宋高僧傳 11.24

11.24

釋普願，俗姓王，鄭州新鄭人也。其宗嗣於江西大寂，大寂師南嶽觀音讓，讓則曹溪之冡子也，於願為大父，其高、曾可知也，則南泉之禪有自來矣。願在孕，母不喜葷血。至德二年，跪請於父母乞出家，脫然有去羈鞅之色。乃投密縣大隈山大慧禪師受業。苦節篤勵，胼胝皸瘃，不敢為身主，其師異之。大曆十二年，願春秋三十矣，詣嵩山會善寺暠律師受具，習相部舊章，究毘尼篇聚之學。後遊講肆，上《楞伽》頂，入《華嚴》海會，抉《中》、《百》、《門》觀之關鑰，領玄機於疏、論之外。當其鋒者，皆旗靡轍亂。大寂門下八百餘人，每參聽之後，尋繹師說，是非紛錯。願或自默而語，群論皆弭曰：「夫人不言乃言爾耳。」自後含景匿耀，似不能言者，人以其無法說，或扣其關，亦堅拒不洩。時有密賾其機者，微露頭角，乃知其非無法說，時未至矣。貞元十一年，挂錫池陽南泉山，堙谷刊木，以構禪宇，簑笠飯牛，溷于牧童。斫山畬田，種食以饒。足不下南泉三十年矣。夫洪鐘不為莛撞發聲，聲之者，故有待矣。太和年初，宣使陸公亘、前池陽太守皆知其抗迹塵外，為四方法眼，與護軍彭城劉公同迎請下山，北面申禮。不經再歲，毳衣之子奔走道途，不下數百人。太和甲寅歲十月二十一日示疾。十二月二十三日，有白虹貫於禪室後峯，占之者：得非南泉謝世乎？是日西峯，巨石崩，聲數十里。當晝，有乳虎遶禪林而號，眾咸異之。二十五日東方明，告門人曰：「星翳燈幻亦久矣，勿謂吾有去來也。」言訖而謝，春秋八十七，僧臘五十八。契元、文暢等凡九百人，皆布衣墨巾，泣血于山門。赴喪會葬者相繼于路，哀號之聲震于崖谷。乙卯歲，門人奉全身於靈塔，從其教也。膳部員外郎史館修撰劉軻欽若前烈，追德頌美焉。

Shi Puyuan's secular surname was Wang, and he was a native of Xinzheng in Zhengzhou. He was a lineage successor of Daji of Jiangxi; Daji's master was Guanyin Rang of Mount Nanyue, and Rang was the eldest son of Caoxi. Rang was thus a grandfather in the Dharma to Yuan, from which his great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather can be known, showing that the dhyāna of Nanquan had a venerable pedigree. While Yuan was in the womb, his mother had an aversion to pungent roots and meat. In the second year of the Zhide era, he knelt before his parents to beg for ordination, clearly wearing an expression of shedding his fetters. He then placed himself under Dhyāna Master Dahui of Mount Dawei in Mixian to receive instruction. In austere discipline and earnest diligence, developing calluses and chilblains, he dared not act as master of his own body; his master regarded him as extraordinary. In the twelfth year of the Dali era, when Yuan was thirty years of age, he went to Huishan Temple on Mount Song to receive full ordination from Vinaya Master Hao, studying the old regulations of the Xiangbu school and investigating the learning of the vinaya's divisions and groups. Later, traveling through lecture halls, he reached the summit of the Laṅkāvatāra, entered the vast ocean-assembly of the Avataṃsaka, unlocked the key to contemplation in the Mādhyamaka, Śata, and Dvādaśanikāya treatises, and grasped the profound mechanism beyond commentaries and expositions. Those who stood before his sharpness saw their banners collapse and their chariot tracks thrown into disorder. Under Daji there were more than eight hundred disciples; every time after attending his lectures and listening, they would unravel their master's teachings, arguing in confusion over right and wrong. Yuan would occasionally speak after keeping silence, and the crowd of debates would all cease, saying: 'This man does not speak, yet when he speaks, that is all there is to it!' From then on he concealed his radiance and hid his light, appearing as though he were unable to speak. People thought he had no Dharma to preach, and if someone knocked at his gate, he would firmly refuse to divulge anything. There were occasionally those who secretly probed his capacity and caught a glimpse of his eminence, realizing that it was not that he had no Dharma to preach, but that the time had not yet arrived. In the eleventh year of the Zhenyuan era, he hung his staff at Mount Nanquan in Chiyang, filling valleys and felling trees to construct a dhyāna cloister; donning a rain cape and straw hat, he tended oxen and mixed among the herd boys. Clearing the mountain to cultivate slash-and-burn fields, he grew crops in abundance. His feet did not descend Mount Nanquan for thirty years. Indeed, a great bell does not sound for the strike of a tiny reed; for it to sound, it must wait for the right cause. In the early Taihe era, the surveillance commissioner Lord Lu Gen and the former prefect of Chiyang both knew that he stepped far outside the dust of the world and served as the eye of the Dharma for all four quarters. Together with the army protector, Lord Liu of Pengcheng, they went to welcome him down the mountain, facing north to offer salutations. In less than two years, monks in patchwork robes hurried along the roads to him, numbering no fewer than several hundred. On the twenty-first day of the tenth month in the jia-yin year of the Taihe era, he showed illness. On the twenty-third day of the twelfth month, a white rainbow pierced the peak behind the dhyāna chamber; those who divined it said: 'Could it be that Nanquan is departing this world?' On that day, a massive boulder collapsed on the western peak, the sound echoing for dozens of li. In the middle of the day, a nursing tigress circled the dhyāna grove and wailed, which everyone found extraordinary. On the twenty-fifth day, when the eastern sky brightened, he told his disciples: 'The dimming of stars and the illusion of the lamp have lasted long already; do not say that I come and go.' Having finished speaking, he departed this life at the age of eighty-seven, with a saṅgha age of fifty-eight. Qiyuan, Wenchang, and others, totaling nine hundred people, all dressed in plain robes and black sashes, weeping blood at the mountain gate. Those proceeding to the funeral and gathering for the burial followed one after another on the roads, their wailing resounding through the cliffs and valleys. In the yimao year, his disciples placed his whole body in a sacred stupa in accordance with his instructions. Liu Ke, vice director of the Bureau of Provisions and compiler in the Historiographical Institute, revereing his former achievements, wrote a eulogy praising his virtues.