神僧傳 3.22

3.22

Shi Sengyi was a man of unknown origin. He was upright, resolute, and endowed with great power of thought. Whenever he ascended the seat to lecture and expound, heavenly flowers would invariably scatter down upon the Dharma seat. During the Yuan Wei, he resided at the mountain monastery of Master Lang's Valley on Mount Tai. The monastery possessed seven images from Gaoli and elsewhere, all of gilt bronze, displayed together in the monastery hall. The hall doors were always open, yet no birds or beasts dared enter. Sengyi maintained the Dharma to sustain himself, restraining his person to make offerings. On the eve before his end, there was a novice who had died long ago; he manifested his form, bowed, and said: "Since I departed from serving you, I have constantly been ordered about by the Lord of Heaven, flurried with no leisure, neglecting my cultivation of the path. Soon the Lord of Heaven will invite the Master to lecture on the sūtras. I pray that through a single word [of yours], I may be freed from this bodily torment." Sengyi then bathed, burned incense, and sat upright in a quiet room, waiting for the time to arrive. When the appointed time came, a deva indeed arrived at the monastery and entered his room, with cap, robes, and feathered retinue grand, splendid, and extraordinary. When the monks first saw him, they merely thought he was some nobleman of the world coming into the mountain for an audience, and were not astonished. Only when Sengyi passed away without illness that day did they realize it was a divine response.