神僧傳 8.14

8.14

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.