佛祖歷代通載 12.5

12.5

（二）　四祖道信大師示寂。師姓司馬。世居河內。後徙蘄州。生而超異。幼慕空宗諸解脫門。宛如夙習。既紹祖位。攝心無寐脇不至席者。僅六十年。隋大業末。領眾至吉州。值群盜圍城。七旬不解萬眾惶怖。師憫之。教誦摩訶般若。既而賊眾望雉堞間。若有神兵。乃相謂曰。城中必有異人。遂即引去。武德中始居破頭山學徒奔湊。甞一日於黃梅道中逢一小兒。骨相秀異。師曰。汝何姓。答曰。姓即有不是常姓。師曰。是何姓。答曰。是佛性。師曰。汝無性耶。答曰。性即空故。師默識其為法器。令侍者詣其母求之出家。母以夙緣故了無難色。以至傳衣付法。偈曰。華種有生性。因地華生生。大緣與信合。當生生不生。遂以學徒委之。一日告眾曰。吾甞游廬山。登絕頂望破頭山。見紫雲如蓋。下有白氣橫分六道汝等會否。眾皆默然。忍大師曰。莫是和上他後橫出一枝佛法否。師曰善。貞觀末太宗嚮師道味欲瞻風彩。詔赴京師師上表遜謝。前後三返竟以疾辭。第四度命使者曰。如果不起即取首來。使至山諭旨。師乃引頸就刃神色怡然。使異之。回以狀聞。帝彌加歎慕。就賜珍繒以遂其志。及是忽垂誡門人曰。一切諸法悉皆解脫。汝等各自護念流化未來。言訖安坐而逝。壽七十有二。塔于本山。明年四月八日。塔戶無故自開。儀相如生。爾後門人不敢復閉。代宗諡大醫禪師云。

(2) The Fourth Patriarch, Great Master Daoxin, manifested cessation. The master was surnamed Sima, his family having resided in Henei for generations, and later moving to Qizhou. Exceptional from birth, as a youth he longed for the School of Emptiness and the various gates of liberation, as though through past practice. After succeeding to the patriarchal seat, he collected his mind without sleep, his ribs never touching a mat for nearly sixty years. At the end of the Daye era of the Sui, he led a congregation to Jizhou, where they encountered bands of bandits besieging the city. For seventy days the siege was not lifted, and the myriad people were terrified. The master took pity on them and instructed them to chant the Mahāprajñā[pāramitā]. Before long, when the bandit hordes looked toward the battlements, there appeared to be divine soldiers; they said to one another, 'There must be an extraordinary person in the city,' and immediately withdrew. In the Wude era, he first resided at Potou Mountain, where students flocked to him. One day along the road in Huangmei he met a young boy whose appearance and bone structure were remarkably extraordinary. The master asked, 'What is your family name (xing)?' He replied, 'I have a nature (xing), but it is no ordinary surname (xing).' The master asked, 'What nature is it?' He replied, 'It is the Buddha-nature.' The master said, 'Do you have no nature?' He replied, 'Because the nature is empty.' The master silently recognized that he was a vessel of the Dharma, and sent an attendant to his mother to request that he leave household life. Because of past affinity, the mother showed no reluctance at all. Eventually, [Daoxin] transmitted the robe and bequeathed the Dharma to him, saying in a verse: 'Flowers' seeds possess the nature of arising; / Relying on the ground, the flowers grow and arise. / When the great affinity accords with faith (xin), / That which arises, as it arises, does not arise.' He then entrusted his students to him. One day he told the assembly: 'I once traveled to Mount Lu, and climbing the highest peak to gaze toward Potou Mountain, I saw purple clouds like a canopy, beneath which white vapors horizontally branched into six paths. Do you understand?' The assembly was entirely silent. Great Master [Hong]ren said, 'Could it mean that later the Upādhyāya will branch out into a lineage of the Buddha Dharma?' The master said, 'Good!' At the end of the Zhenguan era, Taizong, yearning for the master's taste of the Dao and wishing to behold his demeanor, summoned him to the imperial capital. The master submitted a memorial declining with thanks, and after three successive attempts, ultimately excused himself on grounds of illness. On the fourth occasion, [the Emperor] commanded the envoy: 'If he will not rise, then bring his head.' When the envoy arrived at the mountain and proclaimed the decree, the master merely stretched forth his neck to receive the blade, his countenance completely serene. Marveling at this, the envoy returned to report the situation. The Emperor sighed in admiration all the more, and granted fine silks to let him fulfill his aspiration. When this time came, he suddenly offered an admonition to his disciples: 'All dharmas are entirely liberated. Each of you must guard your thoughts and transmit the transformation into the future.' Having finished speaking, he sat peacefully and passed away. His age was seventy-two. A stupa was erected on his home mountain. On the eighth day of the fourth month of the following year, the stupa door opened of itself for no reason; his demeanor and appearance were as if alive. Thereafter, the disciples dared not close it again. Emperor Daizong bestowed the posthumous title Chan Master Dayi.