佛祖歷代通載 19.78

19.78

Chan Master Beijian Jujian of Jingci mourned at his stūpa. The eulogy read: “Mencius said of the great man that ‘riches and honor cannot corrupt him, poverty and low station cannot swerve him, and awe and force cannot bend him.’ You, Venerable Sir, entrusted your life like an ant and tested your body against thunderbolts. You would not follow the imperial decree to become a ‘Gentleman of Virtue.’ Could awe and force truly bend you? You were branded and exiled, becoming a convict in Daozhou. On the brink of nine deaths, you took no food past noon; your chanting of the supreme transformation rang out like metal and stone. Could poverty and low station truly swerve you? Your name was erased from the penal registers, and your former things were restored to you. Offices and stipends were conferred upon you, noted in the emperor’s heart. He said, ‘Go forth with reverence! Remove your branded tattooing.’ You thought of the late emperor and did not dare alter it. The Emperor remarked, ‘This old man is stubborn to the very end.’ Could riches and honor truly corrupt you? At the time, Lin Lingsu, cloaked in Daoist robes, planted the root of disaster and widespread disruption. Replacing black robes with yellow, all under heaven complied with it; otherwise they fled carrying what they could, dying of exposure in forests and ravines. You, however, showed the loyalty of Bigan, still hoping for one chance in ten thousand, as if using a handful of earth to dyke the surging billows of the Dragon Gate. The imperial grace was broad and vast, not putting you to death at once. If in former times the masses had risen together to resist, I know that you alone would not have failed to resist. Who could take part in this if not one of consummate benevolence? Born after you, I look upon what you accomplished: magnificent, towering, and sheer—truly the deeds of a great man!” Bowing twice and circumambulating to the right, he made his farewell and mourned him, saying: “Could the branding be removed? When one's body rests upon the cauldron's rim, removing it would mean death. Could the branding be discarded? The imperial grace was like a spring breeze, yet to discard it you could not bear. An instant's endurance led to the imperial court fleeing in exile. The palace fell into desolation, and the living beings were cast into misery. If the monks of the whole realm were forced to grow their hair, how could that be worth speaking of? How far away! A solitary shadow at Daozhou, asking the way to the ferry, returning alive with a smile. Heaven was clear and earth was tranquil; the many inchworms crouched low. Your old arm alone was extended: looming like a rival state, more virtuous than the Great Wall. Stupid Lingsu, escaping the proper penal code—though powdered a hundred times, how could the pain be pacified? In the nine-li clear shade, your shed skeleton finds rest; the withered grass of itself awakens spring, its light never darkening. What will later generations know? Wandering beneath it, their foreheads will sweat, and their faces will flush red. Spontaneously rising in spirit, it will be like hearing the wind of Boyi.”