佛祖歷代通載 22.207

22.207

（三十　癸亥）　至治三年八月十四日。天目山中峯卒。勅諡普應國師法雲之塔。奎章學士虞集奉勅撰銘。其略云。天目之山有師子岩。高峯妙禪師居之。設死關以辨決。參學之士望崖而退者眾矣。得一人曰本公是為中峯和上。師生有異徵。為童兒嬉戲必為佛事。稍長閱經教然指臂。求佛甚切。晝夜彌勵。困則首觸柱以自儆。期必得乃已。及入死關密叩心要。誦金剛經。至荷擔如來阿耨多羅三藐三菩提處。恍然開悟。自謂所證未極。勵精勤苦咨訣無怠。及觀流泉乃大發明。師亦閟而不聞。自是說法無礙。高峯將戢化權。遂書真贊屬諸師云我相不思議。佛祖莫能視。獨許不肖兒。見得半邊鼻。其授受不虛若此。著書若干卷。行于世。仁宗皇帝聞而聘之。不至。製金紋伽黎衣賜之。號之佛慈圓照廣惠禪師。賜師子院。名曰正宗禪寺云云。師諱明本。宋景定癸亥歲生錢塘孫氏。年六十一。僧臘三十五。化於其山之東岡。

[30, Guihai (1323)] On the fourteenth day of the eighth month in the third year of the Zhizhi reign period, Zhongfeng of Mount Tianmu passed away. By imperial order, he was posthumously granted the title National Preceptor Puying, and his stupa was named Fayun. Academician of the Kuizhang Hall Yu Ji composed the inscription by imperial command. Its outline reads: On Mount Tianmu is the Lion Cliff, where Chan Master Gaofeng Miao resided. He established a 'death gate' to examine and test practitioners, and among those seeking realization, many shrank back at the brink. He found one person, Master Ben, who became Venerable Zhongfeng. At the master's birth, there were miraculous portents. When playing as a child, he always performed Buddhist rites. As he grew older, he read scriptures and burned his fingers and arms, seeking the Buddha with great earnestness. Day and night he exerted himself; when weary, he would strike his head against a pillar to awaken himself, resolved not to stop until attaining his goal. When he entered the death gate, he privately inquired into the essential mind. Chanting the Diamond Sūtra, when he reached the passage about 'bearing the Tathāgata's anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi,' he had an abrupt realization. Deeming his realization not yet ultimate, he applied himself diligently and tirelessly questioned, and upon watching a flowing spring, he experienced a great breakthrough. The master kept it secret and did not proclaim it. From then on, his preaching of the Dharma was unhindered. When Gaofeng was about to withdraw his teaching authority, he wrote a portrait eulogy and entrusted it to the master, saying: 'My form is inconceivable; / Even Buddhas and Patriarchs cannot behold it. / I allow only this unworthy son / To catch sight of half a nostril.' Such was the genuine nature of their transmission. He authored several volumes that circulated in the world. Emperor Renzong heard of him and invited him, but he did not go; the emperor bestowed a gold-patterned saṃghāṭī robe upon him, granted him the title Chan Master Foci Yuanzhao Guanghui, and gave the Lion Cloister the name Zhengzong Chan Monastery, and so on. The master's taboo name was Mingben; he was born into the Sun clan of Qiantang in the guihai year of the Jingding reign period of the Song. He was sixty-one years old, with thirty-five monastic years, and transformed on the eastern ridge of that mountain.