續高僧傳 25.46

25.46

Śramaṇa Sengyi: it is not known who he was. He was steadfast and possessed deep discernment. Whenever he mounted the seat to lecture, heavenly flowers would scatter down upon the Dharma seat. During the Yuan Wei, he resided at the valley monastery of Master Lang on Mount Tai, gathering disciples and instructing them, never tiring in his pure devotion even in his advanced years. In the monastery were a Gaoli statue, a Prime Minister's statue, a Central Asian statue, a Women's Country statue, a Wu Country statue, a Kunlun statue, and a Mount Tai Capital statue; these seven statues were all of gilt bronze and were displayed together in the monastery hall. The hall doors were always open, yet birds and wild animals never dared to enter, as is still the case today. Thus the statue praise by Lingyu says: 'Arriving in resonance with response, they truly belong to no single place; is it not that their spiritual penetrations are darkly manifested, their principles beyond ordinary discussion?' Yi sustained himself by upholding the Dharma, disciplining his conduct to make offerings. On the evening before his passing, a śrāmaṇera who had died long ago appeared and bowed, saying: 'Since I left your service, I have constantly been employed by the Celestial Emperor, scurrying without leisure, abandoning the cultivation of the Way's karma. Before long, the Celestial Emperor will invite you, Master, to lecture on the sūtras; I pray that through a single word I may be freed from the suffering of bodily form.' Yi then bathed, burned incense, and sat upright in a quiet room waiting for the time to arrive. When the appointed time came, a celestial being indeed entered the monastery and his room, whose caps, robes, feathers, and retinue were majestic and extraordinary. The assembly of monks, when first seeing this, merely thought, 'What noble of the world is this, entering the mountain to pay respects?' and were not alarmed or amazed. Only when Yi passed away without illness that day did they recognize the divine resonance. His chief reciter lived in Yanzhou, and the other incense-bearers and chant-masters were scattered in other prefectures; when later examined, they had all died on the very same day. Some say that Sengyi was Zhizhan, a companion of Master Lang; since the previous biography omitted him, he is compiled here now. Zhan attained the first fruit, and his stūpa still stands beside Lingyan Monastery on Mount Tai, as seen in his separate biography.