續高僧傳 27.23

27.23

釋法曠。姓駱。雍州咸陽人。少有異節。偏愛儒素。後聽弘善寺榮師大論。榮即周世道安之弟子也。創染玄業便悟非常。資學之勤不出門院。年十六。講解前論道穆京華。酬答冷然無替玄理。專修念定無涉時方。無量壽經世稱難誦。曠聞試尋。一日兩卷。文言闇了。故其誦持罕有加者。自爾藏經披讀。以為恒任。文理所指問無不知。顧諸布薩人多說欲。乃自勵心力立誦千遍。數旬之間便得滿願。性樂儉約不尚華靡。故其房中無有氈席。滿院種莎。用擬隨坐頭陀行也。勗誡門人惟存離著。以末代根機隨塵生染故也。年登知命。便袒三衣。瓶鉢以外一無受畜。卓然正色懍潔風霜。人有與語惟言離著。至時分衛一食而已。每曰。余惟生死滯著無始輪迴。生厭者希死厭又少。常懷怏怏欲試捨之。以貞觀七年二月二十一日。入終南山。在炭谷內四十里許。脫衣掛樹以刀自刎。既獨自殯無由知處。諸識故等。至八月中。方始訪得其遺身頌云。又近有汾州大乘寺僧忘名者。常厭生死濁世難度。誓必捨身。先節食服香。至期道俗通集。香花幡蓋列衛。而往西山子夏學巖。面西斂容。眾唱善哉。咸送隨喜。乃放身懸壑。至地起坐。及眾就視方知已逝。博訪遺身其類甚眾。且隨疏出。示為一例。餘者蓋闕。

Śramaṇa Fakuang, whose secular surname was Luo, was a native of Xianyang in Yongzhou. In his youth, he had uncommon integrity and favored Confucian simplicity. Later, he listened to Master Rong's lectures on the Great Treatise (Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa) at Hongshan Temple; Rong was a disciple of Dao'an of the Northern Zhou period. Having just begun to engage in profound studies, Kuang instantly awakened to impermanence. In his diligent scholarship, he did not step beyond the temple courtyard. At the age of sixteen, he explained that treatise, his refined eloquence admired throughout the capital; his replies were serene and clear, never falling short of profound principles. He practiced mindfulness and absorption exclusively, without becoming involved in worldly or local affairs. The Amitāyus Sūtra was commonly considered difficult to chant; Kuang heard this and tried studying it, mastering both fascicles in a single day, grasping its phrases and meaning clearly, so that few could surpass him in recitation. From then on, reading through the Tripiṭaka became his daily task; whatever the texts signified, he was never unable to answer any query. Observing that many participants at the poṣadha spoke of worldly desires, he exerted his mental resolve and vowed to recite it a thousand times, fulfilling his vow within a few decades of days. By nature he loved simplicity and did not value extravagance; hence, in his chamber there were neither mats nor rugs, and the entire courtyard was planted with nutgrass, serving as a seat for his dhūta practice. He admonished his disciples to focus solely on detaching from attachments, knowing that in the final age, human faculties are easily tainted by sensory dust. Upon reaching the age of fifty (zhiming), he bared his three robes, possessing nothing beyond his water pitcher and alms bowl. Eminent and upright in demeanor, his purity was like the biting wind and frost. When people spoke with him, he spoke only of abandoning attachments. When the time came, he engaged in alms-gathering, eating only one meal a day. He would often say: 'I reflect upon how saṃsāra binds through attachment across beginningless transmigration; those who develop revulsion toward birth are few, and those with revulsion toward death are even fewer. I constantly harbor deep dissatisfaction and wish to cast it away.' On the twenty-first day of the second month in the seventh year of the Zhenguan reign, he entered Mount Zhongnan. Roughly forty li inside the Charcoal Valley, he took off his robes, hung them on a tree, and slit his own throat with a knife. Since he had buried himself alone, no one knew the place. Only around the eighth month did his acquaintances finally track down his posthumous eulogy of self-abandonment. Moreover, recently there was an anonymous monk of Dacheng Temple in Fenzhou who constantly loathed the turbid world of birth and death as difficult to cross, and vowed to abandon his body. First, he restricted his food and consumed incense; when the appointed time came, monks and laity gathered together, escorting him with banners, canopies, incense, and flowers to Zixia Study Cliff on the Western Mountain. Facing west with a serene countenance, as the assembly chanted 'Sadhu!' and rejoiced in his merit, he cast his body into the deep gorge. Reaching the ground, he sat upright; when the crowd approached to inspect him, they discovered he had already passed away. Upon broad inquiry, those who abandoned their bodies are very numerous; they are here recorded briefly to provide an example, while the rest are omitted.