高僧傳 12.48

12.48

釋慧進，姓姚，吳興人。少而雄勇任，性遊俠。年四十忽悟心自啟，遂爾離俗，止京師高座寺，蔬食素衣，誓誦《法華》。用心勞苦，執卷輒病。迺發願，願造《法華》百部，以悔先障。始聚得錢一千六百，時有劫來，問進有物不，答云：「唯有造經錢在佛處。」群劫聞之，𧹞然而去。於是聚集信施，得以成經，滿足百部。經成之後，病亦小差。誦《法華》一部得過，情願既滿，厲操愈堅。常迴諸福業，願生安養。未亡少時，忽聞空中聲曰：「汝所願已足，必得生西方也。」至齊永明三年，無病而卒，春秋八十有五。

Shi Huijin, whose lay surname was Yao, was a native of Wuxing. In his youth he was valiant and uninhibited, behaving as a knight-errant. At the age of forty, he suddenly had an awakening, and consequently renounced the world to stay at Gaozuo Temple in the capital. Eating vegetables and wearing plain robes, he vowed to recite the Lotus Sūtra. Straining his mind with labor, he would fall ill whenever he held the scroll. Thereupon he made a vow to copy one hundred sets of the Lotus Sūtra in order to repent of his past karmic hindrances. When he had just gathered one thousand six hundred coins, bandits came and asked whether Jin had possessions; he replied, "There are only the coins for copying sūtras kept by the Buddha." The bandits, hearing this, left ashamed. He then gathered offerings from the faithful and was able to complete the sūtras, fulfilling the full one hundred sets. After the sūtras were completed, his illness also improved slightly. He was able to recite the entire Lotus Sūtra without impediment; his wish fulfilled, his disciplined conduct became ever firmer. He consistently dedicated all his meritorious deeds, wishing to be reborn in Anyang. Shortly before his death, he suddenly heard a voice in the air saying, "Your wish has been fulfilled; you will certainly attain rebirth in the Western Pure Land." In the third year of the Yongming reign period of the Qi, he died without illness, at the age of eighty-five.