續高僧傳 16.44

16.44

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.