高僧傳 12.48

12.48

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.