宋高僧傳 7.48

7.48

釋義寂字常照，姓胡氏，溫州永嘉人也。母妊娠公日不喜葷血，生乃首蒙紫帽而誕焉。幼啟二親，堅求去俗，旋入開元伽藍。師授《法華經》，朞月而徹，寺之耆老稱歎希有。受具已，往會稽學南山鈔。既通律義，乃造天台山研尋「止觀」，其所易解猶河南一遍照也。先是智者教迹，遠則安史兵殘，近則會昌焚毀，零編斷簡，本折枝摧，傳者何憑端正其學？寂思鳩集也。適金華古藏中得《淨名疏》而已。後欵告韶禪師，囑人泛舟於日本國購獲僅足。由是博聞多識。微寂，此宗學者幾握半珠為家寶歟？遂於佛隴道場、國清寺相繼講訓，今許王錢氏在兩浙日，累請開演，私署淨光大師并紫方袍，辭讓不却，受而不稱。及興螺溪道場，四方學侶霧擁雲屯。太平興國五年，朝廷條貫緇伍經業，寂從山入州治寺，寺東樓安置。樓近大山，夜夢剎柱陷沒于地，意頗惡之。自徙於西偏僧房，其夜春雨甚，山崩樓圮。人咸謂寂先見同修報得之眼焉。因受黃巖邑人請，乘舟泛江放生，講〈流水長者品〉。至海門靈石，是智者冬居道場也，勸人修寺塑像，入緣者繁沓。今上遣高品衛紹欽入山重建，壽昌寺也，諸官同命受菩薩戒。雍熙初，永安縣請於光明寺受戒。古殿像隳，腹中獲《發願辭》，即唐咸通六年沙門希皎施戒，勸七鄉人裝塑尊像，願捨報為男子，童真出家，常布褐傳法利樂眾生云。觀者皆意寂之前身也。四年，臨海、縉雲、永康、東陽諸邑請其施戒。九月，寂至自太末，十月，寢疾本院方丈。十一月四日，囑誡門人：「不許哭泣祭奠。應緣俗禮者，非吾弟子也。」即窆于方丈，樹小塔焉。享年六十九，法臘五十矣。四方傳法弟子見星而舍者數百人。寂平素講《法華經》并《玄義》共二十許座，《光明》、《淨名》、《梵網》等經，《止觀》、《金𰼺》等論，《法界》、《還源》等觀，《禪源詮》、《永嘉集》各數遍，所著《止觀義例》、《法華十妙不二門科節》數卷。自智者捐世，六代傳法湛然師之後，二百餘齡，寂受遺寄，最克負荷，其如炎蒸講貫而無汗之霑洽，曾不久聽而勝解佛乘。每一談揚，則摐金玉應，召羽商和，彼九旬說妙，相去幾何？又甞寓四明育王寺，夢登國清寺上方，有寶莊嚴幢座，題曰「文殊臺」，設枑梐闌隔，求入無由。俄覩觀音菩薩從堂徐出，以手攘却行馬，低迂相接。斯須，覺已與觀音身泯合不分，因而驚寤。自是之來，樂說無盡矣。或曰：「入普門智，乘利物悲。上合佛覺，證無上故。下合眾生，凡同體故。開則群靈混成一法，得是心者，非觀音而誰歟？」是以講談也，施戒也，自甌越之鄉迨三天子障，民多咈戾，俗尚畋獵。受寂之訓也，咸食椹革音，說法之功，所謂善建。由是堂室間可見者，曰澄彧，曰寶翔，曰義通。及乎台之民庶，曾受戒法，迎真相來州治開元寺祭饗，皆縞素哀泣，天為之變慘，其慈攝之所感。知州鄭公元龜為詩悲悼焉。

