釋氏稽古略 3.99

3.99

Chan Master Guifeng Zongmi of Mount Zhongnan was a person of Xichong in Guozhou. His surname was He, and his family had practiced Confucianism for generations. In the second year of the Yuanhe reign era of Emperor Xianzong, when he was about to set out for the civil examinations, he happened to visit the Dharma assembly of Chan Master Yuan of Suizhou, tasted the Dharma of his Way, and thereupon sought to tonsure and shave his head. In the same year he took full ordination. One day, following the community of monks to a vegetarian feast at the residence of the prefectural clerk Ren Guan, he sat in the lowest seat. Handed a scripture in sequence, he received the Twelve Chapters of the Perfect Enlightenment Sūtra; before finishing the scroll, he was moved to enlightenment. He returned and reported this to Yuan. Yuan said, 'You should greatly propagate the teaching of perfect and sudden [enlightenment]; this was bestowed upon you by all the Buddhas. Go forth, and do not let yourself stagnate in one corner.' Thereupon, receiving this instruction, he departed. He visited Chan Master Zhong of Jingnan and Chan Master Zhao of Luoyang, and both conferred prophecies upon him. Arriving at the Xiang and Han rivers, a sick monk entrusted to him a commentary on the Avataṃsaka, which had been composed by Great Master Chengguan of the Upper Capital. Reading it with joy, he said, 'In Chan I have encountered the Southern School; in teaching I have met Perfect Enlightenment. Under a single word, my mind-ground opened through; within a single scroll, the sky of meaning shone brightly. Now I have obtained this crowning work once again!' Soon afterward he went to the Upper Capital to pay respectful visit to National Preceptor Qingliang. Shortly thereafter, he entered the hermitage of Guifeng on Mount Zhongnan again. During the Taihe reign era of Emperor Wenzong, he was summoned to enter the court and was granted a purple robe. The Emperor repeatedly questioned him on the essentials of the Dharma, and the court officials turned to admire him; only Chancellor Pei Xiu deeply entered the inner sanctum, received his teachings, and served as his external protector. Seeing that scholars of Chan and doctrinal studies mutually slandered one another, the master composed the Collected Writings on the Source of Chan, recording the words, sentences, and gāthās composed by various schools that explain the fundamental principles and reasons of the Chan gate, compiling them into a single canon to bequeath to later generations. On the sixth day of the first month of the first year of the Huichang reign era of Emperor Wuzong, at the Xingfu Courtyard, he admonished his disciples, ordering them to carry his corpse and offer it to birds and beasts, and to burn his bones and scatter them. When he finished speaking, he sat and passed away. Monks and laity carried his whole body to Guifeng; upon cremation they obtained relics, which were deposited in a stone chamber. Emperor Xuanzong posthumously bestowed the posthumous title Chan Master Dinghui, and his pagoda was called Qinglian. He lived sixty-three years. He was the dharma heir of Yuan of Suizhou, belonging to the Heze lineage five generations below the Sixth Patriarch.