續高僧傳 6.30

6.30

Shi Daodeng, whose lay surname was Rui, was a native of Dongwan. He was alert and extraordinarily sharp, with an exceptional power of faith. Hearing that in Xuzhou there was a monk named Yao who was elegantly versed in sūtras and treatises, he carried his books to follow him, studying and synthesising the *Nirvāṇa*, the *Lotus*, and the *Śrīmālā*. Later he studied under Sengyuan, thoroughly mastering the *Tattvasiddhi-śāstra*. By the age of fifty, his renown stirred the Wei capital, and the northern regions revered him. Time and again letters came summoning and inviting him. Deng asked his fellow student Fadu, 'May I accept this invitation?' Du said, 'In this land, students of the Dao are like a forest, and the masters number in the hundreds. What age lacks a time to act or retire? What era lacks opening or obstruction? The sentient beings of the ten directions are all to be liberated; how could we limit our hopes solely to this place? You have been urged to go to the southern states—you should go! Like Huiyuan shaking his robes at Mount Lu, or Tandi breaking off his tracks on Mount Kunlun, or Liu Yimin of Pengcheng resigning from affairs to retire into leisure—these all pertained to their own respective regions. Why must you exhaust your life in empty imaginings of cliffside caves, remotely pursuing Chao [Fu] and Xu [You]? Even if you were to do so, in the end it would not depart from the disposition of the Hīnayāna. Could you wish that others precede you, while your Dao brings no benefit to the world? Adapting to each place to transform beings and serving as a bridge and ferry for creatures—would this not be joyful?' Deng thereupon accepted the invitation, and Du also accompanied him. When they arrived in Luoyang, rulers, ministers, monks, and nuns all treated them with guest-like respect. The ruler of Wei invited Deng and his brother to receive honourable feudal ranks by decree. Because their original surname was not refined, he changed Rui to Nai. The flourishing of his lectures continued without interruption through all four seasons. Before he could head for Mount Heng to put an end to floating rivalries, companions in study followed him one after another to his mountain abode, where discussions and instruction could not be avoided. He finally passed away at Baode Temple at the age of eighty-five, in the Jingming reign era of the Wei.