續高僧傳 20.59

20.59

釋靜之。姓趙。雍州高陵人。父母念善絕無息胤。祈求遍至而無所果。遂念觀音旬內有娠。能令母氏厭惡欲染辛腥永絕。誕育之後。年七八歲樂阿彌陀觀。依文修學隨位並成。行見美境骨觀明淨。性樂出家。既有一子誓而不許。隨父任蜀不久崩亡。意欲為父焚身報德。有一賢人引金剛般若云。捨身不如持經。乃迴心剃剪用伸罔極。一入法門翹誠逾厲。隨聽經律而意在定門。後從江禪師習觀。而威容端雅。見者發心。貞觀初。隱益部道江彭門山光化寺。一十餘載。常坐茅宇不居僧房。四方集者二百餘人。六時三業不負光景。又別深隱入靈巖山。大虫為偶無所驚擾。利州道禪師。素交既久。請入劍閣北窮腹山。徒侶十餘。齎米四石。恰至夏竟一石未盡。小時鼻患肉塞。百方無驗。有僧令誦般若多心萬遍。恰至五千肉鈴便落。行至秦州被毒蛇螫。苦楚叵言。以觀行力便見善境。自然除滅。後遇疾苦依前得差。乃撰諸家觀門以為一卷。要約精最後學重之。顯慶三年。召入西明。別立禪府。利州本寺。桂樹忽凋胡桃自拔。佛殿無故北面仰地尊儀不損。斯亦德動幽靈為若此也。以顯慶五年春三月二十七日。右脇而終於西明。春秋五十七矣。

Śramaṇa Jingzhi, surnamed Zhao, was a native of Gaoling in Yongzhou. His parents, devoted to goodness, had no offspring. They prayed everywhere, yet without result. Thereupon they recollected Avalokiteśvara, and within ten days [his mother] was pregnant. She was able to become utterly averse to lustful defilement and forever abandoned pungent and foul-smelling foods. After his birth, at the age of seven or eight, he delighted in the meditation on Amitābha; cultivating and learning according to the text, he accomplished [the states] corresponding to each stage. While walking he saw beautiful states, and his skeleton contemplation was clear and pure. By nature he delighted in leaving home, but since he was an only son, [his parents] took an oath and refused permission. He accompanied his father to his official post in Shu, where not long after [the father] passed away. He wished to burn his body for his father to repay his virtue. A virtuous man cited the Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā, saying, 'Relinquishing the body is not as good as upholding the scripture.' Thereupon he changed his mind and shaved his hair to fulfill his boundless [filial duty]. Once he entered the Dharma gate, his earnest sincerity grew even more ardent. As he listened to the sūtras and vinaya, his mind was fixed on the gate of meditation. Later he studied contemplation under Dhyāna Master Jiang; his dignified bearing was upright and elegant, and all who saw him generated the aspiration [for awakening]. In the early years of the Zhenguan reign, he retreated into seclusion at Guanghua Temple on Mount Pengmen in Daojiang, Yibu, for more than ten years. He always sat in a thatched hut and did not stay in the monastic quarters. Those who gathered from the four quarters numbered more than two hundred; during the six periods of the day, their three modes of action did not waste time. He also retreated deeply into Mount Lingyan, making big tigers his companions without any alarm or disturbance. Dhyāna Master Dao of Lizhou had an old friendship with him; he invited him to enter the remote heart of the mountains north of Jian’ge. Accompanying him were ten-odd disciples, carrying four dan of rice; precisely when the summer retreat ended, one dan was not yet exhausted. In his youth, he suffered from a polyp blocking his nose; a hundred remedies had no effect. A monk told him to recite the Prajñāhṛdaya ten thousand times. When he reached exactly five thousand, the flesh-bell dropped off. While travelling to Qinzhou he was bitten by a poisonous snake; the pain was unspeakable. Through the power of his practice of contemplation, he immediately saw good visions, and it naturally ceased. Later, whenever he encountered illness and suffering, he recovered as before. He then compiled the contemplation gates of various masters into one fascicle, which was concise and quintessentially refined, highly valued by later students. In the third year of the Xianqing reign, he was summoned to Ximing [Temple], where a separate meditation compound was established [for him]. At his original temple in Lizhou, the cassia trees suddenly withered, the walnut trees uprooted themselves, and the Buddha Hall without cause tilted face upward to the north, yet the holy images were undamaged; this was how his virtue moved the unseen spirits. On the twenty-seventh day of the third month in the spring of the fifth year of the Xianqing reign, he passed away lying on his right side at Ximing [Temple], at the age of fifty-seven.