弘贊法華傳 4.5

4.5

Shi Zhiyi, whose courtesy name was De'an, was of the Chen clan and a native of Yingchuan. When the Jin moved its capital, his family settled in Huarong of Jingzhou. He was the second son of Qizu, Duke of Yiyang and Cavalier Attendant-in-Ordinary under the Liang. His mother, Lady Xu, dreamed of fragrant smoke in five colours swirling into her bosom. When she wished to brush it away, she heard someone say, 'A karmic condition from past lives entrusts the propagation of the Dharma; blessings and virtue come naturally—why cast it off?' She also dreamed of swallowing a white mouse, and this occurred repeatedly. Finding it strange, she divined it, and the diviner said, 'It is an omen of a white dragon.' On the night he was born, the chamber was brilliantly illuminated; only after two nights did the light cease. Within the family and without, all were overjoyed, and they set out abundant cauldrons and butchering boards. However, the fires were extinguished, the boiling water grew cold, and the preparations could not be completed. Suddenly two monks knocked at the door and said, 'Excellent! Perfumed by the child's virtue, he will surely renounce worldly life.' Having spoken, they vanished, leaving the guests astonished. Furthermore, whenever he lay down, he would join his palms, and whenever he sat, he always faced west. As he grew older, he did not crave food; whenever he saw an image he would bow, and whenever he met a monk he always showed respect. At the age of seven, he delighted in going to saṅghārāmas. The monks marveled at his aspiration and orally taught him the Universal Gateway Chapter; at the very first attempt, he mastered it in a single reading. At the age of eighteen, he turned to the śramaṇa Faxu of Guoyuan Temple in Xiangzhou and renounced worldly life. Thereupon he secluded himself on Mount Daxian, reciting the Lotus Sūtra as well as the Immeasurable Meanings Sūtra and the Sūtra of the Contemplation of Samantabhadra; within less than twenty days, he thoroughly mastered all three texts. He then went to Mount Dasu in Guangzhou to attend Chan Master Huisi and receive instruction in cessation and contemplation (śamatha-vipaśyanā). Huisi had followed the Way under Master Jiu, and Jiu had received the Dharma from Master Zui; the spiritual stages of these three men were all unfathomable. Huisi would often sigh and say, 'Formerly on Vulture Peak, we listened together to the Lotus. Pursued by past conditions, you have now come again!' He immediately showed him the Samantabhadra ritual site and expounded for him the four comfortable practices. Zhiyi then practiced the Lotus Samādhi on this mountain. After only three nights had passed, while reciting to the Bhaiṣajyarāja Chapter, his mind focused on ascetic practice, and reaching the phrase 'This is true vigor,' understanding and awakening burst forth. He saw himself together with Master Huisi in the seven-jeweled pure land on Gṛdhrakūṭa, listening to the Buddha preach the Dharma. Therefore Huisi said, 'None but you could have such an induction; none but I could recognise it. This is the preliminary expedient of the Lotus Samādhi.' Later he entered Mount Baisha in Danzhou and entered contemplation as before. Whenever he had doubts about the scripture, he would see Huisi arrive invisibly to explain and resolve them. From then on, Huisi often had him lecture in his stead, and all who heard him submitted with respect. Zhiyi then went to Tiantai, dwelling in solitary quiet and dhūta practice on Huading Peak north of the monastery. Suddenly a great wind uprooted trees, and thunder roared and shook; thousands of packs of demons appeared, each form with a hundred faces, shouting in great voices, so frightening that it was hard to describe. He curbed his mind and practiced patient endurance, resting serene and selfless. He then suffered anguish and pain in body and mind, as though being burned by fire. He also saw his deceased parents resting their heads on his knees, weeping of their suffering and begging for mercy. Zhiyi again relied on the forbearance of phenomena, remaining motionless as a mountain. Thus both the harsh and soft conditions induced were immediately extinguished. Suddenly a divine monk from the Western Regions appeared and told him, 'Subduing enemies and conquering adversaries—this alone may be called courage.' The account is long and not fully recorded here. From then on, his dhyāna and wisdom flowed widely, and students gathered like a forest. Renowned masters of the time submitted to him in great numbers. The emperors, empresses, and consorts of both the Chen and Sui dynasties all received the refuges and precepts from him, and their offerings accumulated abundantly. Later he went to Shicheng Temple. Before the Buddha, on the verge of meeting his future retribution, he arranged his couch by the eastern wall, faced westward, and invoked Amitābha Buddha, Prajñā, and Avalokiteśvara. At that time, someone wished to offer medicine, but he replied, 'Can medicine banish illness so as to retain one's remaining years? Illness is not joined with the body; what can medicine banish? Years are not joined with the mind; what can medicine retain? What did Zhixi hear in the past? What was stated in the Treatise on Contemplating the Mind? Complicated medicines only burden and trouble others. In life, I labored in a vessel of poison; in death, I delight in resting and returning home. Such are worldly marks; they do not warrant much sighing.' He then ordered that the title of the Lotus Sūtra be chanted, and Zhiyi praised it, saying, 'It is the father and mother of the Dharma gates, from which wisdom and understanding arise. Its origin and traces are vast and great, subtle and hard to fathom. The axe is laid down and the strings are severed today!' He also requested fragrant water to rinse his mouth, and expounded the ten suchnesses, the four unproduced, the ten dharma-realms, the three contemplations, the four teachings, the four immeasurables, the six perfections, and so forth. Someone asked about his attainment, and he replied, 'You are lazy in planting good roots, yet you inquire into the merits of others, like a blind man asking about the sun or a cripple inquiring about the road […] Had I not led the assembly, I would surely have purified the six sense faculties. By diminishing myself for the sake of others, I remain only at the inner rank of the five stages.' He also instructed the karmadāna, 'When a person's life is about to end, hearing the sound of bells and chimes enhances their right mindfulness; it should continue until their breath has long ceased. Why strike the chimes only after the body has already turned cold? Weeping and wearing mourning clothes in worldly fashion must not be done. Let everyone remain silent; I am about to depart.' Having spoken, he sat upright as if entering absorption and passed away before the Great Stone Statue on Mount Tiantai at the age of sixty-seven, on the twenty-second day of the eleventh month in the seventeenth year of Kaihuang. After his passing, he was encoffined in accordance with his bequeathed teachings. Before the end of the Renshou era, he suddenly shook his monk's staff and donned his robes just as in the past, appearing a total of seven times. He descended again to the mountain monastery and once returned to the Buddha Ridge, saying to his disciples, 'I am inspecting our former undertakings. Is everyone peaceful and secure?' The entire assembly saw him, wept, bowed, and inquired after him; after a long while, he vanished. He authored commentaries on the Lotus Sūtra, manuals of cessation and contemplation, methods of cultivating dhyāna, and so forth, each comprising tens of fascicles. Zhiyi set a model in the east and west, his transformative teaching reaching ten thousand li. He founded thirty-five great monasteries, personally ordained more than four thousand monks, produced fifteen sets of the tripiṭaka, and made some one hundred thousand gilded, sandalwood, and painted statues. The monastics and laypeople in more than fifty prefectures who received the bodhisattva precepts were beyond count. There were thirty-two scholars who transmitted his teachings, and scholars who practiced dhyāna spread across the Changjiang and Han River basins in limitless numbers. The śramaṇa Guanding served him for many years, recording his illustrious conduct over some twenty-odd sheets of paper.