續高僧傳 27.22

27.22

Śramaṇa Xuanlan, whose secular surname was Li, was a native of Fangzi in Suizhou. He had five brothers and was the youngest among them. His uncle served as magistrate of Wanquan in Puzhou; having been childless for a long time, he raised him as his own. At the age of thirteen, feeling a yearning in his heart to renounce secular life and seeing clearly the faults of the mundane world, he fled into the mountains and valleys, traveling north to the place of Chan Master Chao in Fenzhou. Chao saw that his aspirations were broad and far-reaching, so Lan relied upon him and entered the monastic life. Having lost him, the magistrate dispatched men to hunt him down; although he hid away, he could not avoid capture. Lan declared: 'My body belongs to my uncle, but my mind belongs to the Buddhas; I have no worldly ambitions left. I pray you understand this deeply.' Pitying him, his uncle let him go. In the early Zhenguan years, he entered the capital, received ordination, and was registered at Hongfu Temple. He constantly took delight in meditation, scriptural recitation, and repentance rituals as his practice. He would often say to his Dharma companions: 'Though I share the common practice with you, my vow is to abandon this body.' In the fourth month of the eighteenth year of Zhenguan, he first stripped off all his clothes, tied them into a single bundle, and handed them to a monk of his temple, wearing only an unlined undergarment. He quietly departed to the side of Hongpi Ward on the north bank of the Wei River east of the capital. Facing the waters of the Wei, after completing his recitations and bows, he threw himself into the swirling deep. The onlookers pulled him out. Lan told them: 'I made the vow to abandon my life long ago. My intention is to respectfully emulate the Great Beings (mahāsattvas) who can give what is difficult to give, according to the correct practices of various sūtras. Please do not stubbornly obstruct me, hindering my practice on both sides.' Understanding his resolve, the crowd consented. He then entered the water again, joined his palms, invoked the Buddhas of the ten directions, and having made broad, great vows, cast himself into the whirlpool. Only three days later did his body emerge. The villagers recovered it and erected a stūpa for him at his original temple. Puzzled by his failure to return and finding no trace of him anywhere, they opened his bundle of clothes and found his posthumous writing, which read: 'I respectfully address the Buddhas of the ten directions and the three periods of time: I, your disciple Xuanlan, have passed twelve rains retreats since my ordination. Although I have been numbered among the saṅgha, my great enterprise remains unaccomplished. Now I wish to practice the perfection of generosity (dāna-pāramitā), emulating Mahāsattva casting his body to the tigress, King Śibi cutting his own flesh, and the Fish King becoming a mountain of meat, as fully recorded in the sūtra texts. I pray to follow the footsteps of former sage teachings and leave my dust behind. My robes and monastic requisites may be disposed of according to the Buddha's teachings. Those approaching the end often fail to leave comprehensive instructions.' When his fellow students saw this posthumous text, they went to investigate and discovered these events.