弘贊法華傳 1.20

1.20

Śramaṇa Daojiong was a native of Haotao in Fufeng. His original surname was Ma. His scholarship was pure and refined, and he was already renowned in his youth. When he first went forth from the household life, he became a disciple of Daoyi. Jiong had long recited the Lotus Sūtra, placing his reliance and sincerity solely in this practice. In the ninth month of the second year of the Yuanjia reign, while in Luoyang, he conducted a Samantabhadra retreat for someone. Thereupon, he swept and washed the courtyard clean, purifying it inside and out. He adorned an image of Samantabhadra and cultivated a reverent state of mind as if in the presence [of the deity]. There were some forty monastics and laypeople. Seven days had already passed, and they were just partaking of the midday meal, when suddenly a man wearing riding trousers and riding a horse came right up to the front of the hall. He dismounted and bowed to the Buddha. Jiong considered him an ordinary person and did not treat him with any special courtesy. The man mounted his horse, brandished his whip, and suddenly vanished from sight. Immediately, a bright red light was seen filling the sky, which faded only after a long time. Three years later, in the twelfth month, he again conducted a Samantabhadra retreat in a layman's household. On the evening of its conclusion, two śramaṇas whose appearance and gaze seemed ordinary came directly in to bow to the Buddha. The assembly thought them mediocre monks and did not regard them with great veneration. Someone casually asked where they lived, and they replied, "We live in the village ahead." Among the laypeople present at the time, there was one Zhang Dao, who sensed something unusual about them and bowed with utmost devotion. When the śramaṇas exited the gate and had walked some tens of paces, they suddenly took flight into the empty air, soaring straight up into the heavens. Those who followed them with their eyes could no longer tell where they had gone. Later, [Daojiong] traveled south with four fellow students to the capital of Yangdu to observe its customs. At night, they crossed a river on ice; midway across, the ice broke, and three of them sank and drowned. Jiong again placed his sincere reliance in Avalokiteśvara, whereupon he felt as if something under his feet were supporting him on its own. He also saw a red light ahead, and following the light, he reached the shore. When the capital was established [at Jiankang], he stayed at Nanjian Temple and consistently took the pratyutpanna-[samādhi] as his practice. Once, while entering meditation in the middle of the night, he suddenly saw four men driving a carriage up to his room, calling for him to board. In a flash, without realizing it, Jiong saw himself between the Commandery Mound and the Shen Bridge. He saw a man seated on a folding chair on the road, attended by several hundred people. Seeing Jiong, the man arose in surprise and said, "He is merely a meditator!" That man then said to his attendants, "I only intended to let him know the place; why have you abruptly troubled and dragged the Dharma master here?" Thereupon, bowing and bidding farewell, he ordered someone to escort Jiong back to the temple. They knocked on the gate, and only after a long while was it opened. When he entered the temple, he found his room still locked, and everyone was mystified as to how it had happened. In the twentieth year of the Yuanjia reign of the Song, Liu Yiqing, King Kang of Linchuan, took him along to Guangling, where he finally passed away.