宋高僧傳 10.27

10.27

釋甄叔，不知何許人也。幼而聰敏，倜儻不羈。心目融明，具大人相。觀生死輪上，見九地群迷，猶如蟭螟處在蚊睫。受勝妙欲，似嚼蠟無味。遂投簪削頂，具佛幖幟，求正覺、了義，扣大寂禪師，一造玄機，萬慮都寂。乃曰：「群靈本源，假名為佛，體竭形消而不滅，金流朴散而常存。性海無風，驚波自湧。心虛絕兆，萬象齊照。體斯理者，不言而遍歷沙界，不用而功益玄化。如何背覺，反合塵勞，於陰界中妄自囚繫，於是形同水月流浪人天哉。」叔見宜春陽岐山群峯四合，歎曰：「坤元作鎮，造我法城。」纔發一言，千巖響答，松開月殿，星布雲廊，青嵐域中化出金界。始從宴坐，四十餘年，滿室金光，晝夜常照。於是化緣已畢，機感難留。元和庚子歲正月十三日，忽棄塵區，還歸大定。門弟子如坦、良寶等心沒悲海，哀聲動山，如月隱天，群星失耀。大集眾木，𧂐為香樓，用作茶毘，獲舍利七百粒，於東峯下建窣堵波。上足任運者命志閑為碑紀述矣。

Shi Zhenshu's place of origin is unknown. From childhood he was clever and intelligent, free-spirited and unconstrained. His mind and vision were luminous and clear, possessing the marks of a great person. Observing the wheel of birth and death, he saw the bewildered beings of the nine abodes like midges dwelling on the eyelashes of a mosquito. Experiencing supreme sensory pleasures was to him like chewing tasteless wax. Thereupon he cast aside his hairpin and shaved his head, donning the insignia of the Buddha to seek perfect awakening and the definitive meaning. He visited Chan Master Daji, and upon a single encounter with the profound mechanism, his myriad thoughts were utterly stilled. He then said: 'The fundamental source of all sentient beings is nominally called Buddha; though the body is exhausted and the form dissolves, it is never annihilated; though gold melts and the uncarved block disperses, it ever abides. Across the ocean of nature without wind, startled waves surge up of themselves. The mind is empty and devoid of signs, yet the ten thousand phenomena are illuminated equally. One who embodies this principle traverses the sandy realms without speaking, and without exertion assists profound transformation. How could one turn one's back on awakening and conversely unite with defilements, vainly imprisoning oneself in the aggregates and realms, wandering as a mere water-moon through the human and heavenly realms?' Shu saw the cluster of peaks of Mount Yangqi in Yichun converging from four sides, and sighed: 'The earth's foundation serves as a bulwark, erecting my citadel of Dharma.' No sooner had he spoken a word than a thousand crags echoed in reply: pines revealed lunar halls, stars spread out like cloud galleries, and within the green-misted realm a golden world was manifested. From the beginning of his seated meditation, for more than forty years, the entire room was bathed in golden radiance, shining constantly day and night. When his karmic conditions for transforming beings were completed, the responding mechanism could no longer be detained. On the thirteenth day of the first month in the gengzi year of the Yuanhe era, he suddenly cast aside the dusty realm and returned to the great concentration. His disciples Rutan, Liangbao, and others sank into an ocean of sorrow, their laments shaking the mountain, like the moon hidden from the sky and all the stars losing their radiance. They gathered vast amounts of wood, building a fragrant pyre to conduct the cremation, and recovered seven hundred grains of relics (śarīra). They erected a stūpa beneath the eastern peak. His senior disciple Renyun ordered Zhixian to compose an inscription to commemorate him.