宋高僧傳 9.9

9.9

Shi Huairang, whose secular surname was Du, was a native of Ankang in Jinzhou. At the age of only ten, he had an elegant penchant for Buddhist texts, with a dazzling and extraordinary bearing and a particularly numinous countenance. Those with discernment divined that these were signs of leaving householder life, not destined for secular nobility. A treasure among humans bringing good omens, an endless celebration for the realm, if compared to the qilin, phoenix, turtle, or dragon, they would not number in the tens of thousands. Heaven and Earth have no complete merit, and the seasonal qi waxes and wanes; when the cardinal bonds decay, repairs and plugs are insufficient, all relying on dark preservation and secret assistance. Only those who ought to be liberated perceive its principle; it is not something the mediocre can know. At capping age, he went to Yuquan Temple in Jingnan, served Vinaya Master Hengjing, and soon shaved his hair and received full ordination. He sighed and said, "Leaving householder life is for the unconditioned Dharma; between heaven and the human realm, nothing surpasses it. It is what the sūtra calls going out to the crossroad and sitting in an open space." At that time, Chan Master Tan encouraged Rang to go to Mount Song to meet Venerable An. An enlightened him, whereupon he entered the Caohou Stream to pay homage to Venerable Neng. Venerable Neng was delighted; without scent or foulness, was it like surging waves arriving at the vastness of the great abyss, or the harmonic concord of the *Shaohuo* performing great music? Rang's deep entrance into tranquil concentration and abiding in the unmoving bodhimanda were just like this. When Venerable Neng's great condition was completed, Rang climbed Mount Heng and dwelt at the Guanyin Terrace. At that time, a monk named Xuanzhi was detained in a criminal prison; he raised a thought wishing Master Rang would rescue and protect him. Rang knew of it beforehand and gave him encouragement; that monk escaped the disaster and said Rang was the "Sorrow-Relieving Avalokiteśvara." He also obtained this epithet on this account. When his converting conditions came to an end, his Dharma-transmitting disciples were Daoxun and Daoyi, both of whom ascended the hall and beheld the inner depths. Thereafter, Master Yi beat the Dharma drum in Hongzhou, and his gate disciples were Weikuan and Huihui. As Daoyi's great condition was about to conclude, he said to Kuan and the others: "The way of my master resides in the wondrous: unconditioned yet constant, not abiding yet arriving; the capable works are gathered. Born from the golden mouth and transformed from the Dharma, to me he is a father, and to you a grandfather. When transmitted by a single lamp, how could it ever be exhausted?" Rang was born in the second year of Yifeng and died at Mount Heng on the tenth day of the eighth month in the third year of Tianbao, at the age of sixty-eight, with a saṅgha age of forty-eight. Master Yi erected a stūpa on a different peak. In the Yuanhe era, Kuan and Hui came to the capital, propagated their ancestral school, and greatly opened the Dharma gate, transmitting hundreds of thousands of lamps. The grand continuation of the Dharma-jewel in the capital and the summer retreat was at its height here. In the eighth year, the Prefect of Hengyang, Linghu Quan, inquired into Rang's past deeds; Quan gave away clothes and wealth to provide for the anniversary vegetarian feast. From then on, every year the eighth month was known as the "Avalokiteśvara Memorial." During the Baoli era, he was posthumously bestowed by imperial order the title Chan Master Dahui, and his stūpa was named the Wheel of Supreme Victory. In the Yuanhe era, Attendant Gentleman Gui Deng composed an inscription.