宋高僧傳 5.23

5.23

釋法詵，姓孫氏。母初夢吞明珠，遂黜魚惡葷。誕彌厥月，生有異表。十五辭親從師，依年受具。行學一集，蔚為教宗，卷伊、呂立功之致，陋黃、綺肆志之適。遺形理性，與山木為群。故地恩貞大師囑之以《華嚴經》、《菩薩戒》、《起信論》，心以靜銑，智與經冥。一夕夢乘大艑，直截滄溟，橫山當前，峻與天極。不覺孤帆鳶戾，懷襄上濟，峯竦竦而忽高，雲溶溶而在下。既寤，形若委衣，流汗輕醒。自此，句義不思而得，一部全文常現心境，「事事無礙」之旨，如貫華焉。天寶六年，於蘇州常樂寺繢盧舍那像，化示群品。大曆二年，於常州龍興寺講，纔登法座，忽有異光如曳紅縷，漸明漸大，縈旋杳空。久修行者會中先覩。前後講大經十遍，撰《儀記》十二卷。大曆十三年十一月七日，沙門慧覺夢巨塔陷地二級。無何，詵示疾而終，春秋六十一，慧命四十二。受法弟子太初，付以香罏、談柄，潯陽正覺、會稽神秀，亦猶儒氏之有游、夏焉。詵初講天竺寺，盛闡《華嚴》。時越僧澄觀就席決疑，深得幽趣。及終，吳興皎然為碑，邗城肅公為頌，合揚其美哉。

Shi Faxin had the surname Sun. At first, his mother dreamed of swallowing a bright pearl, whereupon she rejected fish and abhorred all pungent foods. When the month of his birth was fulfilled, he was born with extraordinary signs. At fifteen, he took leave of his parents to follow a master, and received full ordination according to the canonical age. In him conduct and learning were united, making him prominent as a leader of the teaching; he surpassed the achievements of Yi Yin and Lü Shang in establishing merit, and considered the self-indulgent leisurely retreats of the Four Whiteheads of Mount Shang to be vulgar. Forgetting the body and identifying with the true nature, he made companions of the mountain trees. Grand Master Enzhen of Gudi entrusted him with the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, the Bodhisattva Precepts, and the Awakening of Faith; his mind was polished by tranquility, and his wisdom merged with the scripture. One night, he dreamed of boarding a great ship that cut straight across the vast ocean; a mountain stretched across his path, its height reaching to the heavens. Suddenly, his solitary sail soared like a kite, floating upward across the waters; the peaks abruptly towered high, while clouds billowed below. Upon waking, his body felt as light as discarded clothing, and he roused refreshed amid streaming sweat. From then on, the meanings of sentences came to him without thinking; the entire text of the sūtra constantly manifested in his mind's mirror, and the principle of 'unhindered interpenetration among phenomena' was grasped as effortlessly as stringing flowers. In the sixth year of the Tianbao era, he painted an image of Rocana at Changle Temple in Suzhou to transform and instruct the various classes of beings. In the second year of the Dali era, when he was lecturing at Longxing Temple in Changzhou, no sooner had he mounted the Dharma seat than an extraordinary light suddenly appeared like trailing red threads, gradually brightening and expanding, swirling into the boundless sky. Longtime practitioners in the assembly were the first to behold it. Over time, he lectured on the great sūtra ten times and composed twelve rolls of Ritual Records. On the seventh day of the eleventh month of the thirteenth year of the Dali era, the śramaṇa Huijue dreamed that a giant stūpa sank two tiers into the earth. Before long, Faxin manifested illness and passed away, at the age of sixty-one, with forty-two years of dharma age. His disciple who received the Dharma, Taichu, was entrusted with the incense burner and conversational fly-whisk; Zhengjue of Xunyang and Shenxiu of Kuaiji were to him what Ziyou and Zixia were to the Ruists. When Faxin first lectured at Tianzhu Temple, he grandly expounded the Avataṃsaka. At that time, the monk Chengguan of Yue attended his seat to resolve doubts and deeply attained its profound meaning. After his death, Jiaoran of Wuxing composed an epitaph stele, and Lord Su of Hancheng composed a eulogy, joining together to extol his virtues.