Śramaṇa Yiji, whose style was Changzhao, had the surname Hu and was a native of Yongjia in Wenzhou. On the day his mother was pregnant with him, she disliked meat and blood; when he was born, his head was covered with a purple caul. In his youth, he stated his wish to his parents, firmly seeking to leave secular life, and soon entered Kaiyuan Monastery. His master instructed him in the Lotus Sūtra, which he mastered in a single year, so that the elders of the monastery praised him as a rarity. After receiving full ordination (upasampadā), he went to Kuaiji to study the Nanshan Commentary. Having mastered the vinaya doctrines, he went to Mount Tiantai to investigate śamatha-vipaśyanā, his ease of comprehension being like Puzhao of Henan. Earlier, regarding the doctrinal traces of Zhiyi, distant were the military ravages of the An Lushan Rebellion, and near were the conflagrations and destructions of the Huichang era; with scattered fascicles and broken slips, the trunks snapped and the branches ruined, upon what could transmitters rely to rectify the teaching? Ji thought to collect them. By chance he only obtained the Vimalakīrti Commentary from an ancient canon in Jinhua. Later, he earnestly informed Chan Master Deshao, who entrusted someone to sail to Japan and purchase just enough of the texts. From this he gained vast hearing and extensive knowledge. Were it not for Ji, scholars of this school would almost have held half a pearl as their family treasure! He then successively lectured and taught at the Folong Bodhimaṇḍa and Guoqing Temple. When Prince Qian of Xu was in Liangzhe, he repeatedly invited him to lecture and privately conferred upon him the title of Grand Master Jingguang along with a purple square robe; Ji declined but could not refuse, so he accepted them without using the title. When he developed the Luoxi Bodhimaṇḍa, students from the four directions gathered like swirling mist and assembling clouds. In the fifth year of the Taiping Xingguo era [980], when the imperial court organized the scriptural curriculum for the saṅgha, Ji came down from the mountain to the prefectural administrative seat, where he was accommodated in the east tower of the monastery. The tower was close to a large mountain, and at night he dreamed that the monastery flagpole sank into the ground, which he regarded with dread. He moved himself to a monk's cell in the western section; that night there was heavy spring rain, the mountain collapsed, and the tower was ruined. Everyone said Ji possessed the foresight of the divine eye attained through cultivation. On being invited by the people of Huangyan county, he boarded a boat to sail the river for the release of living beings, lecturing on the 'Chapter of Elder Jalavāhana.' Reaching Lingshi in Haimen, which had been Zhiyi's winter bodhimaṇḍa, he encouraged people to repair the temple and sculpt images, and those who joined the karmic connection gathered in great numbers. The current Emperor dispatched the high-ranking official Wei Shaoqin into the mountain to reconstruct it as Shouchang Temple, and the various officials were concurrently ordered to receive the bodhisattva precepts. Early in the Yongxi era [984–987], Yong'an county invited him to bestow precepts at Guangming Temple. The image in the ancient hall had collapsed, and inside its belly was discovered a 'Vow Document', which was written in the sixth year of the Xiantong era of the Tang [865], stating that Śramaṇa Xijiao had bestowed the precepts and urged the people of seven townships to decorate and sculpt the venerable image, vowing that upon shedding his karmic retribution he would be reborn as a male, leave the household life in youth, wear coarse hemp robes, transmit the Dharma, and bring benefit and joy to sentient beings. All who saw it believed this had been Ji's previous life. In the fourth year [987], the various counties of Linhai, Jinyun, Yongkang, and Dongyang invited him to bestow precepts. In the ninth month, Ji returned from Taimo; in the tenth month, he took ill in his abbot's quarters at the cloister. On the fourth day of the eleventh month, he instructed his disciples: 'No weeping or sacrificial offerings are permitted. Any who follow secular customs are not my disciples.' He was immediately interred in the abbot's quarters, and a small stūpa was erected. His age was sixty-nine, and his saṅgha age was fifty. His disciples who transmitted the Dharma across the four directions and set out before dawn were several hundred in number. Throughout his life, Ji lectured on the Lotus Sūtra and its Xuanyi about twenty times; the Suvarṇaprabhāsa, Vimalakīrti, and Brahmajāla sūtras, the Zhiguan and Jinpi treatises, the Fajie and Huanyuan contemplations, the Chanyuan quan, and the Yongjia ji each several times; and he authored the Zhiguan yili and the Fahua shimiao bu'ermen kejie in several fascicles. From Zhiyi's passing, after Master Zhanran, the sixth-generation transmitter of the Dharma, more than two hundred years had elapsed; Ji received the entrusted legacy and was supremely capable of shouldering it. Even amidst sweltering heat, he continued his lectures without breaking into a sweat; after hearing the teaching for only a short time, he grasped the supreme understanding of the Buddha vehicle. Each time he expounded, it was like striking gold and jade in harmony, calling on the yu and shang tones to blend—how far did that differ from speaking the marvelous for ninety days? Once, while residing at Asoka Temple in Siming, he dreamed of ascending to the upper court of Guoqing Temple, where there was a precious adorned banner seat inscribed 'Mañjuśrī's Terrace,' enclosed by barricades and railings so that there was no way to enter. Suddenly he saw Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva slowly emerge from the hall, push aside the barriers with his hand, and bend down to draw him in. In an instant, he felt his own body merge indistinguishably with Avalokiteśvara's body, and thereupon he woke up with a start. From that time forth, his eloquence in preaching was inexhaustible. Someone said: 'Entering the wisdom of the Universal Gate, he mounted the compassion that benefits beings. Above, he harmonized with the Buddha's enlightenment, for he realized the unsurpassed; below, he harmonized with sentient beings, for all share the same essence. Opened up, the multitude of spirits are unified into a single Dharma; he who attains such a mind, who could it be if not Avalokiteśvara?' Thus, in lecturing and bestowing precepts, from the regions of Ouyue to the Barrier of the Three Sons of Heaven, where the people had been mostly obstinate and customarily favored hunting, when they received Ji's instruction, they all ate mulberries and changed their tune; the efficacy of his Dharma preaching was what is called well-established. Therefore, those of his inner chamber who were distinguished were Chengyu, Baoxiang, and Yitong. When the common people of Tiantai who had received the precepts escorted his portrait to Kaiyuan Temple in the prefectural seat to make offerings, they all wore unhemmed white mourning garments and wept sorrowfully, and the heavens grew somber for him, moved by his compassionate embrace. Prefect Lord Zheng Yuangui composed poems to mourn him.