神僧傳 6.28

6.28

釋法融。姓韋。潤州延陵人。年十九入茅山依炅法師剃除服勤請道。貞觀十七年於牛頭山幽栖寺北巖下別立茅茨禪室。日夕思擇無缺寸陰。山有石室深可十步。融於中坐。忽有神蛇長丈餘。目如星火舉頭揚威。於室口經宿。見融不動遂去。因居百日。山素多虎。樵蘇絕人。自融入後往還無阻。又感群鹿依室聽伏曾無懼容。有二大鹿直入。通僧聽法三年而去。所住食厨基臨大壑。至於激水不可瓖階。乃顧步徘徊指東嶺曰。昔遠公拄錫朽瓖驚泉。若此可居。會當清泉自溢。經宿東嶺忽涌飛泉。清白甘美冬溫夏冷。即激引登峯趣釜經廊。又二十一年十一月。巖下講法華經。于時素雪滿階法流不絕。於凝氷內獲花二莖。狀如芙蓉璨同金色。經于七日忽然失之。永徽三年邑宰請出建初講揚大品。僧眾千人至滅諍品。融乃縱其天辯商搉理義。地忽大動聽侶驚波。鍾磬香床並皆搖蕩。寺外道俗安然不覺。顯慶元年司功蕭元善再三邀請。出在建初。融謂諸僧曰。從今一去再踐無期。離合之道此常規耳。辭而不免。遂出山門。禽獸哀號逾月不止。山㵎泉池擊石涌砂一時填滿。房前大桐四株五月繁茂。一朝凋盡。至二年閏正月二十三日終於建初。春秋六十四矣。

Śramaṇa Farong had the secular surname Wei and was a native of Yanling in Runzhou. At the age of nineteen, he entered Maoshan, where he relied upon Master of Dharma Jiong, had his head shaved, served diligently, and requested instruction in the Way. In the seventeenth year of Zhenguan, he established a separate thatched meditation hut below the northern cliff of Youqi Monastery on Mount Niutou. Day and night he contemplated and discerned without wasting an inch of shadow. On the mountain was a stone chamber about ten paces deep; Farong sat within it. Suddenly a divine serpent more than a zhang in length appeared, with eyes like sparks of starlight, raising its head and flaunting its might. It spent the night at the entrance of the chamber, but seeing that Farong remained unmoved, it went away. He thereupon dwelt there for a hundred days. The mountain had always had many tigers, and firewood gatherers had ceased to go there; after Farong entered, people came and went without hindrance. Furthermore, herds of deer were moved to rely on his chamber, listening submissively without ever showing an expression of fear. Two large deer came directly inside, listening to the Dharma with the community of monks for three years before departing. The foundation of the kitchen where he lived bordered a great gorge; as for surging water, none could ascend the steps. He then paced back and forth, pointed to the eastern ridge, and said: "Anciently, Master Yuan leaned his tin staff, causing the rotten steps to stir a spring. If this place can be dwelt in, a clear spring will surely overflow of itself." After one night, a cascading spring suddenly welled up on the eastern ridge, clear, pure, sweet, and delicious, warm in winter and cold in summer; he thereupon channeled and guided it up the peak, leading it to the cauldrons and through the corridors. Furthermore, in the eleventh month of the twenty-first year, he lectured on the Lotus Sūtra beneath the cliff. At that time, white snow filled the steps, yet the flow of Dharma never ceased. From within the frozen ice, he obtained two stalks of flowers resembling lotuses, radiant like golden color; after seven days, they suddenly disappeared. In the third year of Yonghui, the county magistrate invited him to come out to Jianchu to expound the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra. A monastic assembly of a thousand gathered; when he reached the chapter on Settling Disputes, Farong gave free rein to his natural eloquence, evaluating the principles and meanings. Suddenly the earth shook violently, and the listening assembly was thrown into a surge of alarm. The bells, chiming stones, and incense-tables all swayed and shook, while monastics and laypeople outside the monastery remained calm and unaware. In the first year of Xianqing, Administrator of Public Works Xiao Yuanshan repeatedly invited him to stay at Jianchu. Farong said to the monks: "Once I depart now, there will be no time for me to tread here again. The way of parting and meeting is merely the common rule." He declined, but was not excused, and so went out through the monastery gate. The birds and beasts wailed sorrowfully without ceasing for over a month. The mountain streams and spring pools beat upon stones and welled with sand, suddenly filled to the brim. The four large paulownia trees in front of his chamber, luxuriant in the fifth month, withered completely in a single morning. On the twenty-third day of the intercalary first month in the second year, he died at Jianchu. His worldly age was sixty-four.