釋氏稽古略 3.349

3.349

Chan Master Xuansha Zongyi of Fuzhou was named Shibei, a son of the Xie family of Min. In his youth he rowed a small boat on the Nantai River, keeping company with the fishermen. At the age of thirty, he suddenly longed to leave home, approaching Chan Master Furong Xun to shave his head. He went to Kaiyuan Monastery in Yuzhang to receive the full precepts. Wearing cloth robes and straw sandals, eating barely enough to keep breathing, he sat in peaceful meditation all day long. Xuefeng, on account of his ascetic practices, called him the Dhūta. One day Xuefeng summoned him and said, "Why do you not go traveling everywhere to study?" The Master said, "Bodhidharma did not come to the Eastern Land; the Second Patriarch did not go to the Western Heaven." Xuefeng approved of him. After taking up residence [as abbot], he promoted and upheld the net of the school, earning veneration from far and near. The ruler of Min treated him with the courtesy due a master. His assembly of students exceeded eight hundred. In the eleventh month of the second year of Kaiping under Taizu of Liang, he entered quiescence at the age of seventy-five. The ruler of Min erected a stūpa for the Master. The Master was the dharma heir of Chan Master Xuefeng Cun.