釋氏稽古略 4.242

4.242

Su Shi was exiled to Danzhou. Fang Zirong, prefect of Huizhou, presented a letter by imperial command and told Zizhan: "My wife serves the Great Sage Saṅgha of the Huai and Si rivers very devoutly. The previous night, he came in a dream to take leave of her, saying, 'I am escorting Su Zizhan across to Hainan.' Now indeed this journey has come to pass; your allotted destiny is already determined, so why worry any further?" (Song Buddhist History). In the sixth month of the gengchen year, the third year of the Yuanfu reign era, Shi returned from beyond the sea and resided in Changzhou, wandering freely about Yixing. Earlier, at his place of exile in Huangzhou, he built a dwelling at Dongpo, and thus took the appellation "Layman Dongpo." On the twenty-eighth day of the seventh month of the first year of the Jianzhong Jingguo reign era of Emperor Huizong, Su Shi, Court Gentleman for Consultant Service and Supervisor of the Bureau for Royal Ancestral Temples of Chengdu Prefecture, passed away in Changzhou.