神僧傳 8.14

8.14

釋惠忠。俗姓王氏。潤州上元人也。初在母孕忽遇異僧。謂曰。所生貴子當為天人矣。誕育已來不食葷腥有異常童。稟性敦厚。年二十三以經業見度。即神龍元年也。遂配莊嚴寺。聞牛頭山威禪師造山禮謁。威見忠乃曰。山主來矣。因為說法。遂夙夜精勤。常頭陀山澤飲泉藉草一食延時。每用一鐺眾味同煮。用畢懸於樹杪。方坐繩床宴坐終日如杌。衣不易時寒暑一納。積四十年。遂彰靈應。州牧明賢頻詣山禮謁。再請至郡施化道俗。天寶初始出止莊嚴。忠以為梁朝舊寺莊嚴最盛。今已歲古凋殘興懷修葺。遂於殿東擬創法堂。先有古木鵲巢其頂。工人將欲伐之。忠曰且止。待鵲移去始當伐之。因至樹祝曰。此地造堂當速移去。言畢其鵲䘖柴遷寓他樹。道俗觀者莫不歎異。又立基未定。忽有二神人為止其處。因乃定焉。雖汲引無廢神曠不撓。四方之侶相依日至。以大曆三年山門石室前有忠挂衣藤。是歲盛夏忽然枯悴。靈芝仙菌且不復生。至九月忠演法高座。無故水出繞座而轉。至四年六月十五日集眾布薩。至晚乃命侍者剃髮浴軀。是夜瑞雲覆剎天樂聞空。十六朝怡然坐化。時風雨震蕩樹木摧折。山中鳥獸哀鳴林壑。巖間哭聲數日方止。春秋八十有七。

Shi Huizhong had the secular surname of Wang and was a native of Shangyuan in Runzhou. When his mother was pregnant with him, she suddenly met an extraordinary monk who said to her: 'The noble son to be born will become a [guide of] devas and humans.' From the time of his birth, he did not eat meat or pungent roots, differing from ordinary children. His endowed nature was honest and earnest. At the age of twenty-three, he was ordained through his mastery of scripture study, which was in the first year of the Shenlong era. He was then assigned to Zhuangyan Monastery. Hearing of Chan Master Wei of Mount Niutou, he went to the mountain to pay homage. When Wei saw Huizhong, he said: 'The master of the mountain has come!' He then expounded the Dharma for him. Thereupon, morning and night, [Huizhong] practiced with vigor, constantly undertaking dhūta practices in mountains and marshes, drinking from springs and bedding on grass, extending his days on a single meal a day. Each time he used a single pot to cook all flavors together, and after using it he hung it on a treetop; only then did he sit on a rope chair, absorbed in banquet meditation all day like an uncarved block of wood. His robes did not change with the seasons; he wore a single patched robe through cold and heat. Having accumulated this for forty years, his spiritual efficacy became manifest. The prefects and luminaries frequently went to the mountain to pay homage, repeatedly inviting him to the commandery to bestow conversion upon monastics and laity. At the beginning of the Tianbao era, he first went out to stay at Zhuangyan. Huizhong considered that Zhuangyan was an old monastery of the Liang dynasty, once most prosperous, but now aged and dilapidated, and conceived the wish to repair it. Thereupon, to the east of the hall, he planned to build a Dharma hall. There was an ancient tree with a magpie's nest on top; when the workmen were about to fell it, Huizhong said: 'Stop for a while. Only after the magpie has moved away should you fell it.' He then went to the tree and prayed: 'A hall is to be built on this ground; you should move away quickly.' As soon as he finished speaking, the magpie held twigs in its beak and moved to lodge in another tree. Among the monastics and laity who watched, none did not sigh in wonder. Furthermore, when the foundation had not yet been fixed, two divine beings suddenly came and stood at the spot, and thus it was determined. Although he never ceased guiding and converting, his spirit was broad and unperturbed. Companions from the four directions arrived daily to rely on him. In the third year of the Dali era, in front of the stone chamber at the mountain gate, there was a vine on which Huizhong hung his robe; in the height of summer that year, it suddenly withered, and the numinous lingzhi and immortal mushrooms grew no more. In the ninth month, when Huizhong expounded the Dharma from the high seat, water came forth without cause and circled around the seat. On the fifteenth day of the sixth month of the fourth year, he gathered the assembly for the poṣadha (uposatha). Toward evening, he ordered his attendant to shave his hair and bathe his body. That night, auspicious clouds covered the monastery, and heavenly music was heard in the sky. On the morning of the sixteenth, he sat and passed away peacefully. At that time, wind and rain shook, and trees broke; birds and beasts in the mountains wailed sorrowfully in the forests and valleys, and the sound of weeping among the crags stopped only after several days. His age was eighty-seven.