續高僧傳 9.23

9.23

Śramaṇa Huibi. His secular surname was Jiang. He was a person of Yixing in Changzhou. His grandfather Xuanlüe entered the court through loyalty and filial piety. His father Yuanhuang served as an expectant official (daizhao) through his literary talent. Both wore seals of office on ribbons and performed melodic strings and songs. His paternal uncle Yuanju held merit and dukedom in the Chen dynasty; drums and bells were lined in his courtyard, and four-horse carriages crossed his roads. Guests with carts and horses filled the steps; visitors playing zithers and singing filled the mats. Seeing Bi's high spirits during his youth, all marveled and praised him, saying: 'If this youth encounters the virtue of a phoenix, he will end up as a talent capable of assisting kings; having already manifested the jaw of a dragon, he will surely have the destiny of being enfeoffed as a marquis.' Bi's inclinations lay in transcending the mundane; thus he answered: 'The nobility of non-action is sufficient to delight the mind; the vexations of dependency merely toil a person in vain.' Thereupon, subsisting on simple vegetables in seclusion, he already thought of casting off his worldly sandals. When Emperor Wu of Chen ascended the imperial throne and greatly promoted the foremost merit, in the second year of Yongding, the emperor personally, in imperial robes, cut Bi's black hair, providing the three robes and all monastic implements all at once. Bi then submitted to study as a disciple under Dharmabhāṇaka Ling of Huidian Temple. Ling was like the fine bamboo of the southeast, whose reputation echoed like the wind across Lake Zhen; as a monk venerated by the royal clan, he was one to whom perfume and incense were devoted. Bi personally received his refined instructions and heard the Tattvasiddhi-śāstra. Reaching the age of twenty, holding his brush by the Huai and the sea, he encountered Master Ming of Baoliang who was vigorously propagating the new Tattvasiddhi, and Master Huang of Tiangong who was also expounding the Hṛdaya-śāstra (Abhidharmahṛdaya). He thereupon exhausted his spiritual energy to pursue and seek out, striving to reach the very source of the teachings. Therefore, the six pādas, the eight skandhas, the four truths, and the five aggregates were as clear as his own palm, without anything omitted. In the first year of Tianjia, he traveled among the lecture halls, searching broadly for outstanding masters and meeting hundreds of pillars of the Dharma. Realizing the rustic insignificance of thatched roofs, he repeatedly passed through three retreats; regretting the crudeness of dirt steps, he abandoned the Small Vehicle for the Great, turning his carriage from his former tracks. He listened to Master Zhe of Shaolong propagating and upholding the Four Treatises; with merely a single awakening, his achievement doubled that of ordinary students. Deeply investigating for several decades of days, he fully penetrated the profound summit. Thus it is known that the fundamental practice of great wisdom shines as brightly as the sun and moon; his name and renown were heard everywhere, traveling as far as the wind and clouds. His spiritual thoughts were profound, and his words flowed with modulated cadence, cutting through the gnarled roots of ten thousand ages and illuminating the dark rooms of a hundred years. People east of Zhejiang drank in his virtue even more than those in Jiangdong. In the tenth year of Taijian, an edict was issued for him to lecture on the Nirvāṇa and Lotus Sūtras at Baode Temple in Changcheng. Water ewers and pewter staves filled the hall; hairpins and robes crowded the mats. Those questioning doubts and requesting the Way followed one after another like a forest; those receiving the precepts and taking refuge rubbed shoulders like a marketplace. None failed to hail him as a fragrant grass of a hundred paces or a sage of a thousand years. When Master Zhe was approaching his final decline, he sent an emissary to recall him to the capital. The Phoenix armrest, the deer-tail chowry, scriptures, and commentaries—all the lecture paraphernalia were entirely entrusted to him, wanting the wheel of Dharma not to be severed and the seed of the Buddha to continue unbroken. Bi received this final testamentary order on his head; when six years were completed, his expositions of the treatises and sūtras each exceeded ten times. The beauty of lineage transmission was seen once more in this man. When the Sui army punished the transgressors and the Chen mandate came to an end, thinking to repay the kindness of his native soil, he returned home. Anguo Temple had been constructed by Emperor Wu of Chen; its foundation stones still remained, but the rooms and verandas were decaying. Bi braved the frost and dew, vibrating his staff and raising the incense smoke, widely leading worthy companions in the vow to repair it. Thus the temple's buildings became glorious, and its gates and rooms dignified and magnificent. Hence, Dharmabhāṇaka Zhenguan wrote in the temple's stele: 'Patterned tiles and brocade stones are piled once more on the level steps; summer water-plants and autumn lotuses adorn the towering pagoda again. The moon visits the moon palace, its whitewashed walls reflecting in the golden waves; the clouds mirror the cloud terrace, its painted beams receiving the jade leaves.' As for repairing scriptures and images, casting bells and stone chimes, how could the Dharma benefits of these be fully spoken of? In the first month of the nineteenth year of Kaihuang, he was suddenly afflicted with a qi disease and felt his life lingering. At the noon hour on the fifteenth day of the third month, he passed away, aged sixty-three. He was entombed on Mount Huayang. The scholar Huifang had accompanied him for many years, his doctrinal understanding probing profound depths; capable of continuing the transmission of the lamp, he was entrusted with everything, and he erected a stele at the temple.