大明高僧傳 8.22

8.22

Shi Shifan, styled Wuzhun, was a son of the Yong family of Zitong in Shu. At the age of nine, he went forth from home under Master Daoqin of Mount Yinping. When reading books, he memorized them at a glance. In the sixth year of Shaoxi of the Southern Song, he first packed his baggage and traveled to Zhengfa Monastery in Chengdu to request instruction from Master Yao on the practice of seated meditation. Yao said, "What thing is Chan? Who is the one sitting?" The Master thereupon investigated this day and night. One day while going to the latrine, he had an awakening through bringing up the previous words. The following year, he traveled to Guangxi and Zhejiang, calling upon Fozhao at Yuwang. Zhao asked, "Where are you from?" He said, "Jianzhou." Zhao asked again, "Did you bring your sword?" The Master gave a shout. Fozhao laughed and said, "This black-headed fellow also acts recklessly!" Because the Master was poor and lacked the funds to shave his hair, people called him "the black-headed fellow." When Po'an resided at Lingyin, the Master was attending on him. At that time, an itinerant practitioner asked Po'an, "What should one do when the monkey cannot be caught?" Po'an said, "Why catch it? When the wind blows across water, ripples naturally form." The Master attained great awakening at these words. Soon after, he traveled with Venerable Shixi to Tiantai and Yandang. At that time, Master Yun of Xuefeng was residing at Ruiyan and detained the Master to share the seat. That night, [Yun] dreamt of a magnificent man holding a bundle of thatch in his hand and handing it to the Master. The next day, a special envoy from Qingliang Monastery in Mingzhou came to invite the Master. Just as he entered the monastery, he saw that the tablet of the monastery guardian deity was inscribed with the surname Mao (Thatch), and his clothing and cap were no different from what was seen in the dream. After residing there for three years, he moved to Jiaoshan, then to Xuedou, and was ordered by imperial decree to preside over Āyurvaṅga. After a long while, he was appointed to Shuangjing. Before long, he was summoned into the Xiuzheng Hall of the Great Palace to preach the Dharma, which pleased the emperor; he was bestowed a golden brocade robe and granted the title of Chan Master Fojian. When the Master resided at Jingshan, its halls twice suffered fires, and he restored both anew. Moreover, forty li away from the monastery, he constructed an edifice of a hundred bays to receive traveling practitioners, naming it Bannian Zhengxu. Next, several hundred paces to its west, he built a hermitage to be his resting place. He also built a multi-storied pavilion, where the imperial calligraphy bestowed by the court was stored above. The Master's ancestors had resided in Shu; suffering from chaos, their lineage was cut off. He therefore established an ancestral shrine in the mountain to sacrifice to his secular ancestors. When this matter was heard by the court, an inscribed plaque reading "Yuanzhao" was bestowed to demonstrate his filial piety. In the wushen year of the Chunyou reign of the Song, he built a dwelling above Mingyue Pond, placarded with "Tuigeng" (Retired Ploughing). On the first day of the third month of that year, illness arose. He ascended the seat and addressed the assembly, saying, "This mountain monk is both old and ill, lacking the strength to chat east and west with you all. Now I have forced myself to come forth, completely shaking out before you all what could not be said before." He then rose, shook his robe, and said, "How much is it?" and returned to the abbot's quarters. On the fifteenth day, he gathered the assembly and personally wrote several tens of words of a farewell memorial and farewell letter, yet joked and laughed with the guests as usual. At night, he wrote a gāthā, saying: / "Coming, empty and devoid of a thing; / Going, stark naked as well. / If you wish to ask about the reality: / On Tiantai there is a stone bridge." / After a short while he passed away. His casket was kept for two times seven days. When the farewell memorial was submitted to the court, the emperor dispatched an imperial envoy to bring incense and bestow silks. His whole body was stupaed at Yuanzhao.