續高僧傳 16.44

16.44

釋道正。滄州渤海人。稟質高亮言志清遠。居無常處學非師授。樂習禪行宗蘭若法。無問冬夏栖息深林。乞食於村。餘惟常坐。繫想繩床下帳獨靜。道俗參訊略示綱猷。令其住心緣向所授。故使四遠造者各務靜緣。眾聚雖多而外無囂撓。正任性行藏都無名貫。經論講會莫不登踐。皆聽其深隱略其繁長。周流兩河言議超邈。偏以成實知名幽冀。時有隷公貫者。引正住寺為上簿書而志駭風雲曾無顧眄。還返林薄。嗣業相尋。綜述憲法流之於世。名為六行。凡聖修法也。包舉一化融接萬衢。初曰。凡夫罪行。二曰。凡夫福行。三小乘人行。四小菩薩行。五大菩薩行。六佛果證行。都合六部極略一卷。廣二十卷。前半序分後半行體。言非文質字爽詞費。開皇七年齎來謁帝。意以東夏釋種多沈名教。歸宗罕附流滯忘返。普欲捨筌檢理抱一知宗守道行禪通濟神爽。具狀奏聞。左僕射高頴。素承道訓。乃於禪林寺大集名德述上所奏。時座中有僧曰。帝京無人。豈使海隅傳法。正聞對曰。本意伸明邪正。不欲簡定中邊。夫道在通方。固須略於祖述。眾無以抗也。而其著詞言行。眾又不願遵之。於是僧徒無為而散。正知澆季之難化也。遂以行法並留京輦方禪師處。即返東川不悉終所。今驪山諸眾。多承厥緒繫業傳云。

Śramaṇa Daozheng was a native of Bohai in Cangzhou. He was endowed with a lofty and lucid disposition, and his aspirations were pure and far-reaching. He had no fixed abode, and his learning was not received from a master. He rejoiced in practicing dhyāna conduct and took the aranya method as his principal guideline. Regardless of winter or summer, he lodged in the deep forest. Begging for food in villages, for the rest [of the time] he merely sat constantly, tethering his thoughts to a corded bed, lowering his curtain in solitary stillness. When monastics or laypeople came to visit and inquire, he gave them a brief indication of the fundamental principles, instructing them to rest their minds on the conditions he taught. Thus he caused seekers who arrived from the four directions to each attend diligently to quiet conditions. Although the assemblies were large, outwardly there was no clamor or disturbance. Zheng followed his own nature whether active or retired, having no official registration at all. There was no lecture assembly on sūtras or treatises that he did not attend; he listened always to their profound subtleties and set aside their verbose lengths. Traveling throughout the Lianghe region, his discourse and discussions were transcendent and profound; he was especially renowned in You and Ji for the *Tattvasiddhi*. At that time, a certain clerk named Ligong Guan invited Zheng to stay at a temple to register his name in the official records, yet with his ambitions soaring like wind and clouds, Zheng never gave it a single glance. He returned again to the groves and marshes, pursuing his study without interruption. Synthesizing and expounding disciplinary methods, he circulated them in the world under the title *Six Practices*, being methods of practice for ordinary people and sages. They embraced the whole of the Buddha's transforming work and harmoniously integrated ten thousand pathways. The first was called 'Sinful Practices of Ordinary Beings'; the second, 'Meritorious Practices of Ordinary Beings'; the third, 'Practices of Hīnayāna Persons'; the fourth, 'Practices of Lesser Bodhisattvas'; the fifth, 'Practices of Great Bodhisattvas'; the sixth, 'Practices of Realization of the Buddha Fruit.' In all there were six divisions, abridged into a single fascicle, or expanded into twenty fascicles. The first half was the introductory section, and the second half was the substance of the practices. The language was neither overly ornate nor crude, the characters sharp, the expressions unencumbered. In the seventh year of the Kaihuang reign, he brought it to the imperial court to have an audience with the emperor. His intention was that, because in the Eastern Xia most of the Śākyan lineage were deeply submerged in nominal teachings, rarely drew close to the fundamental tenets, and drifted astray forgetting to return, he wished to lead all to abandon the trap and examine the principle, to embrace the One and know the source, to safeguard the Way, practice dhyāna, and thoroughly revive spiritual lucidity. He drafted a memorial to report this to the throne. Gao Ying, the Vice Director of the Left, had long followed the teachings of the Way; he gathered eminent and virtuous monks at the Shanlin Temple to recount what had been memorialized. At that time, a monk in the assembly said: 'Does the imperial capital lack men, that we must have someone from a remote maritime corner transmit the Dharma?' Zheng heard this and answered: 'My original intent was to elucidate the heterodox and the orthodox, not to discriminate between the center and the periphery. The Way lies in universal responsiveness; one must indeed dispense with mere adherence to ancestral transmission.' The assembly could offer no objection to him. Yet, as for the text and practices he had composed, the assembly was not willing to observe them either. Thereupon the assembly of monks dispersed without accomplishing anything. Zheng knew that people in a degenerate age were hard to convert; he then left his practice methods with Dhyāna Master Fang in the capital, and forthwith returned to the eastern river, with his final place of rest unknown. Today the assemblies on Mount Li mostly carry on his lineage, continuously transmitting his work as it is told.