宋高僧傳 11.4

11.4

Shi Zizai was surnamed Li and was a native of Wuxing. At his birth there were miraculous portents. As he grew a little older, whenever he sat down he would cross his legs, which his kin regarded as unusual. Bidding farewell to his beloved [family], he went to Mount Jingshan to leave home, and received the precepts at Xinding. When he traveled to various quarters to study, he joined the Dharma assembly of Chan Master Daoyi of Nankang. He intuitively understood the true tradition, and his transcendent conduct surpassed his contemporaries. His reputation for the Way was illustrious, and his demeanour was relaxed and leisurely. He mostly hid himself in mountain valleys, and Chan companions from the four quarters gathered at his gate like thickets. During the Yuanhe era, he resided at Xiangshan below Luoyang and was an intimate friend of Chan Master Tianran. Wherever he traveled, he was invariably fond of antiquity, longing to find the relics of former worthies to delight his wandering gaze: at Mount Longmen he found the place where the Tripiṭaka [master] of the Later Wei translated scriptures; at Mount Wangwu he found the place where Chan Master Chou parted the fighting tigers, and because he drank from a sweet spring in this mountain, he changed its name to Ganquan Temple; and at Mount Song he found Master Fan's Horse-Pawing Spring. In his dwellings he had no lingering attachments. The "Song of the Three Sorrows" that he composed was beautiful in both words and principle; it aroused the deluded and ignorant and was beneficial to the age. At the beginning of the bogus Qiande era under the Wang clan of Former Shu, there was a minor military commissioner, Lord Chen, who married a granddaughter of Zhongling Gao Pian. This man had observed the precept against killing for more than twenty years. Later, when arranging a marriage for his son in Shu, the rites required slaughtering animals. Gao at first was unwilling, but relatives said: "You observe the precepts yourself, but when carrying out the rites of a wine banquet, how will you entertain the guests?" Wavering in hesitation, he ended up engaging in extensive butchery. Before a ten-day period had fully elapsed, he suddenly contracted a quite strange illness. His mouth only rambled incoherently, and then after three nights he revived and recounted matters of the underworld. At first, an emissary in black arrested and brought him into the City God Temple of Qizhou. The temple deity wore a tall hat and wide sleeves and was seated facing a warrior in golden armour. The emissary led Gao to see the deity, and the warrior reproached Gao at length for breaking the precepts. Wringing his wrists, he cursed, saying: "I am the spirit general who protects the precepts! For twenty years on your account I have had no leisure to eat or sleep. How could I expect that you would suddenly conceive the intention to kill and abruptly compromise your discipline? Although your lifespan is not yet exhausted, your sin is also quite deep; you must be sent to the underworld court to be punished for your intentional offence." The City God deity asked Gao, saying: "What other good deeds have you practiced to redeem your transgressions?" Gao usually recited the Shangsheng jing very many times, but at that moment he was bewildered and had no memory of it at all. In his terror he stated: "I can recite the 'Gāthā on the Three Sorrows' and the 'Song of the One-Bowl Monk'." He then joined his palms facing the deity and chanted them in a stern voice. The deity and the warrior pricked up their ears and raised their fists, standing and listening, and their countenances gradually turned pleased. When he reached the final stanza, the deities were all moved to tears, and they said to Gao: "Return to the human world for now; you should strive earnestly to perform good deeds." Before his bow of departure was finished, he abruptly sat up and detailed the matter. From this time on, people all copied, recited, and intoned the songs and verses of the "Three Sorrows" and the "One Bowl". The lyrics of "The One-Bowl Monk" accord with principle and deeply stimulate and encourage earnest contemplation; however, its literary style touches upon the vulgar vernacular—how could it surpass the classical elegance of the "Three Sorrows"? Zizai sent his disciples to the south of the Yangzi to select the finest among mountains and waters, saying: "I wish to go there to live out my old age." When they reached Duchang County in Jiangzhou, there were fine forests and springs, and they returned to report. When Zizai traveled as far as Yexian, he was detained by clerics and laity. He proceeded to Kaiyuan Temple in Suizhou and manifested extinction at the age of eighty-one, in the first year of Changqing.