神僧傳 6.30

6.30

釋智勤。俗姓朱氏。隋仁壽因舍利州別置大興國寺。勤少小以匡護為心。每處眾發言無不允睦。精誠勇猛事皆冥祐。初母患委頓為念觀音。宅中樹葉之上皆現化佛。合家並見。母疾遂除。又屬隋末荒亂諸賊競起。勤獨守此寺賊不敢凌。故得寺宇經像一無所損。諸寺湮滅不可目見。又一時權著俗衣以避兵刃。被賊圍繞而欲殺之。忽聞空中聲告。師可去俗衣。遂除外服。賊見頂禮。請將供養。經於數月。後投於蜀聽暠法師講。眾至三千。法師皆委令檢校。遂得安帖內外無事一人力也。又至唐初還歸鄧州。講維摩三論十餘遍。後隱於北山倚立十餘年。所居三所即今見存。恒聞谷中鍾聲。後尋巖嶺忽見一寺。宛麗奇常。入中禮拜。似有人住。如是數度。後更尋覓莫知所在。又居山內糧食將盡。其行道之處土自發起。遂除棄之明日復爾。如是再三。遂有穀現。因即深掘得粟二十餘碩。其粟粒大色赤稍異凡穀。時鄧州佛法陵遲。合州道俗就山禮請。願出住持。遂感夢而出。其夢不詳子細。後時負像出山。中途忽闇莫知其路不得前進。俄有異火兩炬照路極明。因得見道送至村中。火方迴滅村人並見無不驚異。永徽年初以見時事繁雜守房不出。向淹三載讀一切經兩遍。每讀經時恒見有神來聽。初中後夜甞聞彈指謦欬之聲。至顯慶四年五月。欲終之前所有功德不周之處。曉夜經構使畢。人問何故如此忽速。答曰。無常之法何可保耶。至十五日。寺中樹木枝葉萎枯自然分析。禽鳥悲鳴遍於寺內。僧各驚問莫知所由。至十六日旦忽見昔聽經神來禮拜。語云莫禮。傍人無有見者。於是剃髮披衣在繩床內。手執香爐跏趺而坐。告諸弟子。汝可取大品經讀誦。至往生品訖。遂合掌坐而卒。停經數日顏色如舊。恒有異香聞於寺內。春秋七十四。

Śramaṇa Zhiqin had the secular surname Zhu. In the Renshou era of the Sui, because of [the distribution of] relics, Daxingguo Monastery was established in each prefecture. From his youth, Qin took safeguarding [the Dharma] as his purpose; whenever he dwelt in an assembly and spoke, all was in harmony and concord. In sincere and heroic effort, everything received unseen assistance. Initially, when his mother was seriously ill and exhausted, he recited [the name of] Avalokiteśvara on her behalf; upon the tree leaves in the house, transformed Buddhas appeared, and the whole family saw them together. His mother's illness was thereupon eliminated. Furthermore, when the late Sui fell into famine and disorder and various bandits arose in competition, Qin alone guarded this monastery, and the bandits dared not encroach upon it; thus the monastery buildings, scriptures, and images suffered no damage at all, whereas other monasteries were annihilated beyond recognition. In addition, once he temporarily put on secular clothes to avoid weapons; surrounded by bandits who wished to kill him, he suddenly heard a voice in the air say: "Master, you may remove your secular clothes." He thereupon took off the outer garments. Seeing this, the bandits made prostrations, invited him, and made offerings to him for several months. Later he went to Shu to listen to Master of Dharma Hao's lectures. The assembly reached three thousand; the Master of Dharma entrusted everything to him for inspection and regulation, so that inner and outer affairs became peaceful and free of disturbance through the effort of this single man. Furthermore, at the beginning of the Tang, he returned to Dengzhou and lectured on the Vimalakīrti and Three Treatises more than ten times. Later he went into seclusion at the northern mountain, standing leaning for more than ten years; the three sites where he dwelt still exist today. He constantly heard the sound of a bell in the valley; later, seeking along the cliffs and ridges, he suddenly saw a monastery, wonderfully beautiful and extraordinarily rare. Entering within, he paid homage; it seemed as though someone lived there. This happened several times; when he later searched for it again, no one knew where it was. Furthermore, while dwelling in the mountain, when his provisions were about to be exhausted, the earth where he practiced circumambulation naturally welled up; he removed and discarded it, but the next day it was so again. After this happened repeatedly, grain appeared; digging deep, he obtained more than twenty dan of millet. The grains of this millet were large and red in color, slightly different from ordinary grain. At that time, the Buddhadharma in Dengzhou had declined; monastics and laypeople of the whole prefecture went to the mountain to pay homage and invite him, wishing for him to come out and serve as abbot. Thereupon, moved by a dream, he came out; the details of the dream are not known. Later, when he carried an image out of the mountain, it suddenly grew dark along the way; not knowing the path, he could not advance. Presently, two torches of extraordinary fire illuminated the path with extreme brightness, enabling him to see the road; after escorting him into the village, the fire turned back and was extinguished. The villagers all saw it and were without exception amazed. In the early Yonghui era, seeing that worldly affairs were complicated and disordered, he kept to his room and did not come out. For nearly three years he read the entire canon twice; whenever he read the scriptures, he constantly saw a spirit come to listen, and in the first, middle, and late watches of the night he often heard the sounds of snapping fingers and clearing of throats. In the fifth month of the fourth year of Xianqing, before he was about to pass away, he worked day and night to complete all places where meritorious deeds were not yet finished. When people asked why he was so hasty, he answered: "How can the law of impermanence be guaranteed?" On the fifteenth day, the branches and leaves of the trees in the monastery withered and naturally split apart; birds wailed sorrowfully throughout the monastery, and the monks each asked in alarm, not knowing the cause. At dawn on the sixteenth day, he suddenly saw the spirit who had formerly listened to the scriptures come to pay homage; he said: "Do not pay homage," though the people beside him saw nothing. He then shaved his hair, put on his robes, sat on a rope bed holding an incense burner, and sat cross-legged. He told his disciples: "You may take the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra and chant it." When they reached the end of the chapter on Rebirth, he joined his palms, sat, and passed away. After several days, his facial color was as before, and an extraordinary fragrance was constantly smelled in the monastery. His worldly age was seventy-four.