釋氏稽古略 4.358

4.358

In the Song, on the nineteenth day of the second month in spring, Venerable Jiekong Keguan of Danghu in Xiuzhou (present-day Jiaxing Circuit), a fourth-generation descendant of Siming Fazhi, entered quiescence. His worldly age was ninety-one, and his monastic age was seventy-eight summers. In his youth he studied under the lecture seat of Chexi Zeqing and attained profound stability in the essential teachings. One day, hearing prajñā being brought up, at the words 'utterly quiet and still' he experienced great awakening, saying, 'It is like taking a cup of qi-descending soup.' Qing immediately approved him. He also met Dharma Master Huijue in Huzhou; reading the Zhiyao under the snow-lit window, upon reaching the passage, 'If one does not consider it real, the iron bed is not suffering, and the transformation [body] does not shift,' he rejoiced with sudden realization, saying, 'Worldly words and letters are all mere chaff!'
Initially, in the wuwu year of the Shaoxing reign era of Emperor Gaozong, he presided over Dezhang in Danghu. Up to the autumn of the seventh year of the Qiandao reign era, Left Grand Councilor Wei Qi was in Pingjiang and invited him to dwell at Beichan Tiantai Monastery. Arriving at the monastery precisely on the ninth day, he pointed to the Dharma seat and said:
'The inch of ash in my breast is already cold;
The thousand strands of snow on my head have not yet melted.
Old footsteps should only walk on level ground;
I do not know why I should force myself to climb high.'
Those who heard it were delighted and won over. When Wei Qi governed Yin, he brought the Master to dwell at the ancestral seat of Yanqing; he was eighty-nine years old at the time. Within not two years, he returned to Zhuan and entered quiescence. On the day of his cremation, there was no wind, no rain, and no untoward incident; the people of the commandery marvelled at it as the 'Day of Three Nothings.' Wherever the smoke reached, relics were found. A stūpa was erected at Dezhang Cloister. Jiekong composed the Lengyan buzhu in four fascicles, the Jingang tonglun shiyuan in two fascicles, the Yuanjue shoujian in one fascicle, the Lanpen buzhu in one fascicle, the Shanjia yiyuan in two fascicles, and the Caolu in one fascicle. In his lifetime he expounded the essential doctrine, as in his verse on the four lines of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā:
'The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā speaks of dharmas born of causes and conditions;
One phrase exhausts it completely, leaving no words behind.
I say that it is precisely emptiness, provisionality, and the middle;
The pearl blinds are rolled up at dusk before the rain on the western mountain.'
He also praised Chuanzi:
'Jiashan’s mind was not on a single bow;
Bright moon and reed blossoms: cold night after night.
Chuanzi naturally had nothing to do,
And only chanced to come to this place to handle the fishing rod.'
Those who inherited the Master's Dharma included Zongyin and others. Yin (Beifeng) was born to the Chen family of Yanguan in Hangzhou. At fifteen he received the full precepts, engaged in study, and attained the Way of Zhuan. He secluded himself in Mao's hermitage at Leifeng; later he went to Puguang in Huating, transferred to Dezhang in Xiuzhou, then moved again to Chaoguo in Huating and Beichan in Su, and finally relocated to Lingshan on Tianzhu. Emperor Ningzong summoned him to an audience in the Xuande Hall and bestowed on him the title Dharma Master Huixing. In the sixth year of the Jiading reign era, while carrying out his teaching activities, on the eighth day of the twelfth month he reached Songjiang, and said to his disciples, 'My affinities for transformation are exhausted here.' He then passed away lying on his right side (Original Biography).