釋氏稽古略 3.371

3.371

Longhu: Chan Master Longhu of Shaowu was named Puwen, the second son of Emperor Xizong of Tang. In his youth, he did not eat meat, and when grown, he had no interest in worldly affairs. Xizong loved him deeply. In the first year of Zhonghe of Xizong, during the rebellion of Huang Chao, the Emperor went to Shu, and the imperial princes and clan members all fled. The Master cut his hair and wandered freely. He visited Chan Master Shishuang Zhu and asked: "What is the separate transmission outside the teachings?" Zhu said: "Wait until the front mountain nods its head, then I will explain it to you." The Master was thereupon awakened. He relied on him for several years and then requested to go on a pilgrimage in the mountains. Zhu said: "When you encounter Qian, stop; when you meet Chen, stay." Thereupon he took his leave, passed through Shaowu, and arrived at Daqian. Gazing from afar at the mountain peak, which was lush, deep, and elegant, he asked an elder: "Is there anyone living there?" The elder said: "There is a certain Chen Si who has long hidden there." When the Master arrived, Si shared his seat and lived together with him. The Master built a thatched cottage at the mouth of the valley; Chen then departed, and the foundation of his hermitage still remains. The Baocheng Chan Cloister is the site of the Master's thatched cottage. In the third month of the first year of Wende of Xizong, the Master threw his monastic staff into the mountain; where the staff stopped, he established a bodhimaṇḍa. Monks and laity directed their hearts there, and it thus became a great monastery. One day, an old man came before him and said: "I am a dragon. My home is in this mountain. In making rain, I have failed in my duty and am about to suffer heavenly punishment. I pray that the Master will rescue and protect me." The Master said: "You may change your form and come." Presently, a small snake appeared beside his seat. The Master guided it into his pure water vase. After a long while, wind and thunder engulfed the seat, and the mountain peaks shook violently. At daybreak, the weather cleared. The snake emerged from the vase, and the old man came to give thanks, saying: "Had it not been for the Master's spiritual power, this place would have been covered in blood and foulness. Seeing that the Master's bodhimaṇḍa lacks water, I shall repay your virtue." He thereupon dug into the ground to form a hole; a gushing spring overflowed and became a lake. Located halfway up the mountain today, it is called Dragon Lake (Longhu). Reaching this point, one day in the fourth year of Zhenming, the Master gathered the assembly of monks and said: "I am about to go elsewhere." He entrusted the monastery's affairs to the two Chan practitioners Cong and Jiao, and then spoke a verse:
"I escaped worldly tribulations and came to leave the household life;
The ancestral teacher pointed out a resting place.
Dwelling in the mountains and leading the assembly for thirty years,
To people I was unwilling to pass it on lightly.
Today, I state it clearly for you:
When I close my eyes, listen all together."
Soon afterward, straddling a tiger at dawn, he arrived at Kaiyuan Monastery in Xinzhou. The monks of Longhu pursued him. The Master said: "There is already Chan Master Cong in the mountain; I will not return again." Therefore, Longhu has no pagoda for its founding ancestral master; there is only the foundation of the Straddling-Tiger Hermitage, serving as evidence from antiquity to the present. He was imperially bestowed the posthumous title Chan Master Yuanjue. The Wudeng huiyuan states that the Master showed quiescence at Longhu, which is probably incorrect. The Master was the dharma heir of Chan Master Qingzhu of Shishuang in Tanzhou; Zhu was the heir of Daowu Zongzhi; Zhi was the heir of Chan Master Yaoshan Yan. Zhu was a man of Jizhou, with the surname Chen.