釋氏稽古略 4.244

4.244

Dharma Master Youyan of Chongshan Monastery on Mount Chicheng in Taizhou retired to a hermitage beneath a sumac tree and took the sobriquet Zha'an. Yearning for his homeland in the Land of Peaceful Nurture (Sukhāvatī), he composed four poems that were mournful, touching, and moving to people. One stanza ran: "The truly pure Western Land is fundamentally my home; / Now I recall the journey back, a distant hundred thousand [li]. / On traveler's roads, frail and faltering, I am utterly worn out; / In worldly wind and dust, alone and afflicted, most pitiable indeed. / Seven tiers of trees soar, playing a thousand kinds of music; / The eight-virtue pool opens blossoms of four colors. / Do not wonder that of late my dreams of returning are so urgent: / What can be done when the affairs of glory and disgrace are without end?" At the time, people vied to recite them. Throughout his life, Yan was devoted to pure karma. In the fourth month of summer in the first year of the Jianzhong Jingguo reign era of Emperor Huizong, as his life was coming to an end, he saw a great lotus blossom in a jeweled pool and heavenly music arrayed on all four sides, and entered into quiescence. The master composed and circulated the Comprehensive Examination of the Great Canonical Expositions in four fascicles, Annotations on Difficult Points in four fascicles, Aid to Reading in four fascicles, and Dialogues on Objections in four fascicles (Orthodox Tradition of the Śākya Lineage).