāgata entered nirvāṇa, Ānanda compiled the teachings and produced two disciples: one named Śāṇavāsa and one named Madhyāntika. Although they dwelt in different countries, their teaching and transformation were the same. Therefore, in the transmission of the Dharma treasury, they are horizontally arrayed as twenty-three, and vertically distinguished as twenty-four. Now, when Zhiyi manifested extinction, Zhang'an compiled the teachings and produced two disciples, also at the same time. When Ānanda compiled the teachings, King Ajātaśatru sent offerings for one summer retreat; when Zhang'an compiled the teachings, Emperor Yang sent offerings for ten years. Tracing the stream back to its source, Zhiyi is like a Buddha in the eastern land; Zhang'an is similar to Ānanda; the two Weis are also like Śāṇavāsa and Madhyāntika; and Emperor Yang's external protection is identical to King Ajātaśatru. How could one not believe this?' To this day, no spring grass grows on the old site where the Master used to sit in meditation.